ICE Theater

Since Stephen Miller's demand for 3,000 arrests per day, ICE's numbers have gone up, but not like he and his head henchman Tom Homan had hoped.

In the first 100 days, they were getting about 670 per day. Then Miller throws his little hissy fit, and now they've managed to boost their daily bag to about 790 per day.

In fact, pretty much the only number that's shown a significant increase is the number of "agents" who're out there scrambling to nab practically anybody they see with brown skin.

I'd really like to see an accounting of the cost effectiveness of this giant clusterfuck.

ICE Arrests of Migrants Without Criminal Records Surge Nearly 200 Percent

Afar larger share of non‑criminal migrants have been arrested as part of the Trump administration's expanded immigration enforcement campaign, according to new federal and independent data.

The director of the Deportation Data Project told Newsweek that he found it "impossible" for the president to keep his promise of mass deportations of "criminals." Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of public affairs at DHS, however, told Newsweek, in part, "It is not an accurate description to say they are 'non-criminals.' This deceptive categorization is devoid of reality and misleads the American public. Let us remind you that being here illegally is in fact a crime (8 USC 1325)."

Why It Matters

President Donald Trump emphasized a prioritization of the removal of violent offenders and the "worst of the worst" during his presidential campaign; however, data shows growing arrests of people without U.S. criminal charges or convictions, raising legal and policy questions about resources, detention capacity and humanitarian oversight.

Recent cases involving nonviolent immigrants lacking criminal records have exacerbated concerns and led to broader discussions of whether immigrants, in certain instances, who lack citizenship but have abided by all other U.S. laws, should be removed.

What To Know

Federal and independent datasets show that ICE arrested substantially more people overall during the Trump administration's first six months in office than during the final six months of the Biden administration.

Researchers at the the University of California at Berkeley's Deportation Data Project, which compiles federal data, found that roughly 37 percent of ICE arrests in July 2025 were of people with no U.S. criminal convictions or pending charges—doubling to about 92,000 during the first six months of the Trump administration compared with the final half‑year of the Joe Biden administration.

That 37 percent figure is up from 13 percent during Biden's last full month in office in December.

"As the [Trump] administration increases immigration arrests, it will inevitably sweep in many people with no criminal record," Davis Hausman, a law professor and faculty director of the Deportation Data Project, told Newsweek via email on Thursday. "There just aren't many noncitizens with criminal records, so the promise of mass deportations of criminals is an impossible one to keep."

The Trump administration has dramatically increased arrests of people who have never been convicted of a crime in the US, accounting for a little more than 60 percent of ICE arrests during his first six months in office, roughly equating to 188 days, compared to the 44 percent of arrests during Biden's last six months as president.

Of the Trump administration's approximate 132,485 arrests, 39 percent had criminal convictions; 31 percent had criminal charges pending; and 30 percent had no criminal charges.

In comparison, the Biden administration's approximate 52,334 arrests included 56 percent with criminal convictions, 28 percent with pending criminal charges, and 16 percent with no criminal charges.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of public affairs at DHS, told Newsweek via email that the Deportation Data Project "is being cherry picked...to peddle a false narrative."

Multiple independent analyses and reporting showed the detention population rose to record levels in June and July, with estimates of roughly 55,000 to 59,000 people held in ICE facilities during late June and July, according to The Guardian—noting that ICE arrests have more than doubled in 38 states and are most prevalent in states with large immigrant populations including California, Florida and Texas.

Southern and western states that have embraced Trump's agenda have also experienced higher arrests.

During a White House meeting in May, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller urged ICE agents to aim for as many as 3,000 arrests per day.

A recent case involving a Chinese immigrant and small-business restaurant owner, Kelly Yu, in Arizona has led to bipartisan calls for her release from ICE detainment. DHS has refuted statements in her defense.

"Lai Kuen Yu, an illegal alien from Hong Kong, has had a final deportation order from a judge since 2005," Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of public affairs at DHS, told Newsweek via email. "She was arrested illegally crossing the border by U.S. Border Patrol in Arizona on February 4, 2004, and two days later was released into the country."

DHS said that in November 2013, the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed her appeal and upheld her final order of removal. On August 23, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied her appeal.

