Welcome to the dawn of the American Gulag. Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” just transformed them into a federally funded secret police with one target: anyone he deems a threat.
We are sickened by it and the despicable people who are in power and worst of all, the ignorant, hateful and stupid people who put them there. We are trying to fight as hard as we can, but it is going to take too much time I fear. And people said it could not happen again, especially here. Evil has lurked within and now we are screwed..for now anyhow. I am counting on we the people to rebel to the tune of having this regime fall.
This can't stand forever...once the cult realizes how THEY'RE being hurt, I hope they will finally get it. But I am astonished at how many evil people there are in this country. I dont know how to stop making people be horrible.
Outrage flowed as the MAGA goon squad grinned and imagined immigrants stacked like pallets of Costco beef jerky, rotting in the heat while ICE agents clink Monster Energy cans and call it victory. The flimsy, unairconditioned tents. The chain-link cells. The swaggering cruelty. Alligator Alcatraz is more than a prison. It’s a demonstration project. A symbol for a new era in which the GOP talks openly of deporting and imprisoning not just migrants, but natural-born citizens who get in their way. It’s a psychological weapon, designed to plant the image of an American jungle gulag deep in your brain. Alligator Alcatraz isn’t just about immigration. It’s about fear. It’s about putting everyone who opposes them on notice. It’s about reminding you that they have the will to build places like this and the cruelty to fill them.
The Grand Opening of an American Concentration Camp. The Republicans are proudly calling it “Alligator Alcatraz.” Let’s call it what it is.
Why Trump’s Renewed Threat to Deport Citizens Is So Terrifying: Expert
An expert warned that Donald Trump bringing back the threat is a clear sign of his rapid descent into authoritarianism.
Fiscal hard-liners argued that the bill would add too much to the national debt, while more moderate Republicans suggested that its cuts — particularly to Medicaid — went too far.
Trump’s rhetoric has taken an increasingly authoritarian turn. He floated prosecuting CNN journalists, arresting a New York politician, and even deporting natural-born citizens. Trump also spread easily debunked lies about gas prices and inflation. Yet most press conference’s disturbing content, treating it like routine bluster.
The Atlantic, shed light on how Project 2025 has bolstered presidential authority by downsizing government functions and advancing a Christian nationalist agenda and closely aligns with Trump’s priorities on immigration and political retribution.
Polling reveal 54% of Americans believe ICE has gone too far with migrant arrests. American pride hits a record low with just 58% expressing pride, showing sharp partisan and generational divides.
There hasn’t been a dictator who can rule over a prosperous nation. So the higher the unemployment numbers are the better for the dictator. Starving people are easier to rule than prosperous people.
Fairness is a powerful value. And now the worm has turned. After the passage of the monstrous “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” Democrats have a powerful case to make. Is it fair to deprive children of food, the elderly of nursing home care, millions of health insurance, rural hospitals of needed revenue to make billionaires even richer? Is it fair to increase prices for school supplies, cars, clothing, and other needs, hitting poor and working-class Americans more, so that President Donald Trump can get his misguided tariffs? Is it fair to let banks that defrauded consumers of billions off the hook while eviscerating the agency that protects consumers from predation by banks and other financial institutions? From private million-dollar dinners with Trump to giving favorable treatment to the wealthy if they buy sufficient quantities of Trump cryptocurrency, it is clear that big money rules in this White House and among many Republicans in Congress. And that is palpably unfair to most Americans who don’t have millions or billions to throw around.
Fairness in this case meshes with decency. And the actions by Trump and his minions, including his cult following in Congress, are more indecent, sadistic, and unfair than in any other presidency during our lifetimes—what Lawrence O’Donnell called “the banality of cruelty.” Start with Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) brushing off her constituents’ concerns about taking away health care by saying, “We are all going to die.”
So, un-regulated personal militia gets huge pay hike, free reign to act in any which way they like with impunity while vets get to starve, and for the vets who have fought & come home with both seen &/or unsee wounds are against a fascist regime in the making, may not be allowed food and/or medical help they need by VA doctors as per EO by a draft dodger who claimed bonespurs numerous times but has no difficulty playing golf numerous times a week. Have I got this right?
