ABrockwell @aebrockwell@qoto.org

did anyone want to hear a #Shakespeare speech castigating nativist cruelty against #immigration?

of course such a speech exists: bigoted malice against #immigrants is not new. the wicked have long yoked the ignorant and indecent for power

it refers to a real event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_May_Day

it is called "The Strangers' Case" speech

from the play "Sir Thomas More"

here delivered by #IanMcKellen from memory

(#Gandalf, #Magneto, etc)

on "The Late Show With #StephenColbert"

#FuckICE #ICEout

It will never stop being funny to me that the whole "you can't trust Wikipedia because anyone can edit it" scare happened and now Wikipedia is the only trustworthy website because it turns out profit motive is the reason things turn to shit.

"For much of the 2010s and likely before and since, it appears the crime rate of CBP agents and offices was higher PER CAPITA than the crime rate of undocumented immigrants in the United States." https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/accountability-for-ice-and-cbp

Testimony of Aliya Rachman telling the horrific story of #ICE agents hauling her from her car. I added subtitles & combined it with video of the attack.

Lawrence O'donnell showed it tonight.
I'm posting here because
@emptywheel told me to show what Stephen Miller ordered ICE to do.
@nicolesandler
@lolgop

https://youtu.be/wZC4xp19yxQ?si=O2cSwsTaIlHd7Tes

I can’t believe we’re doing this again. It’s just a bot that generates the text you ask it for. If you put it in charge of critical decisions, it will kill people. Not because it’s secretly evil, but because it’s a word generator. It’s like putting your toaster in charge of air traffic control.

The state of things in Minneapolis is still appalling. Infants are going hungry or without diapers because their mothers are too afraid to go out for supplies, fearing ICE/CBP will pick them up. https://19thnews.org/2026/02/minneapolis-ice-mother-donate-breastmilk/

"Every #democracy facing this challenge has learned you don’t defeat authoritarians by being more reasonable. You defeat them by being more determined and by uniting the country against their most visible vulnerability: their #corruption.

#History won’t judge #Democrats on whether they were moderate enough. It will judge them on whether they fought hard enough, and smart enough, when democracy was threatened."
https://www.bostonreview.net/forum/how-not-to-defeat-authoritarianism/

#Trump #Authoritarianism #Politics #News #US #USA #America

New problem at work: News articles quoting faculty members from our university.

However, these faculty members don't exist. Someone using an LLM made them up and keeps pumping out news stories that quote them. Those stories are getting picked up by other outlets that don't bother to do any kind of due diligence before copying and pasting.

A lot is happening right now. Hope you'll still take a moment to read WIRED's story of Red Bull's incredible work as a whistleblower, our analysis of the evidence he shared, the details of his ordeal inside a modern slavery operation, and how he finally got home. /end https://www.wired.com/story/he-leaked-the-secrets-southeast-asian-scam-compound-then-had-to-get-out-alive/

The Onion has reached its logical destination in this political era: just running facts as headlines

https://theonion.com/kristi-noem-calls-on-minneapolis-residents-to-stop-obstructing-murders/

Whoa.
Bruce Springsteen's new "The Streets of Minneapolis"

"Their claim was defensive, sir
Just don't believe your eyes.
It's our blood and bones
And these whistles and phones
Against Miller and Noem's dirty lies."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWKSoxG1K7w&t=3s

The perfect movie review doesn’t….

Every state in the U.S. should pass a law like the one now proposed in California, disqualifying ICE agents from working in state law enforcement and public schools. https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/california-bill-ice-teachers-21318405.php

Imagine if a cashier at Costco murdered two customers, and instead of them being arrested Costco was just like "Okay everyone calm down, we have demoted the cashier's boss from Manager to Assistant Manager".

Kristi Noem Calls On Minneapolis Residents To Stop Obstructing Murders

https://theonion.com/kristi-noem-calls-on-minneapolis-residents-to-stop-obstructing-murders/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=newsletter&mc_cid=8ad447c423

The story is not that there are two conflicting versions of what happened.
The story is that the federal government is lying about what happened.
There is plenty of evidence.
Your job, our job, is to sift that evidence and describe what actually happened ffs.

December 31: ICE agent kills 43-year-old Keith Porter, father of two, in Los Angeles. ICE agent not charged.

January 7: ICE agent kills 37-year-old Renee Good, mother of three, writer and poet, in Minneapolis. ICE agent not charged.

January 24: ICE agent kills 37-year-old Alex Pretti, an ICU Nurse, in Minneapolis. ICE agent not charged.

For a “law and order” party, the Republicans sure accept a lot of unlawful killings.

”It has been clear for a long time, to anyone willing to see, that the people running the federal government—Trump, Miller, Noem, Bovino and more—are monsters. It has been equally obvious that ICE and the Border Patrol are now filled with sadistic thugs. Yet many people—almost the entire GOP, everyone serving in the Trump administration, some Democrats, a significant part of the media—were too cowardly to admit the obvious.”
—Paul Krugman
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/monsters
#trump #miller #noem #bovino #ice

#GiftArticle

Yes, It’s #Fascism

Until recently, I thought it a term best avoided. But now, the resemblances are too many & too strong to deny.

By Jonathan Rauch

#Trump #UnitedStates #democracy #Constitution #law
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/america-fascism-trump-maga-ice/685751/?gift=guxsrl_dAdXUP9zqbQPWxfkcmlWcc1rtoivHvxtVB5E