On June 12 of this year, the Board of Immigration Appeals granted her a temporary stay of removal while it considers her motion to reopen. She will remain in ICE custody pending her removal proceedings.

"ICE does not deport U.S. citizens," McLaughlin said. "It's her choice. Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with someone the parent designates."

What People Are Saying

Davis Hausman, a law professor and faculty director of the Deportation Data Project, told Newsweek via email on Thursday: "As the [Trump] administration increases immigration arrests, it will inevitably sweep in many people with no criminal record. There just aren't many noncitizens with criminal records, so the promise of mass deportations of criminals is an impossible one to keep."

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of public affairs at DHS, told Newsweek via email on Thursday: "This data is being cherry picked by the Deportation Data Project to peddle a false narrative. Many of the individuals that are counted as 'non-criminals' are actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters and more; they just don't have a rap sheet in the U.S. Further, every single one of these individuals committed a crime when they came into this country illegally.

"It is not an accurate description to say they are 'non-criminals.' This deceptive categorization is devoid of reality and misleads the American public. Let us remind you that being here illegally is in fact a crime (8 USC 1325). We are putting the American people first by removing illegal aliens who pose a threat to our communities."

What Happens Next

Lawmakers have sent oversight letters raising priority questions for enforcement, and legal groups filed suits challenging arrests at courthouses and expanded detention practices, indicating litigation and hearings were likely to follow.

The administration has sought expanded detention capacity and funding to sustain higher arrest rates, with federal budget allocations and proposals under discussion as the enforcement campaign continues.

Some Data

The law-n-order gang used to spend a lot of time whining about illegal tactics by a tyrannical government. But now - cue the crickets.

MAGA freaks puff up their chest and say idiotic things like "I just want those immigrants to do it the right way" with absolutely no sense of how fucking stupid they sound.

Fake lord have mercy.

One in Five ICE Arrests Are Latinos on the Streets with No Criminal Past or Removal Order

On August 11, Deportation Data Project released new data from the government that cover through July 28. The analysis was updated using the new data below. The new data differ somewhat, but the general conclusions remain unchanged.

Illegal profiling accounts for a substantial portion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests in 2025. While ICE has other tactics to arrest peaceful immigrants—such as during immigration hearings, appointments, and check-ins—ICE agents are deliberately targeting workers in heavily Latino jobs and neighborhoods, sometimes based on its community tip line where residents claim to “see” illegal immigrants in their areas, but more often based on nothing at all.

This policy is a threat to the rights of all people in the United States.

ICE Is Arresting Thousands of People with No Reason to Target Them

New data obtained from ICE by the Deportation Data Project drives home how frequently Latino immigrants are arrested off the streets without any recent prior contact with law enforcement. The screenshot below shows what the data look like. Each row represents an individual arrest and provides details about the arrest method, criminal history, and citizenship status. The most notable aspect of the new data is that they provide the exact location of each person’s apprehension.

The key takeaway is that ICE is arresting thousands of people in random locations—what it calls “non-specific” or “general” areas—who had no prior contact with law enforcement: the telltale sign of illegal profiling. Normally, ICE makes arrests only after the suspect has been identified in some other way. For instance, they were arrested by local police and their name was checked against the government data, or they were going to an appointment related to their status, so ICE knew they would be there. But in these cases, ICE is arresting people who weren’t going to appointments or committing criminal offenses that would put them on ICE’s radar, as well as people who had not been ordered removed from the country, giving ICE a reason to seek them out.

Example of Detailed Records for Individual ICE Arrests, June 2025
ICE arrests spreadsheet showing nonspecific arrests

Since January 20 through the end of July, ICE has conducted over 16,000 street arrests of immigrants who had no criminal convictions, charges, or removal orders. Incredibly, over half (nearly 9,000) occurred in June and July alone: about 90 percent of them were immigrants from Latin America.

Street arrests refer to arrests in non-specific locations and exclude anyone in jails, prisons, offices, courts, police departments, detention centers, facilities, or anyone otherwise in the custody of any agency. Because ICE rarely sends agents to specifically arrest noncriminal immigrants whom it cannot promptly remove, and because it is difficult to locate and identify people who have not committed crimes or gone through removal proceedings, this is the likely population of people ICE has targeted through illegal street profiling. Most of these arrests do not have a “fugitive operations” designation, which are the agents who would normally track down specific people.

