Tag: Federal

Trump: “We Shouldn’t Even Have Elections”

Posted on by documentingdescent

Buckle up, kiddo. Anyone with eyes should have seen this coming from miles and years away. Trump is now suggesting that we shouldn’t have elections in 2026 because he’s “accomplished so much.”

Trump: “We shouldn’t even have elections.”

He’s said similar things before, but not in a direct interview with a news outlet like Reuters. Now he’s saying it directly: elections shouldn’t be required. And, of course, people are going to trot out the same tired shit they always do when Trump puts up a trial balloon like this:

  • “He’s just messing with the left/He’s just trolling.”
    • Yeah? Like when he was trolling about invading Venezuela? Pardoning the J6ers? His first few times talking about how he needs Greenland? Spare me the excuses – Trump’s “trolling” is always a prelude to “doing”.
  • “He can’t do that/it’s not legal.”
    • No, but that isn’t gonna stop him from trying. From throwing a monkey wrench into accepting results. Ultimately, if Congress decides to go along with this farce, if elections are held and they decide not to honor them, that’s when we get down to “military shelling the Capitol building” and/or “riots in the streets across the United States.” He has no power save that which the apparatus of government allows him to have, but so far they’ve been really fond of letting him do whatever he wants.
  • “With all this unrest, it’s totally find to suspend elections!”
    • Bitch, we had elections during the goddamn civil war. Get the fuck out of here.

Bullshit in the Age of Captured Journalism

Posted on by documentingdescent

Let’s talk about how bullshit and lies get laundered in an environment where billionaires who are allied with fascism control all major media outlets. It’s a major concern to me that people have neither the ability nor inclination to look past even the most surface level of what they’re trying to comment on. In this case, Jonathan Ross, the guy who shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis.

I like to peek at conservative news outlets to see what kind of spin they’re putting on events, and to get an idea of what talking points they’re recycling. Today, I checked out the National Review because I was curious how they were gonna sanewash Trump’s statement that we’re gonna get Greenland whether they like it or not.

They have an article that’s just oh-so-smug about how the foolish progressives got it wrong about Ross being in no danger, and CBS is now reporting that he is recovering from internal bleeding due to injuries suffered when he killed Good. But I’ve seen the video and I smelled a rat. I mean, above and beyond the fact that CBS news is now an arm of the Trump regime under Bari Weiss, and has done nothing but fawn over Trump since the merger that installed her as editor in chief.

No way did Ross suffer those injuries, based on any of the videos I’ve seen. But yet in X/Twitter, on conservative blogospheres, all over, it’s The Unvarnished Truth: Jonathan Ross was severely injured by Renee Good’s attack on him with the car. CBS is reporting it!

So naturally, I went to the source: CBS.

Lo and behold, there was the article. Except, if you actually read the article, it doesn’t say this is the truth. It says this is what Department of Homeland Security officials have told CBS, which has in turn could not as yet be independently confirmed.

So in essence:

  • ICE agent shoots and kills a woman.
  • DHS says she was a domestic terrorist and wounded him.
  • We see multiple videos of him being fine, not being struck by the car, and walking around just dandy.
  • CBS is told by DHS that ICE agent is actually definitely recovering from wounds.
  • The fascism adjacent social media sphere takes CBS’s report as third party confirmation and uses it to manufacture an alternative reality where he was wounded, when we cannot confirm that independently.

Consent is very easy to manufacture when no one is willing to do even a bare minimum of research and verification. It is important that we do not allow bullshit to pass on our watch without checking for it.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Posted on by documentingdescent

In Portland, two people have been non-fatally wounded by ICE/Border Patrol in a shooting. A husband and wife, by the sounds of it.

Looking forward to hearing about how they’re the worst of the worst, and domestic terrorists.

People have identified the ICE goon who murdered Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis yesterday.

His name is Jonathan Ross.

Not a good day to be a TV presenter from the UK, I have to say.

404 Media on ICE Lying

Posted on by documentingdescent

I don’t generally want to quote or use articles by other publications except as PDFs to confirm events did, in fact, actually happen. However, there are certain exceptions to that.

404 Media’s excellent encapsulation of the lies being told by the Trump administration, Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, ICE, etc… You should have a read. I will place some choice quotes below the link.

DHS Is Lying to You About ICE Shooting A Woman

“In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote, “the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who seems to have shot her in self defense. Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital.” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said at a press conference, “it was an act of domestic terrorism” and “a woman attacked them and those surrounding them and attempted to run them over and ram them with her vehicle. An officer of ours acted quickly and defensively shot to protect himself and the people around him.” 