We should remember what drew I.G Farben into Auschwitz: profit. But there are of course precedents for extreme exploitation in American history, including but not limited to the history of chattel slavery. And slavery is not entirely illegal in the United States. The Thirteenth Amendment allows slavery if only as punishment for a crime. The people described as "undocumented" or "denaturalized" (and other categories sure to be invented soon) are portrayed as criminals.
If the Trump regime tries to enslave such people on a large scale, there will be a court case. But waiting for the Supreme Court to do the right thing is, to put it gently, no substitute for action. It would be good if there were explicit legislation banning slave labor in all circumstances. But such a law is unlikely without a movement behind it.
The government is putting before us the temptation to cooperate in fascist dehumanization on a grand scale. But that does not mean we must do so. This is an area where actions by individuals, by civil society, by the professions, and by companies can be decisive. The first action is simple. CEOs should now, this summer, this month, next week, sign a pledge not to use labor from concentration camps. It could be as simple as that: "On behalf of my firm I promise not to use labor from concentration camps nor to cooperate with any firm that does."
I can hear the first objection: "it's too soon." If this is not done now, some Americans companies will start using slave labor from concentration camps, and then others will claim that they must do so as well so as not to lose competitiveness or shareholder value or something. The appropriate euphemisms will be found, and all will soon seem normal. But everything will have changed. We will all be implicated. And we will all be more vulnerable.
The second objection: "it's politics." Yes, it is. The creation of a network of concentration camps is indeed politics. It is a politics, among other things, designed to draw businesses into a fascist order by normalizing dehumanization. It is a politics that creates incentives for ever wider groups of people to be excluded from legal protection, on the logic that this needed for economic growth. If there is no learning from the past, if there is no statement of principle, then cheap labor will corrupt companies and their shareholders, and indeed their consumers.
While the CEOs should act first and with explicit clarity, we are all implicated. Americans who shop, which means most of us, should avoid companies that employ labor from camps. Americans who invest should not invest in companies that use labor from concentration camps. And, like CEOs, they can take public action. They can sign a pledge not to invest in companies that use concentration camp labor.
Like any initiative, this one could go further. There are concentration camps in other countries as well, and we should also not be buying from companies that profit from them. There is forced labor now in existing American prisons, and that is wrong. But right now we are confronting a major change in how our country will work. If we can respond, we can build on a victory here to create more freedom for more people.
These policies should be named for what they are. And they should be protested for what they are. But aside from the naming and the protesting, we must exercise our awareness of how people and companies are drawn by profit and silence into the normalization of horror.
Just signing a petition might seem like a disproportionately small reaction to huge funding for American concentration camps. But it is the small choices now that open the broad, bright terrain of action later.
I live in Canada Now!
Happy Fourth
Nolita The Bastardo's Carborundum
“We love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, we insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
Happy birthday to the country we all love so fiercely that we’re willing to fight for her.
Be a voice for democracy today and don’t let Trump steal your joy. Wishing each of you a Happy 4th.
Never thought I could hate as much as I do now. Have to stay inside, keep to myself so I don’t turn to some kind of violence to express how horrid I feel. It’s true that there’s so much hate in America but we know how and who started it, who’s fanning more flames ….. sorry about this (I don’t like feeling this way).
This is gives the technocrats the police state they wanted. tRump is just their puppet. Miller and Vought are the puppet masters. Aligned with Palantir, who now has ALL of our personal data. We are so screwed.
Bottom line for me, FUCK THEM! You think this bullshit will stop us that care about democracy from rising up in numbers never seen in this country. The GOP will not believe what can still happen. Our memory of other fights for democracy will live on. Relatives were in Hitler's camps, I MUST fight. If the Supreme Court closes its eyes to this, we as a country will stand outside the court and MAKE them hear our SCREAMS!
This is sick. Dems are focused on economic impacts now. Chasing the last issue but also need to focus on this as people are enraged now about the treatment of immigrant.