These types of arrests without charges, convictions, or removal orders on the streets increased from 4 percent of a relatively small number of arrests in December to 19 percent of a massive number of arrests in July. Again, nearly one in five ICE arrests is a Latin American on the streets without a criminal history or a removal order.

Although some street arrests of noncriminals did take place before, it is not believable that ICE could suddenly identify this many people on the streets without profiling them when they weren’t previously identified by law enforcement.

ICE’s Illegal Profiling Is Well Documented

As Tom Homan described it, ICE and Border Patrol are detaining people “based on the location, their occupation, their physical appearance, their actions like…the person walks away.” According to the Wall Street Journal, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told ICE in mid-May to stop “develop[ing] target lists of immigrants” and just “go out on the streets” and arrest people “right away” at Home Depots or 7‑Elevens. At the same time, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations acting leader Marcos Charles told his agents to “turn up the creative knob up to 11 and push the envelope…If it involves handcuffs on wrists, it’s probably worth pursuing.”

The results of the White House’s May order are clearly evident when looking at the rolling weekly totals for street arrests of Latinos without criminal convictions, pending charges, or removal orders. Although we know that there was profiling happening even before May, the mid-May spike is different. The weekly totals increase sharply after the inauguration from a pre-inauguration weekly total of 118, but then they fall and level off at around 450 until mid-May. After Miller’s meeting, however, street arrests of immigrants without removal orders, criminal convictions, or charges increased more than threefold, from 450 to over 1,318 in June.

In any case, we know ICE is involved in illegal profiling because a July 11 district court ordered ICE to stop these activities in the Los Angeles area, and the appeals court upheld that order this week. The ruling has had a dramatic effect on the number of arrests in Los Angeles, confirming that it was profiling. It reduced these street arrests by 83 percent.

How is this happening on the ground? Here’s a description of ICE’s activities in the district court order that attempted to block this conduct in Los Angeles:

Officers approach suddenly and in large numbers in military style or SWAT clothing, heavily armed with weapons displayed, masked, and with their vests displaying a generic “POLICE” patch (if any display at all). Agents typically position themselves around individuals, aggressively engage them, and/​or shout commands, making it impossible for individuals to decline to answer their questions. When individuals have tried to avoid an encounter with agents and officers, they have been followed and pushed to the ground, sometimes even beaten, and then taken away.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals describes a specific incident:

Vasquez Perdomo and Osorto sat on the bench, and Villegas Molina stood next to them. Suddenly, four unmarked cars pulled up and surrounded them. The cars were large and black with tinted windows and had no license plates. The doors opened and men in masks with guns started running at them aggressively. One of the men had a “large” military-style gun. The masked men wore regular clothes, they had no visible badges, and they did not identify themselves.

Vasquez Perdomo, Osorto, and Villegas Molina were afraid they were being kidnapped. Vasquez Perdomo tried to move away but was immediately surrounded by several men with guns. They grabbed him, put his hands behind his back, and handcuffed him. Then, one of the men asked him for identification. Vasquez Perdomo said in English, “I have the right to remain silent.”

…Osorto did not know the men were government agents. Terrified, he tried to run. The men yelled “stop” but did not identify themselves as law enforcement officers. Soon, one of the men caught up to Osorto, pointed a taser over his heart, and yelled, “Stop or I’ll use it!” Osorto stopped immediately, and the man handcuffed him. The unidentified, masked, and armed men put Vasquez Perdomo, Osorto, and Villegas Molina into separate cars and drove them to a parking lot where they interrogated them further. Eventually, the men chained each plaintiff at the hands, waist, and feet and took them to a Los Angeles detention center. The men never identified themselves to the plaintiffs…

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also relies on its community tip line, where people can claim to “see” illegal immigrants. ICE Special Agent Rebecca González-Ramos told NPR that ICE knows that some accusations against employers come from “competitors” seeking “a lot of revenge,” but she sees that as an opportunity. In Maine, Border Patrol responds to sightings of “possible illegal aliens” and then makes arrests. In Florida, Fox News reported on a “first of its kind” operation that started with a tip line complaint in a retirement community:

ICE moves from house to house, approaching workers. ICE describes the interaction as a consensual and optional conversation since they did not have a warrant. Agents question their legal status and those who couldn’t provide valid immigration documentation were fingerprinted….Tampa agents talked to 361 construction workers yesterday, but arrested 33.