DHS lied. Trump lied. Noem lied. The Honda was already turning to the right away from the officers when the one who allegedly feared for his life fired the shots. There were no other officers up the road where the car did fully level out, meaning no other fellow officers were at risk. 

This is a pattern. Some event happens as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign, DHS rushes out a misleading, wrong, or incendiary statement that does not reflect reality, and it becomes another piece of ammo for the X.com grifters, right wing media ecosystem, or people who just love the idea of others being hurt. DHS’s serial lying has become such a problem that even a judge called it out. In November, U.S. District Judge Sara L. Ellis wrote a more than 200 page opinion that in large part catalogued DHS officials’ bullshit. Parts of the opinion were scathing: “The Court finds Defendants’ evidence simply not credible.”

DHS has established itself as an agency that cannot be trusted to live in or present reality. Its words carry no weight or meaning for those who care about what really happened. Only those who want to believe what it says.

I have preserved their article as a PDF here, in case it disappears from there server for any reason.

ICE Shoots, Kills Bystander in Minneapolis

Posted on by documentingdescent

Today in Minneapolis, an ICE agent shot and killed a woman in her car. Apparently he opened up through her driver’s side window and shot her four or five times in the face and chest. She drove 100 feet and collided with a utility pole, already dead when people reached her car.

Kristi Noem has already spewed her bullshit, as normal. Per the article above, Noem insisted that the shooting was justified and that the victim was a “domestic terrorist” who endangered officers’ lives. This is contradicted by video of the incident, and by eyewitness accounts. And lest you forget: there is zero reason to believe anything Noem or ICE/DHS says, ever. They have consistently lied about every single event that may make them look bad. Every. One.

The shooter was vaguely in front of the car, but not in danger of being struck; it is very obvious the driver was trying to turn around and avoid interacting with the ICE agents. I will not be posting the video here, but suffice to say this will also be difficult to memory hole due to multiple videos from multiple angles and reportage from major news stations.

If this were a police officer who had done this under any other circumstance (except possible a protracted police chase) the chances of this being an unwarranted shooting are close to 100%. Even the LAPD and LASD wouldn’t be able to get away with executing someone in cold blood under the claim she may have hit them with a car, given this video.

The Trump militia proceeds apace.

Invasion of Venezuela

Posted on by documentingdescent

It took longer than I expected. But we’ve attacked Venezuela, kidnapped President Maduro and his wife, and apparently intend to take them to New York to stand trial under United States law. I’m not linking any direct news articles because they’re almost all video and quite frankly, this is gonna be impossible to memory hole or lie over because it’s been some Made For TV shit, just like every other foreign intervention we’ve had since Gulf War 1.

Here are sometimeline highlights, however.

We had some remarks from President Trump at around 8 AM pacific time today. In true Trumpian fashion, he proceeded to self-aggrandize (biggest operation since World War 2!) and bloviate about how great he is. But also in keeping with that, he kept up his knack of saying out loud the shit that others in his admin probably wish he wouldn’t have. To whit:

  • This is all about narco terrorism, of course, with some truly inflated numbers about how many americans die per drug boat that makes it to the United States. Just don’t ask about his pardon of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was literally convicted of drug trafficking.
  • Despite being about narcoterrorism, naturally, Trump had to chime in about Venezuela’s oil. That Venezuela’s oil industry would be rebuilt by companies based in the United States. He couldn’t even keep from saying that part of the problem with Venezuela was that it just wasn’t pumping enough oil. This is, of course, the crux of the problem: Venezuela has a shitton of resources that private companies want and feel entitled to, and that cannot be allowed to continue.
  • In terms of who’s running Venezuela, Trump said: “we are going to run the country until we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition” although there is no indication of when that might be, what the criteria might be, or even any indication of consultation with Venezuelans.
  • He continued: “We’re basically taking over the country.” This is my shocked face.

Now, perhaps most chillingly, at the end of his press conference, he did offer a hint as to what’s next, with one single offhand statement:

 “Something’s going to have to be done with Mexico.”

So let that sink in, on this day of January 3rd, 2026.

US Seizes Venezuelan Oil Tanker

Posted on by documentingdescent

There’s been a bunch of shit going on lately with Pete Hegseth doing some war crimes by blowing up ships in international waters, and then blowing up survivors calling for help. Also dumb shit with RFK Jr. claiming the cure to air travel woes is to install pull up bars in airports so travelers can exercise. Also claiming Europe is being destroyed and the real danger to the United States is the EU, in our National Security Strategy publication.

You know, run of the mill dumb shit from the clown car administration. However, I have to admit, two things happened that I expected to happen MUCH sooner:

First, we sent F-18 fighters into Venezuelan airspace to dick around and be belligerent for 40 minutes, probably to induce a violent response we could pull a Gulf of Tonkin with and excuse ourselves into invading.

