If you're not watching the PBS footage, you're missing out on seeing Karoline Leavitt looking really, really anxious about Trump's rambling... cc: @atrupar.com
— Will Harris (@willharrisinva.bsky.social) January 20, 2026 at 7:35 PM
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Tuesday, January 20, 2026
Happy Hour
Your moment of Zen.
Abolish ICE
Maybe Chuck Schumer shouldn't say it (no idea), but political strategies which involve yelling at people who aren't on the payroll, telling them what they can or can't say, are not actually political strategies.Mamdani: "I am in support of abolishing ICE. What we see is an entity that has no interest in fulfilling its stated reason to exist. We're seeing a government agency that is supposed to be enforcing some kind of immigration law, but instead what it's doing is terrorizing people."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) January 20, 2026 at 4:56 PM
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Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville has advised members of his party against using the phrase “Abolish ICE” as protests opposing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement continue in Minneapolis and across the nation.As we know, the "Defund The Police" era was 2020, when Dems won the House, the Senate, and the presidency, then prominent Dems and pundits agreed the slogan doomed them. Somehow we have been pretending this makes sense for over 5 years now.
Carville, in remarks on his “Politics War Room” podcast with Al Hunt, chimed in after his co-host raised an issue with Democrats using the word “abolishing” rather than calling to reform the agency or to start “making ICE work.”
“‘Defund the Police’ are the three stupidest words in the history of the English language,” said Carville, comparing the anti-ICE phrase to a slogan that grew in popularity amid the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.“The left is universally wrong about everything.”
Carville argued that Americans want to have some form of “immigration and customs control” before noting that he finds recent actions by ICE to be “horrible.”
I dont think everyone was lying about this. I think somehow they convinced themselves of it. But they won! And then, in 2022, they did extremely well for a midterm election! They kept the Senate and came pretty close to holding the House!
Mommy He Shot Me Back
Repeating my assertion that if we invade Greenland, our great newspapers will adopt the view that defending their territory is Not Fair.
Greenland’s prime minister said the Arctic island’s population and its authorities need to start preparing for a possible military invasion, even as it remains an unlikely scenario, as President Donald Trump continues to threaten taking over the territory.Probably "acts of terrorism" even.
“It’s not likely there will be a military conflict, but it can’t be ruled out,” Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said at a press conference in capital Nuuk on Tuesday.
Which Way, Yurp
It is tough to finally leave your abusive partner and call the divorce lawyer, but...
Is That News?
In Trump's first term, it was a bit silly that news outlets reported every post as BREAKING NEWS, WORD OF GOD stuff. Now they barely report when he posts 200 insane things at 2am.
There is no contradiction in complaining about both of these things! Every Trump post is not breaking news that should be treated with urgency. That gramps regularly posts 200 crazy things at 2am is newsworthy! Not the substance of the posts, precisely, but that he does it!
Confidence
I don't know if the message Trump posted from Macron is real, but if I were Macron I'd be calling the DGSE or whatever my favorite spy agency was and say, "Ok, what you got? Post it on Mechahitler, the everything app."
If the relevant spy agency didn't have anything, I'd fire everyone
If the relevant spy agency didn't have anything, I'd fire everyone
Monday, January 19, 2026
America's Worst Newish Fake Democratic Think Tank
Searchlight.
The author of a controversial memo telling Democrats to abandon the slogan “Abolish ICE” and instead focus on reform and retraining is a former Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection official who for the last seven months has worked for WestExec Advisors, a secretive Washington, D.C., shadow lobbyist that counts as clients major government contractors in the defense and surveillance industry.I'm not saying that these people speak for The Democrats, but these views get heard by members of Congress much more than views like mine do.
In an interview with the Prospect, Blas Nuñez-Neto would not say who his clients are at WestExec Advisors, where he is a senior adviser, only that he has consulted in recent years on immigration, customs, and trade. He said casting his memo as serving the interests of those clients would be “a little disingenuous,” while again declining to say who those clients are.
Nuñez-Neto recommended that protesters understand that ICE agents are people, too.How'd that all work out:
“I think it would help both sides to appreciate the fact that that’s a human being across from you who may or may not want to do the things they’ve been ordered to do. In my long history being in and out of the Department [of Homeland Security], it is very often what makes the news are the terrible things that happen but what doesn’t get reported are the … stories about agents bringing toys into the border patrol station,” he said.
The lead architect of President Joe Biden’s border strategy is not Vice President Kamala Harris, despite persistent Republican claims to the contrary. That role belongs to a bookish, little-known policy adviser named Blas Nuñez-Neto.Worked out well for his career. Many others? Not so much.
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A data-driven technocrat, Nuñez-Neto has engineered Biden’s pivot toward tougher border enforcement and sweeping restrictions on asylum — moves that have helped slash illegal crossings by nearly 80 percent since December.
Freedum
Which of Schumer's Five Buckets Of Affordability do we put this one in?
Whatever one thinks of The Bulwark, I would like to point out that Schumer talks to them and not left wing outlets.
Thousands of people have been arrested during ICE operations in Minneapolis over the past two weeks. Multiple attorneys allege that for some of those detained, including at least one U.S. citizen, the Department of Homeland Security is denying their constitutional right to see an attorney.I initially typed "Fuck Buckets" accidentally because I was angry.
Four attorneys told ABC News they have been denied access to their clients at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, where they are being held, which they say would violate 5th and 6th Amendment rights to due process and the right to consult with counsel.
Whatever one thinks of The Bulwark, I would like to point out that Schumer talks to them and not left wing outlets.
Sure Why Not
Occasionally I see people talking about how few Good Republicans it would require to save us. The point of this should not be to make a plea to them. It should be to understand that there are no Good Republicans.
I am not an elected Democrat or a Brand Ambassador for the party. I get to say that.
Maybe it's Chuck Schumer's job to beg Susan Collins constantly to do the right thing, while pretending not to understand that she never will when it matters, but it isn't mine.
And people who demand pats on the head and a seats at the head table if they ever do the right thing are not Good Republicans either.
Maybe it's Chuck Schumer's job to beg Susan Collins constantly to do the right thing, while pretending not to understand that she never will when it matters, but it isn't mine.
Sunday, January 18, 2026
Ah, Well, Nevertheless
Seemed like Fetterman had turned into (or revealed himself to be) a genocidal lunatic, to some of us.
We Hear You Like Body Cams So We're Gonna Put Some Body Cams On The Body Cams
There are good Dems, of course, but the leadership is pushing for a message of "morebodycamsandtraining" like we didn't see this movie in 2021 when they hijacked the police reform movement, blamed it for the election losses that didn't happen, declared Eric Adams (the only Dem who could win New York City) the future of the Democratic Party entirely because it made the hippies sad, and then promptly forgot about the whole thing.
Like we didn't see the murderer of Renee Good happily filming his own actions and then even more happily leaking the footage. The guy who murdered her was not some new guy who failed his sit-ups test a month ago. He had a long career.
Cory Booker on facebook:
Today I’m taking action to bring accountability to federal law enforcement like ICE. New legislation I’m announcing will require ICE to adopt rigorous training hiring standards, and for their agents to wear body cameras. These are best practices used by law enforcement agencies use across our country. We need to bring transparency and accountability to ICE in order to make Americans safer.
As I keep saying, if Dems don't like protests (and they don't like protests), they gotta fake outrage a bit better than this.
A woman was murdered, Cory. We all saw it on the video he filmed himself.
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