In other words, ICE admits that its profiling was accurate less than 10 percent of the time. Although ICE claims the encounters are “consensual,” they are not. Workers who try to leave are threatened or tackled. One landscaper accosted by Border Patrol outside an IHOP was pepper-sprayed, tackled, and beaten after he “refused to answer questions” and tried to walk away—and that’s according to DHS. He was the father of three US Marines and had no criminal history. Yet another landscaper was tackled inside a California surgical center, and although the agency initially claimed in a press statement that his arrest was part of a “targeted operation,” its court affidavit stated the agents were doing a “roving patrol” and he was not identified as “illegal” until later, after his arrest. He also had no criminal history.

ICE Profiling Targets US Citizens and Legal Immigrants

It is no surprise that US citizens are also being tackled and arrested. Here’s a case just minutes away from the others where, after tackling the US citizen, the agents shrug and say, “Why were you running?” ICE tackled and arrested a US citizen and veteran, George Retes, and detained him for three days following a worksite raid in California. US citizen Leonardo Garcia Venegas, who was tackled by agents at a jobsite in Alabama in May, said they dismissed his REAL ID as fake. The casual dismissal of identification is also a common refrain in these racial profiling cases of US citizens.

Agents tackled a 32-year-old US citizen, Andrea Velez, on her way to work in June. The 4’11” woman was then accused of assaulting the ICE agent by putting her hand out as the agent ran her over. The agents claimed that they were chasing some other people to figure out if they were in the country illegally when they crashed into her. They asked Velez about her legal status after literally picking her up and carrying her away. These bogus assault charges against US citizens are becoming a disturbingly common tactic to justify racial profiling mistakes. Fortunately, the charges against Velez and several others were dismissed. Another US citizen, Job Garcia, was also tackled and beaten in a similar manner and was detained for 24 hours.

An American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawsuit regarding these tactics in Los Angeles involves US citizens detained by DHS for questioning. As the appeals court decision upholding the lower court’s ban on these tactics in the city explained:

Jason Brian Gavidia is a U.S. citizen who was born and raised in East Los Angeles and identifies as Latino. On the afternoon of June 12, he stepped onto the sidewalk outside of a tow yard in Montebello, California, where he saw agents carrying handguns and military-style rifles. One agent ordered him to “Stop right there” while another “ran towards [him].” The agents repeatedly asked Gavidia whether he is American—and they repeatedly ignored his answer: “I am an American.” The agents asked Gavidia what hospital he was born in—and he explained that he did not know which hospital. “The agents forcefully pushed [Gavidia] up against the metal gated fence, put [his] hands behind [his] back, and twisted [his] arm.” An agent asked again, “What hospital were you born in?”

Most of that incident is recorded on video. Another US citizen named in the lawsuit was arrested and removed from his job because he did not carry his passport, only his driver’s license.

A separate ACLU lawsuit involves a legal permanent resident who was arrested by Border Patrol when going to work in California’s Central Valley, and a judge in that part of the state also issued an order blocking these illegal tactics. As the appeals court notes in its decision, stops are unconstitutional when they are based on broad criteria that would sweep up numerous innocent people. Setting aside the unconstitutionality of these detentions and arrests, however, the Immigration and Nationality Act itself prohibits ICE and Border Patrol from even interrogating anyone about their right to be in the United States without a warrant or reasonable basis to believe that they are an “alien.”

Mass deportation is a socially and economically damaging goal regardless, but it’s certainly not a goal for which we should sacrifice a sliver of our liberty or the Constitution. Only time will tell whether ICE and Border Patrol can continue to get away with these tactics.

No Sunshine, Please

Treasury Department suspends enforcement of ownership information reporting for millions of businesses

Key Points

• The U.S. Department of the Treasury on Sunday said it won’t enforce the penalties or fines associated with the “beneficial ownership information,” or BOI, reporting requirements
• Previously, the Treasury set a March 21 deadline for businesses to comply or risk fines of up to $10,000
• The Treasury will also propose regulation to apply the BOI rule only to foreign companies

The U.S. Department of the Treasury on Sunday announced it won’t enforce the penalties or fines associated with the Biden-era “beneficial ownership information,” or BOI, reporting requirements for millions of domestic businesses.

