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ICE Is Everywhere and Acting with Impunity

For years Republicans were preferred on the handling of immigration and securing the nation's borders. Yet the Felon and his Josef Goebbels-like henchman, Stephen Miller, have pushed brutality and cruelty as ICE has run amok and mistreated immigrants and citizens alike with impunity and no accountability whatsoever,  When ICE abuses are challenged, ICE and DHS lie about abuses, always blaming the victims of ICE violence even when video evidence reveals the lie.  The result has been that support for the Felon and Republicans among Latinos has cratered - personally I cannot grasp how Latinos ever voted for the Felon in the first place - and the brutality towards children and deliberate family separations have repulsed many white American citizens.  Rather than detaining criminals ICE has seized landscape workers, maids, restaurant workers, construction workers, farm workers and workers at meat packing plants who have no criminal charges and in many cases have worked in the USA for years and collectively paid taxes to support the government now hunting them down. Of course, the Felon also continues to spread the lie that non-citizens are voting in U.S. election even when no evidence can be produced. A piece in the New Yorker looks at ICE abuses:

It has taken the Trump Administration less than two years to make violent encounters with federal immigration agents a regular fact of American life. On a single day late last month, a citizen and a noncitizen—one in Illinois, the other in Texas—became the most recent examples of this new reality. That morning, in Evanston, a Black man walking to a pharmacy was left injured and bleeding by the side of a road after a group of ICE officers, mistaking him for an immigrant “fugitive,” threw him to the ground and tried to handcuff him. Once the agents realized that he was a U.S. citizen, they said that they offered him “assistance,” then drove off. A few hours later, in Austin, an ICE officer shot a Venezuelan delivery driver in the back as he tried to flee in his car. He was detained, and partial paralysis had set in before doctors removed the bullet, several days later. Last Tuesday, the Department of Justice announced that it was charging the man with assaulting the officer who shot him.

Almost as alarming as the incidents themselves has been the government’s refusal to acknowledge a pattern of abuse that is clearly metastasizing at the Department of Homeland Security. Since Donald Trump took office last year, agents from D.H.S. have shot at some two dozen people in the United States, killing six of them.

[I]n South Padre Island, Texas, Ruben Ray Martinez, a twenty-three-year-old U.S. citizen, was shot and killed by an ICE officer—something that the government didn’t disclose for nearly a year, until American Oversight, a nonprofit group, obtained the incident report. In one week this past July, ICE agents killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national who had lived in this country for thirty-five years, raising a family and running a building company, and Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a twenty-five-year-old Colombian with a wife and toddler. These incidents were documented as officer shootings. But how, for instance, should news outlets categorize the death, on July 14th, of a Mexican man visiting family in Florida, on a tourist visa, who was hit by a tractor-trailer as he ran from immigration agents?

Not only has no ICE officer been federally charged in these deaths, but the agency has made a habit of casting blame on the people it has appeared to victimize, turning impunity into another form of aggression. The most common claim is that immigrants attempting to escape arrest are “assaulting” officers and, in particular, that motorists are “weaponizing” their vehicles. In many cases, video evidence seems to contradict such accounts; in others, officers weren’t wearing their body cameras. The Times found that the Administration had filed assault charges against more than five hundred and fifty people and that, in about half of the roughly four hundred cases that have been resolved, “juries acquitted defendants, judges threw out charges, or prosecutors withdrew them.”

Because the federal government has largely forsworn—and, indeed, actively blocked—independent investigations of its agents, states have tried to bring their own cases.

This all comes at a time when ICE arrests have reached a record high—nearly fifty-one thousand in August alone—with agents conducting operations nationwide at hospitals, at airports, and outside schools. Past calls by Democratic lawmakers for D.H.S. agents to end the practice of wearing masks in public were ignored, and this summer the department announced that it would be purchasing for its personnel twenty million dollars’ worth of gloves that deliver powerful electric shocks. Flush with cash from Congress, D.H.S. is planning to hire five thousand more ICE officers by the end of the year.