It’s so hard not to be engulfed in hopelessness and fear, but in my view we can’t go down that road because it’s the antithesis of the will to fight. I don’t know if any of you read Olga Lautman or Zev Shalev on SubStack but they have been having a summer series on how to cope with an attempted authoritarian take over. Olga is a Russian expert and her comment is she does not believe America would be easy to take over despite the awful things going on. We are a defiant people who have only known democracy. We aren’t Russia who has known nothing but brutal dictatorships in their long history. She also says Americans are people who will fight and it’s never too late to fight.
We all need as many tools as we can gather on resisting this tyranny and I believe many of us are trying in every way we know how to resist. I personally can’t go down the rabbit hole of these terrible happenings are forever and set in stone. It’s too emotionally paralyzing. Yes things are bad and it’s scary. We all need to be as aware and informed as we can be and help others be informed too. It’s important though not to predict a doom and gloom future either. I know I’m not alone when I say I intend to fight this attempted takeover with all I have. Our country is worth it and why the hell should we surrender it or ourselves to Trump and MAGA?
Only one person, Elizabeth Warren has commented on the implementation timeline. She says the Tax cuts and Ice funding are immediate, but the cuts to Medicare and other social services do not take affect until after the mid term elections. Gain first, pain later. 🤬
I've been reading Judge Luttig's explanation of the Declaration of Independence. After the founders developed their own guide lines requiring good faith, freedom and more they turned on King George and fought for independence. (They had help from the French). According to Meidas and Harry Litman Trump has finally been gagged in court. These fascist rules are base on lies. Especially regarding immigrants who largely migrate for good reasons. So these ICE rules in my view are based on lies. Let's fight back.
I follow Gil Duran and he though a respected Democratic author knows them well and theil who has the ICE contract may be the worst. Wants to start a theology and was planning to run all trans out of NYC. How can such supposed smart coders not understand and appreciate diversity? My blood boils. I've worked with malignant sociopaths. They are unable to recognize and feel depth. Stay away.
The hate in America is staggering. It's impossible to understand how depraved America has become.
We are sickened by it and the despicable people who are in power and worst of all, the ignorant, hateful and stupid people who put them there. We are trying to fight as hard as we can, but it is going to take too much time I fear. And people said it could not happen again, especially here. Evil has lurked within and now we are screwed..for now anyhow. I am counting on we the people to rebel to the tune of having this regime fall.
This can't stand forever...once the cult realizes how THEY'RE being hurt, I hope they will finally get it. But I am astonished at how many evil people there are in this country. I dont know how to stop making people be horrible.
Sadly for many it's a realization they need to come to on their own terms 😥💔
Outrage flowed as the MAGA goon squad grinned and imagined immigrants stacked like pallets of Costco beef jerky, rotting in the heat while ICE agents clink Monster Energy cans and call it victory. The flimsy, unairconditioned tents. The chain-link cells. The swaggering cruelty. Alligator Alcatraz is more than a prison. It’s a demonstration project. A symbol for a new era in which the GOP talks openly of deporting and imprisoning not just migrants, but natural-born citizens who get in their way. It’s a psychological weapon, designed to plant the image of an American jungle gulag deep in your brain. Alligator Alcatraz isn’t just about immigration. It’s about fear. It’s about putting everyone who opposes them on notice. It’s about reminding you that they have the will to build places like this and the cruelty to fill them.
The Grand Opening of an American Concentration Camp. The Republicans are proudly calling it “Alligator Alcatraz.” Let’s call it what it is.
Why Trump’s Renewed Threat to Deport Citizens Is So Terrifying: Expert
An expert warned that Donald Trump bringing back the threat is a clear sign of his rapid descent into authoritarianism.
Fiscal hard-liners argued that the bill would add too much to the national debt, while more moderate Republicans suggested that its cuts — particularly to Medicaid — went too far.
Trump’s rhetoric has taken an increasingly authoritarian turn. He floated prosecuting CNN journalists, arresting a New York politician, and even deporting natural-born citizens. Trump also spread easily debunked lies about gas prices and inflation. Yet most press conference’s disturbing content, treating it like routine bluster.