Enacted via the Corporate Transparency Act in 2021 to fight illicit finance and shell company formation, BOI reporting requires small businesses to identify who directly or indirectly owns or controls the company to the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN.

After previous court delays, the Treasury in late February set a March 21 deadline to comply or risk civil penalties of up to $591 a day, adjusted for inflation, or criminal fines of up to $10,000 and up to two years in prison. The reporting requirements could apply to roughly 32.6 million businesses, according to federal estimates.

The rule was enacted to “make it harder for bad actors to hide or benefit from their ill-gotten gains through shell companies or other opaque ownership structures,” according to FinCEN.

President Donald Trump praised the news in a Truth Social post on Sunday night, describing the reporting rule as “outrageous and invasive” and “an absolute disaster” for small businesses.

Other experts say the Treasury’s decision could have ramifications for national security.

“This decision threatens to make the United States a magnet for foreign criminals, from drug cartels to fraudsters to terrorist organizations,” Scott Greytak, director of advocacy for anticorruption organization Transparency International U.S., said in a statement.

Laying Bare The Lie

It was never about "they should do it the right way" or law-n-order, or any of the other excuses and deflections.

It is, and always was, about rounding up brown people.

This country already has a genocide on its soul, and 400 years of slavery. Now we're going to add ethnic cleansing?

You are nine kinds of fucked up, America.

Ramping Up

Donnie Deadbeat

Trump has a longstanding habit of just walking away from his commitments whenever he thinks the people he owes can't or won't do anything about it - even when he loses in court.

Color me unsurprised.

Donald Trump in breach of $381K British court order against a former MI6 agent

Donald Trump is in trouble again and this time in the UK. Reportedly, he has failed to pay £300K to a former spy after losing a case against him in a British High Court.

Donald Trump’s road to November’s election is getting rockier by the day. After his guilty verdict in the Stormy Daniels hush money case, his potential departure to jail is still in question. Just when he was dealing with this new blow, claims of his racist behaviour on The Apprentice have resurfaced.

And looks like that isn’t enough. The former POTUS is understood to be in trouble again but this time in the UK. Reportedly, he has failed to pay a former spy £300K after losing a court battle against him.

Donald Trump fails to pay £300K legal costs to former MI6 spy

The 77-year-old has failed to comply with a UK High Court order that instructed him to pay £300,000 in legal costs to former spy, Christopher Steele. The former MI6 agent compiled a dossier alleging Russian interference in the 2016 US election. The largely discredited dossier was commissioned by Trump's political opponents including Hillary Clinton's Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). They hired the former British intelligence officer Steele to carry out the research in 2016.

According to Newsweek, it contained unverified intelligence reports about Trump’s relationship with Russia. Many Russian experts have dismissed it. Trump sued Steele’s company Orbis Business Intelligence and lost the case in London High Court earlier this year. The court ordered him to pay an initial £300,000 ($381,000) in legal fees, which the GOP leader is in breach of. Taking to X (formerly Twitter) Steele wrote on Friday:

Earlier this year, when he lost his English High Court case against us, the judge ordered Donald Trump to pay Orbis an initial £300k in costs. Trump, who claims to respect the UK, has now been in breach of this order for two months and faces enforcement if he travels here again.

Trump - who may also have to face international travel restrictions after his historic conviction - did pay £10,000 to the court as security against costs ahead of the hearing on a Judge’s order. This amount was transferred to Steele in February.

Christopher Steele reveals Trump’s breach of UK court order

Despite Trump owning assets in the UK, Steele cannot obtain his money through them. Trump’s extensive British assets also include the Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeenshire, Scotland but it is owned by a Trump Organization subsidiary. Steele told Sky News:

"The fact is we were awarded a £300,000 initial cost order in February, which was confirmed when his right of appeal was turned down at the end of March. And so he's been in breach of that order for two months now."

"Cost is the key issue in all litigation, and particularly in what we call lawfare, which we think this is. It is an attempt to take vengeance against us or to keep us quiet."