Given the lack of accountability at D.H.S., it should come as little surprise that Homeland Security Investigations, a branch of ICE, has taken the lead in prosecuting one of Trump’s principal obsessions: searching for evidence that noncitizens might vote in the midterms next month. Noncitizen voting is virtually nonexistent, as D.H.S.’s own figures show. Since last year, on the President’s orders, the department has pursued some sixteen hundred voter-fraud cases, only a hundred and sixty of which even led to arrests.

Over the summer, Markwayne Mullin, the Secretary of Homeland Security, announced that some sixteen thousand noncitizens were on the voter rolls in Nevada. But a subsequent review by the Nevada secretary of state’s office of a list of voters provided by D.H.S. found that they were all U.S. citizens.

Deploying government agencies without regard for facts or consequences is, of course, a hallmark of authoritarianism. Last week, it emerged that the White House used part of the D.H.S. budget appropriated by Congress to make ads that celebrate the President. They carry a disclosure that doubles as a warning: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.” 

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New Fox Poll—a Disaster for Trump

A new Fox News poll came out last week that is a disaster for the Felon and his sycophants who have been a study in corruption and incompetence. The Iran war - a war of choice that was poorly planned - and the resulting soaring prices combined with the Felon's repeated statements that "affordability" is a hoax have severely eroding support for both the Felon and the larger GOP.  Throw in the lawlessness and cruelty of ICE operations that have Latino support for Republicans plummeting and its a toxic mix for Republicans to surmount as they find themselves increasingly have to defend congressional seats long thought to be "safe." The Felon's unchecked corruption and self-enrichment are the icing on the cake.  A piece at The New Republic looks at the poll results and the alarming message for Republicans.  Yes, much can happen in the coming 30 days, but if this trend continues - or better yet, worsens - November 3, 2026 could be a much deserved bloodbath for Republicans.  Critically, those who oppose the Felon need to get out and vote, preferably early and in person, to make sure the bloodbath occurs, No one can be complacent.  Here are highlights from TNR.

“If you look at that Fox News poll, he’s ahead by seven points in the state of Texas,” Fox anchor Ainsley Earhardt lamented on Friday, adding: “How is that possible?” The “he” is Democrat James Talarico, who leads Republican Ken Paxton in Fox’s striking new poll of Texas. This shocker prompted Earhardt’s guest to warn: “Texans have to wake up!”

In truth, both Fox figures are slightly overstating matters. The poll does show Talarico up by seven points among registered voters, 53–46. But it shows his lead is much tighter among likely voters, 51–49. The latter might matter more.

Still, Talarico’s lead among both groups is remarkable in a state where no Democrat has won statewide in decades. What’s more, the poll’s internals help shed light on Trump’s role in bringing about Talarico’s lead. Here the news for Trump is very bad, and it captures something essential about the winding-down Trump era.

Let’s start with Trump’s approval among Texans. The Fox poll finds Trump badly upside down at 44–55—remarkable in a state he carried by 14 points in 2024. Drill down, and it’s worse: Trump’s approval is underwater with non-college voters (47–53), meaning he’s losing the working class, and Latinos (38–61). He won the latter by 55–45 two years ago.

And here’s a surprise: Trump is even underwater with Republicans who don’t identify as MAGA, or “non-MAGA Republicans,” at 46–53. Why does that matter? The Fox poll sheds light here too: Only 50 percent of non-MAGA Republicans are “extremely interested” in the election, which lags behind Texas likely voters overall (62 percent), and even further behind Democrats (67 percent).

Though MAGA Republicans are enthusiastic, a nontrivial number of GOP voters, alienated by Trump, may peel away and stay home.

Critically, this dovetails with the Talarico campaign’s theory of the case. Talarico is winning around 10 percent of Republican voters in the Fox poll, versus only 1 percent of Democrats going to Paxton (not a typo). This is driven by Talarico getting 22 percent of non-MAGA Republicans.