The Atlantic, shed light on how Project 2025 has bolstered presidential authority by downsizing government functions and advancing a Christian nationalist agenda and closely aligns with Trump’s priorities on immigration and political retribution.
Polling reveal 54% of Americans believe ICE has gone too far with migrant arrests. American pride hits a record low with just 58% expressing pride, showing sharp partisan and generational divides.
There hasn’t been a dictator who can rule over a prosperous nation. So the higher the unemployment numbers are the better for the dictator. Starving people are easier to rule than prosperous people.
Fairness is a powerful value. And now the worm has turned. After the passage of the monstrous “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” Democrats have a powerful case to make. Is it fair to deprive children of food, the elderly of nursing home care, millions of health insurance, rural hospitals of needed revenue to make billionaires even richer? Is it fair to increase prices for school supplies, cars, clothing, and other needs, hitting poor and working-class Americans more, so that President Donald Trump can get his misguided tariffs? Is it fair to let banks that defrauded consumers of billions off the hook while eviscerating the agency that protects consumers from predation by banks and other financial institutions? From private million-dollar dinners with Trump to giving favorable treatment to the wealthy if they buy sufficient quantities of Trump cryptocurrency, it is clear that big money rules in this White House and among many Republicans in Congress. And that is palpably unfair to most Americans who don’t have millions or billions to throw around.
Fairness in this case meshes with decency. And the actions by Trump and his minions, including his cult following in Congress, are more indecent, sadistic, and unfair than in any other presidency during our lifetimes—what Lawrence O’Donnell called “the banality of cruelty.” Start with Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) brushing off her constituents’ concerns about taking away health care by saying, “We are all going to die.”
It was coming - now it’s here - how horrible!!!!!
So, un-regulated personal militia gets huge pay hike, free reign to act in any which way they like with impunity while vets get to starve, and for the vets who have fought & come home with both seen &/or unsee wounds are against a fascist regime in the making, may not be allowed food and/or medical help they need by VA doctors as per EO by a draft dodger who claimed bonespurs numerous times but has no difficulty playing golf numerous times a week. Have I got this right?
Tim Snyder.
We should remember what drew I.G Farben into Auschwitz: profit. But there are of course precedents for extreme exploitation in American history, including but not limited to the history of chattel slavery. And slavery is not entirely illegal in the United States. The Thirteenth Amendment allows slavery if only as punishment for a crime. The people described as "undocumented" or "denaturalized" (and other categories sure to be invented soon) are portrayed as criminals.
If the Trump regime tries to enslave such people on a large scale, there will be a court case. But waiting for the Supreme Court to do the right thing is, to put it gently, no substitute for action. It would be good if there were explicit legislation banning slave labor in all circumstances. But such a law is unlikely without a movement behind it.
The government is putting before us the temptation to cooperate in fascist dehumanization on a grand scale. But that does not mean we must do so. This is an area where actions by individuals, by civil society, by the professions, and by companies can be decisive. The first action is simple. CEOs should now, this summer, this month, next week, sign a pledge not to use labor from concentration camps. It could be as simple as that: "On behalf of my firm I promise not to use labor from concentration camps nor to cooperate with any firm that does."
I can hear the first objection: "it's too soon." If this is not done now, some Americans companies will start using slave labor from concentration camps, and then others will claim that they must do so as well so as not to lose competitiveness or shareholder value or something. The appropriate euphemisms will be found, and all will soon seem normal. But everything will have changed. We will all be implicated. And we will all be more vulnerable.
The second objection: "it's politics." Yes, it is. The creation of a network of concentration camps is indeed politics. It is a politics, among other things, designed to draw businesses into a fascist order by normalizing dehumanization. It is a politics that creates incentives for ever wider groups of people to be excluded from legal protection, on the logic that this needed for economic growth. If there is no learning from the past, if there is no statement of principle, then cheap labor will corrupt companies and their shareholders, and indeed their consumers.
While the CEOs should act first and with explicit clarity, we are all implicated. Americans who shop, which means most of us, should avoid companies that employ labor from camps. Americans who invest should not invest in companies that use labor from concentration camps. And, like CEOs, they can take public action. They can sign a pledge not to invest in companies that use concentration camp labor.