Steele claimed that Trump is intentionally trying to ‘put off’ a lot of his legal cases until what he thinks would be his re-election in November so that he can then ‘tell us all to go and jump, basically.’ If Trump doesn’t settle, Steele’s only option would seek repayment in the US - which would incur more costs.

BTW, don't forget, Steele has said - on the record - that while it was never verifed, The Pee Tape "probably does exist".

Confronting his critics, Christopher Steele defends controversial dossier in first major interview

The British ex-spy opens up in the ABC News documentary "Out of the Shadows."

Former British spy Christopher Steele is stepping out of the shadows to "set the record straight" about his bombshell dossier for the first time since his name splashed across headlines in early 2017, defending his work, his name, and the decision to include some of its most controversial elements.

George Stephanopoulos sits down with former MI6 spy Christopher Steele for his first interview since the publication of intelligence reports now known as the "Steele dossier."

"I stand by the work we did, the sources that we had, and the professionalism which we applied to it," Steele told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in the forthcoming documentary, "Out of the Shadows: The Man Behind the Steele Dossier" -- an exclusive preview of which aired Sunday on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

In his first major interview, Steele described how and why he wrote the 17 reports that made up the so-called "Steele dossier," which accused former President Donald Trump's campaign of conspiring with the Russians to tilt the result of the 2016 election.

Steele’s dossier has come under immense scrutiny since its release. And yet in many ways, it proved prescient. The Mueller probe found that Russia had been making efforts to meddle in the 2016 campaign, and that Trump campaign members and surrogates had promoted and retweeted Russian-produced political content alleging voter fraud and criminal activity on the part of Hillary Clinton.

- more -

Bought And Sold

Why rich people should be flogged - and filleted as necessary.

Today's Reddit

It was an obvious theatrical stunt. He did it to suck up to the ammosexuals, and to reinforce the notion that the law is whatever he says it is at any given time.

ie: The 2nd amendment is absolute and unlimited, so there's no way it can be illegal for me to buy a gun - no matter the circumstances.

Today Trump's spokesman confirmed Donald Trump illegally purchased a gun. Marjorie Taylor Greene on video also verifying it as she was there.
byu/justalazygamer inParlerWatch

Indicted Trump Asks to Buy a Glock at Campaign Stop—Which Would Be Illegal

A spokesperson later corrected himself and said the transaction hadn’t actually gone through.

In a PR stunt gone terribly wrong, former President Donald Trump went gun shopping on Monday with Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and asked to buy a Glock pistol on camera—which would have brazenly violated the very same law that recently landed Hunter Biden criminal charges.

Federal law prohibits anyone under indictment from attempting to buy a firearm. Trump has been criminally indicted four times in as many jurisdictions—Atlanta, Miami, New York, and Washington—facing dozens of felony charges that could land him in prison for decades.

So, what "a spokesman" said about the transaction not going thru makes no difference. Trump made the attempt, he did it on camera, he's guilty of yet another felony, and it appears there will be no direct consequences for his obvious violation of federal fucking law.

“I wanna buy one,” Trump said while taking a tour of Palmetto State Armory, a federally licensed gun dealer in South Carolina that's widely revered by firearm enthusiasts.

“Sir, if you want one, this one’s yours,” a person on the tour said, seeming to divert the president away from making an actual purchase.

“No, I wanna buy one,” Trump insisted.

It only added to the fiasco when those present pulled South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson into the photo op—as well as his brother, Julian Wilson, an executive at the private equity company that owns the gun dealer. They are both Republican Congressman Joe Wilson’s sons.

The disaster started when Trump's campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, tweeted that his boss actually went through with the sale.

"President Trump purchases a @GLOCKInc in South Carolina!" he posted Monday afternoon.

But the campaign went into damage control mode as soon as firearms journalist Stephen Gutowski and others pointed out that the entire transaction would be blatantly illegal.

“Did he actually go through with the purchase?” Gutowski asked openly in tweet.

Cheung later claimed to CNN that Trump never actually went through with the purchase—and deleted his original statement. The Daily Beast could not immediately independently confirm whether Trump finalized the deal.

The irony is that the federal law Trump appeared to almost violate is the very same one that the feds used to indict President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.