Second, we just seized a Venezuelan oil tanker off the coast of the country.

I had expected a Venezuelan invasion to be underway already, to be perfectly honest, and I think if we’d had halfway competent warhawks like George W’s cabinet, we would be. But these “warrior ethos” folks in the cabinet currently? They couldn’t find an invasion plan if they landed head first in the Situation Room on D-Day. Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad we haven’t invaded Venezuela. I’m just surprised we haven’t yet. But slowly and surely these assholes are trying to instigate a flare up we can use to excuse ourselves flattening Caracas.

Some Speculation, Epstein Files

Posted on by documentingdescent

So, I know I haven’t been keeping up with all of the small developments, especially during the government shutdown, but frankly, I didn’t think anything super noteworthy happened that was appreciably different than previously.

ICE, DHS, and CBP continue to act like warrantless SS officers, doing whatever they want without review, redress, or constraint. Or, if you prefer, an invading army. I didn’t post about everything they’ve done because if I did, that is all this blog would ever be. That isn’t to say it isn’t important, but there is a limit to what I am able and willing to spend time on.

The admin continues to be a nest of vipers the corruption of which would stagger even Caligula and Nero – for instance, the carve out in the CR to fund the government includes a proviso to let 8 republic senators sue to the DOJ for investigating them for their January 6, 2020 actions, essentially cravenly handing them between 500k and a million dollars each.

I mean, it’s fucked, but it’s the same flavor of fucked it has been.

Now, I’m gonna do something I generally don’t want to do here and that is to speculate on future events.

You see, more of the Epstein Files have been released, and the house is poised to release all of them – or at least most – because now the “yeas” for it have a majority: Adelita Grijalva has been sworn in, and is voting to release the files. What’s more, ghoul monsters like Majorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert have refused to cave and are ALSO voting to release the files. I guess they know their constituents will probably have their heads if they don’t.

So what’s Trump gonna do?

Well, there’s good money on him deciding to invade Venezuela.

They actually moved a carrier group there last month, and were also weighing ground attack options as well.

I’m no military expert, so I don’t know all of the background movers in this particular case – like who’s propping this up as a good idea vs bad idea. But you can bet your bottom dollar that Trump will find SOMETHING to try to distract from the Epstein files if he can. And this is a ready made distraction.

How Do Ya Like That First Amendment?

Posted on by documentingdescent

Hope you enjoyed your Bill of Rights, because even more than in prior years, it’s the Bill of Rights* – with the asterisk denoting ‘some limitations apply’.

The natural outgrowth of this Charlie Kirk shit has been, rather predictably, for Trump and his minions to decide that cracking down on the Left and the Democratic party is the only way out of this horrible state of affairs. I mean, why wouldn’t they? They’ve been itching for some kind of leftist to punch a cop or look sideways at an ICE agent, to give them an excuse to declare martial law and start crushing people under their boots.

The alacrity with which the administration is moving right now certainly suggests that Stephen Miller already had this plan waiting in the wings, prepped for him to push the button and fire up his brownshirts. Of course, there’s no actual connection between left wing policies and murderous intent, but truth is not a quality that matters much to this admin. The fact that Tyler Robinson may have had a trans roommate or may have been dating them and may have been tired of Kirk’s hate-spreading is less important than The Message: The Left Is Here To Destroy America.

Concurrent to all this, the Department of Justice removed a study they themselves commissioned during Trump’s first term, because it indicates the vast majority of all political violence in the United States is perpetrated by the right wing. Even if you don’t want to spend your time reading through the NIJ report on how conservatives will gleefully murder their opponents, it’s easy to count the attacks and compare figures.

If your memory is bad, go back a few days ago, when Fox News talking head Brian Kilmeade suggested the solution to the homelessness epidemic in the United States would be to just kill anyone who’s homeless. Oh, sure, he walked it back and apologized, but don’t get it twisted: this ghoul meant it, and he’s sorry he got called out for being a psychopath. He’s just saying the quiet part out loud.

And people like him have the temerity to lecture others on being heartless about Kirk’s death? Get fucking real.

Speaking of which, Jimmy Kimmel’s comments on Charlie Kirk has gotten him removed from the air indefinitely – ABC (aka Disney) followed suit after Nexstar (owners of a lot of local, rural TV stations) pulled him. Both pulled him after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr basically said “No mocking Trump or I’ll go out of my way to fuck you over.” Good thing Trump vowed not to weaponize government. So what did Kimmel say that was so horrible?

We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.