Like any initiative, this one could go further. There are concentration camps in other countries as well, and we should also not be buying from companies that profit from them. There is forced labor now in existing American prisons, and that is wrong. But right now we are confronting a major change in how our country will work. If we can respond, we can build on a victory here to create more freedom for more people.
These policies should be named for what they are. And they should be protested for what they are. But aside from the naming and the protesting, we must exercise our awareness of how people and companies are drawn by profit and silence into the normalization of horror.
Just signing a petition might seem like a disproportionately small reaction to huge funding for American concentration camps. But it is the small choices now that open the broad, bright terrain of action later.
I live in Canada Now!
Happy Fourth
Nolita The Bastardo's Carborundum
“We love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, we insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
Happy birthday to the country we all love so fiercely that we’re willing to fight for her.
Be a voice for democracy today and don’t let Trump steal your joy. Wishing each of you a Happy 4th.
Never thought I could hate as much as I do now. Have to stay inside, keep to myself so I don’t turn to some kind of violence to express how horrid I feel. It’s true that there’s so much hate in America but we know how and who started it, who’s fanning more flames ….. sorry about this (I don’t like feeling this way).
This is gives the technocrats the police state they wanted. tRump is just their puppet. Miller and Vought are the puppet masters. Aligned with Palantir, who now has ALL of our personal data. We are so screwed.
Bottom line for me, FUCK THEM! You think this bullshit will stop us that care about democracy from rising up in numbers never seen in this country. The GOP will not believe what can still happen. Our memory of other fights for democracy will live on. Relatives were in Hitler's camps, I MUST fight. If the Supreme Court closes its eyes to this, we as a country will stand outside the court and MAKE them hear our SCREAMS!
Fuck tRump.
🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
This is sick. Dems are focused on economic impacts now. Chasing the last issue but also need to focus on this as people are enraged now about the treatment of immigrant.
The swamp alligators in Washington have unleashed their ICE alligators on God’s children.
Hi Dean, I would suggest that the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu of Romania in the 1980s would fit well in your list of autocratic states.
Perhaps this could be the model for America's near future ?
It’s so hard not to be engulfed in hopelessness and fear, but in my view we can’t go down that road because it’s the antithesis of the will to fight. I don’t know if any of you read Olga Lautman or Zev Shalev on SubStack but they have been having a summer series on how to cope with an attempted authoritarian take over. Olga is a Russian expert and her comment is she does not believe America would be easy to take over despite the awful things going on. We are a defiant people who have only known democracy. We aren’t Russia who has known nothing but brutal dictatorships in their long history. She also says Americans are people who will fight and it’s never too late to fight.
We all need as many tools as we can gather on resisting this tyranny and I believe many of us are trying in every way we know how to resist. I personally can’t go down the rabbit hole of these terrible happenings are forever and set in stone. It’s too emotionally paralyzing. Yes things are bad and it’s scary. We all need to be as aware and informed as we can be and help others be informed too. It’s important though not to predict a doom and gloom future either. I know I’m not alone when I say I intend to fight this attempted takeover with all I have. Our country is worth it and why the hell should we surrender it or ourselves to Trump and MAGA?
Only one person, Elizabeth Warren has commented on the implementation timeline. She says the Tax cuts and Ice funding are immediate, but the cuts to Medicare and other social services do not take affect until after the mid term elections. Gain first, pain later. 🤬
I've been reading Judge Luttig's explanation of the Declaration of Independence. After the founders developed their own guide lines requiring good faith, freedom and more they turned on King George and fought for independence. (They had help from the French). According to Meidas and Harry Litman Trump has finally been gagged in court. These fascist rules are base on lies. Especially regarding immigrants who largely migrate for good reasons. So these ICE rules in my view are based on lies. Let's fight back.
I follow Gil Duran and he though a respected Democratic author knows them well and theil who has the ICE contract may be the worst. Wants to start a theology and was planning to run all trans out of NYC. How can such supposed smart coders not understand and appreciate diversity? My blood boils. I've worked with malignant sociopaths. They are unable to recognize and feel depth. Stay away.