The federal law that restricts how someone may buy or sell firearms is 18 U.S. Code § 922, the go-to statute for prosecutors seeking to imprison felons who manage to acquire guns after serving time in prison, straw purchasers who buy a gun with the specific intent to sell it to another person, and other people who aren’t allowed to acquire them. That law is why anyone buying a gun from a licensed dealer must fill out what's called an ATF Form 4473, which asks: “Are you under indictment or information in any court for a felony, or any other crime for which the judge could imprison you for more than one year, or are you a current member of the military who has been charged with violation(s) of the Uniform Code of Military?”

Answer “yes,” and no gun shop can legally sell you a gun. Trump, who is facing criminal charges across the eastern seaboard, would have to answer in the affirmative.

Republicans—and Trump in particular—have been calling on the Department of Justice to hold Hunter Biden accountable for violating the same statute, in his case, for lying about drug use on that form.

This New America

We're living in a new America now - not a nation of laws, but a nation of, "make me".

"I do what I want" is our new national motto. Right and Wrong have become fungible. There's no honor in the way we're doing things.

Which is why it's the perfect atmosphere for a Donald Trump.

This is not a guy who does what's right because it's the right thing to do. And he doesn't restrain himself from doing what's wrong simply because it's wrong and people shouldn't do it.

Trump will sign on the dotted line and then have no problem reneging when it comes time to settle up.

The approach is that he'll do what he's promised to do only if his lawyers convince him that your lawyer's can force him to do it.

So notice how he's constantly going after the courts. He's trying to bring social pressure against specific judges in order to sway their decisions. 

And he's getting lots of help from Mitch McConnell, who's been very busy stacking the federal bench with ideologues who have no real function other than to find ways to agree with the Daddy Staters.

This shit gets worse until Trump is forced out of office, but then we have to concentrate on moving against the other elements of the Daddy State - which, conveniently enough, happen to be largely Republican, so we keep hammering away at the GOP until the "moderates" can get back in the saddle over there.

Murder Is Just Alright

Today's Asshole Alert via WaPo's Robert Costa and Karoun Demerjian:

Hard-line Republicans and conservative commentators are mounting a whispering campaign against Jamal Khashoggi that is designed to protect President Trump from criticism of his handling of the dissident journalist’s alleged murder by operatives of Saudi Arabia — and support Trump’s continued aversion to a forceful response to the oil-rich desert kingdom.

In recent days, a cadre of conservative House Republicans allied with Trump has been privately exchanging articles from right-wing outlets that fuel suspicion of Khashoggi, highlighting his association with the Muslim Brotherhood in his youth and raising conspiratorial questions about his work decades ago as an embedded reporter covering Osama bin Laden, according to four GOP officials involved in the discussions who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Those aspersions — which many lawmakers have been wary of stating publicly because of the political risks of doing so — have begun to flare into public view as conservative media outlets have amplified the claims, which are aimed in part at protecting Trump as he works to preserve the U.S.-Saudi relationship and avoid confronting the Saudis on human rights.


So, standard GOP playbook shittiness - "he was no angel" - with every Virginian's favorite Bull-Conner-wanna-be, Corey Stewart, chiming right in, on cue and in perfect harmony:

The message was echoed on the campaign trail. Virginia Republican Corey A. Stewart, who is challenging Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), told a local radio program Thursday that “Khashoggi was not a good guy himself.”

And WaPo puts up an appropriate defensive fact for Khashoggi (something I certainly didn't know) - but buries it in the 9th paragraph.

While Khashoggi was once sympathetic to Islamist movements, he moved toward a more liberal, secular point of view, according to experts on the Middle East who have tracked his career. Khashoggi knew bin Laden in the 1980s and 1990s during the civil war in Afghanistan, but his interactionswith bin Laden were as a journalist with a point of view who was working with a prized source.


I shit on the press whenever I think they're doing their little Press Poodle show, and I'll continue doing that, but there's always a line that you don't cross. Ever. 

I think everything has something to do with drawing lines; and making decisions about where the lines should be; and trying to make sure we're staying on the "right" side of those lines. You know - Morality and Ethics, and all those silly notions of what it takes to maintain a civilization.