That’s it? I say worse things when I stub my toe on the way to the toilet. Sinclair Media’s gone so far as to say they won’t reinstate Kimmel unless he both apologizes and donates an undisclosed sum to Kirk’s Turning Point USA group. Which will happen around half past never.

Make no mistake as to why ABC/Disney and Nexstar are doing this, however: they have no deep-seated love of Trump or his crew. But they do both love money. Nexstar as a proposed merger with TV giant Tegna, and ABC/Disney is trying to buy streaming service FUBO. Both of these require FCC approval. This is 100% pay to play bullshit from the FCC and Carr.

Carr’s gone even further after his success with Kimmel: he says the FCC is gonna pull the licenses for anyone who’s critical of the Trump administration. The linked article says Trump said this – and he did – but earlier today Carr concurred with what Trump suggested. That’s not how FCC licenses work, but when has legality or “how shit works” ever stopped these clowns?

You know you done gone too far into Fascism Central when both Karl Rove and Tucker Carlson are speaking out against what you’re doing. When you lose Bowtie Franco and Turdblossom, you fucked up.

The Feds are also actively grasping with their little hands at voter registration rolls across the United States, claiming they need to “examine voter registration to safeguard election integrity”. Yeah, that’s not within your power or purview, and states rightly should tell you to go fuck yourself.

Transparent efforts to see who to target for intimidation and/or malicious prosecution.

The FBI is also rolling full tilt into insanity, with Kash Patel at the helm. Mr. Internet Troll, Mr. 4chan Shitposter himself. He’s got two big winners here, and I can’t even really comment on them, they’re both so fucking horrifying and stupid.

#1: Backing up Trump’s play, Antifa is a terrorist organization! This doesn’t actually mean shit; only designating something a foreign terrorist organization has legal meaning and unlocks things. Domestic? Well, we generally don’t give a shit about that. He coulda done this at any time, so why now? Somebody pointed out that he’s like a shark when it comes to being in the news: he has to keep swimming or he’ll die. He’s thrown his base red meat, because if he’s not in the headlines, he’s losing. Besides, it’s not like an official declaration will meaningfully change how law enforcement will kick the shit out of you. They were always gonna.

#2: FBI to Categorize Trans People As “Nihilistic Violent Extremist” Threat Group, Report Says. This is coming from Ken Klipperstein and he’s rarely wrong, so I expect this to happen. How the fuck do you categorize a sexuality/identity as… a political movement? You know what, I’m not even gonna bother. It’s evil and it’s stupid and these people should never be given a moment’s peace for the rest of their goddamn lives.

Rumors, Venezuela, No Citizenship for You!

Posted on by documentingdescent

Lots of rumors flying around about Lance Twiggs, who is supposedly Tyler Robinson’s roommate. Several right leaning news outlets are using the word “partner” in their headlines, implying Robinson and Twiggs were romantically involved. There is no evidence for that at this point, not even in those articles. Even Twiggs’ identity is actually speculation at this point, but speculation amplified by Fox News tweets.

Naturally, conservative outlets are taking this as gospel, along with claiming that being in college ‘radicalized’ Robinson – never mind he was in college for one semester and dropped out, several years ago. They are also claiming that since he is reported to have “become more political lately” this means he veered left. Again, there is no evidence for this, for or against.

Some are claiming he’s a member of Nick Fuentes’ followers, the Groyper Army, and maybe his assassination was due to the long running beef between Fuentes and Kirk. Again, no evidence for or against this as of yet.

We just do not know his motivations at this time. What we can determine from his bullet engravings: dude was terminally online and deeply steeped in meme culture, but definitely steeped in Groyper meme culture. Maybe he was one, maybe he just used there memes (as many do), but dude is a terminally online mofo.

We will not speculate on his motives.

A new bill in Congress would give the Secretary of State the discreet and unopposed right to strip and deny passports from citizens at his sole discretion. Basically if Rubio (or whoever) decides you’ve been bad, they can take your passport away without due process. Sure, you can complain to get it back… but you’re complaining to the Secretary of State who took it away.

The key provision of the bill is that you can have your passport taken away merely by being charged with material support for terrorism, including writing and speech.

I don’t think I need to belabor the point that this is incredibly illegal and vile but I’m sure they’ll try and push it through regardless. I don’t think it’ll make it, but something to keep our eye on.

Remember I was talking about how we might be gearing up for military action in Venezuela? Well, we’re moving F-35s to Puerto Rico, which while not confirming the prep, certainly points in that general direction. I don’t think we generally keep F-35s stationed there for the most part. They only report 5 being repositioned there, however, which seems more like a surgical strike group than anything larger. Probably anti-cartel bombings, if Trump’s posturing is to be believed.