When things are as weird as they are in the middle east, those lines can get pretty fuzzy. And while I'm sympathetic to the frustration, and I've expressed that frustration on at least a few occasions by saying something like, "Fuck 'em - let's just turn the place into the world's biggest glass bowl and let the tourists take over".

But that doesn't work. I know that. Hell, until recently, I thought everybody knew that. But here we are, with Lord Commander Bonespurs at his rally in Montana, telling us that if we just kill enough people - the right people according to him and him alone - everybody gets real polite and agreeable all of a sudden. And the rubes eat it up.

Then, a possible glimmer of sanity via Reuters:

So grave is the fallout from the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi that King Salman has felt compelled to intervene, five sources with links to the Saudi royal family said.

Last Thursday, Oct. 11, the king dispatched his most trusted aide, Prince Khaled al-Faisal, governor of Mecca, to Istanbul to try to defuse the crisis.

World leaders were demanding an explanation and concern was growing in parts of the royal court that the king’s son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to whom he has delegated vast powers, was struggling to contain the fallout, the sources said.

During Prince Khaled’s visit, Turkey and Saudi Arabia agreed to form a joint working group to investigate Khashoggi’s disappearance. The king subsequently ordered the Saudi public prosecutor to open an inquiry based on its findings.

“The selection of Khaled, a senior royal with high status, is telling as he is the king’s personal adviser, his right hand man and has had very strong ties and a friendship with (Turkish President) Erdogan,” said a Saudi source with links to government circles.

Since the meeting between Prince Khaled and Erdogan, King Salman has been “asserting himself” in managing the affair, according to a different source, a Saudi businessman who lives abroad but is close to royal circles.


But - did you catch it? - "a joint working group". Erdogan and Prince Khaled are going to investigate the thing to find out if the Saudi government is a bunch of murdering assholes, and whether or not the Turks helped them.

I think we already know how this one turns out.

Panama & Meh

Between $21 trillion and $32 trillion are sheltered in tax havens according to the Tax Justice Network. pic.twitter.com/8H0ts59qx1

— The Int'l Spectator (@intlspectator) April 5, 2016

OK so I'm wrong a lot, and I'm hoping I'm real wrong on this one.  But I don't see much changing because of the outrage over what's being "revealed" in The Panama Papers about a really fucked up system.

Maybe we'll see a lot more about how bad and illegal all this shit is, and maybe we won't.

Maybe we'll get all het up over it and demand something be done, and maybe we'll just shrug it off.

We've been conditioned to accept a coupla things. First, if you're rich enough, then you're well-enough connected to political power, which means you can do just about anything you want and not have to worry about "the law".  We see this shit every time (eg) when some Wall Streeters get caught dirty dealing and then negotiate their way out of it - "agreeing" to pay some skimpy little fine - which may sound enormous until you notice it amounts to about 1/80th of what they fucked us all over for - and which was factored into the cost of doing business from the start.

Second though is a perversion of the Zorro / Scarlet Pimpernel thing. The noble scamp plays at being loyal to the crown while doing everything he can to countervail what he sees as the evil-doings of a corrupted king.

We've accepted the conditioning that Da Gubmint is rotten and that spending Federal Revenue on anything but Defense and Relieving The Tax Burden of The Rent Collectors is nothing but theft, so everything you do that can plausibly be tied to "fighting back" is not only understandable, it's the right thing to do. Tax Evasion is the right thing that all the smart guys are doing.  And all the smart guys are rich because they're smart because they're rich.  And I wanna do what's right for them because I'll be rich and smart some day too, and I'm sure they'll be eager to return the favor.

So we'll sit, and we'll watch, and we'll do nothing.

I'm not advocating anything other than solidly passive and peaceful political resistance - please, nobody do anything stoopid - but I do have to wonder when we can expect to see the first wave of kidnappings and assassinations.

It goes on like this and it's all but guaranteed not to end well for anybody.

Too Close For Comfort

Makes me wonder if "witnesses" and the sketch artist are just having us on a bit, or if we've arrived at the point where the Radical Assholes are feeling so immune to the law that they can do anything they want, knowing they can hide behind a veil of notoriety - claiming Political Witch Hunt if anybody decides to go after 'em.

(tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors is a fucking genius)