In addition to getting more than one-fifth of non-MAGA Republicans, Fox finds Talarico winning nearly one-fifth of conservatives, almost exactly at parity with Paxton among non-college voters—Talarico is getting half the working class!—and edging into the requisite mid-60s with Latinos. His 79 percent of Black voters probably needs improvement, but a big tent appears to be forming. . . . .Many are exactly the voters who would have supported Senator John Cornyn, and didn’t understand why Trump ordered them to vote for corrupt adulterous dirtbag Paxton in the primary. Talarico’s ads, Rocha notes, often echo attacks on Paxton from Cornyn’s primary ads.

Let’s be clear: None of this means a Talarico victory is remotely assured. This is absolutely on a knife’s edge. Talarico has led in most polls, and some quality surveys have found his lead significantly larger than Fox’s two-point likely-voter lead. Yet the averages have the race within three points. That’s very, very close. We’re talking about Texas here.

But for now, at least, what’s happening seems to confirm some basic insights about the slowly expiring Trump era. The Trump coalition is fracturing due to his peculiarly terrible misrule. Inflation, tariffs, and war are alienating working-class voters. His subjugation of the GOP into his own personal cult is alienating non-MAGA Republicans. His violent ethnic purges are driving away Latinos. The Latino shift to Trump—which was never the durable realignment observers discerned—has come undone . . . . His corruption and dictator-megalomania are badly alienating independents.

All of which might be creating the conditions for a large anti-Trump, anti-MAGA coalition to come together, a coalition perhaps broad enough to swamp Trump-GOP rigging efforts. Crucially, Democrats are now outperforming in Texas in ways that could overwhelm the GOP gerrymander there. It all hints—let’s hope—at the very broad anti-corruption, anti-authoritarian coalition that ousted Viktor Orbán in Hungary earlier this year.

If Democrats can win the House and/or the Senate with such a coalition, it will have the party’s back in constraining Trump as the era of Late Stage Trumpism sputters out during his final two years. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. First—and again, it’s all on a knife’s edge—that coalition has to really show up, and candidates like Talarico have to put this election away already.

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The GOP’s Desperate Culture-War Hail Mary

For decades the GOP has used "god, guns and gays" to dupe their electorate into voting against their own economic and financial best interests, gays and the transgender being the favorite GOP bogeymen. With a month until the 2026 mid-term elections and the Felon's poll numbers completely in the toilet and the latest polling for Democrats in red states suggesting a number of formerly viewed "safe seats" for Republicans might potentially flipping to Democrats, Republicans are dragging out the same old made up bogeymen in the hope fear and/or bigotry will motivate voters to vote Republican even as the Felon and his GOP enablers have trashed the economy for millions of Americans. As noted and as was the case in 2024, the favored GOP bogeyman are transgendered Americans. Never mind that a review of sexual abuse cases reveals no drag queen or transgender perpetrators but plenty of GOP politicians and right wing clergy being indicted for sexual crimes.  The big questions is whether the GOP's disingenuous fearmongering will be enough for their sheep like base to ignore high gas prices, unprecedented corruption at the White House, rising interest rates and increased inflation.  A piece at The Atlantic looks at the desperate GOP messaging. Here are excerpts:

Last week, as the war with Iran dragged into its seventh month, gas prices shot up to an average of $4.50 a gallon, and polling showed President Trump about twice as far underwater with American voters as he was at this point in 2018, Republican senators determined that the time had come to discuss something else entirely: youth sports. “Girls’ sports are for girls. Boys’ sports are for boys,” Senator Marsha Blackburn said in a news conference.

With 32 days to go until the midterm elections, Republicans’ closing strategy is obvious: They’re going all-in on trans. . . . . In Texas, Republicans are running an unsettling AI-generated ad that shows the Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico dressed as Maria von Trapp and singing about girls with mustaches. A spot in Iowa accuses the Senate candidate Josh Turek of supporting “sex changes for kids.” On X, former Representative Matt Gaetz offered a tidy summary of his party’s agenda: “I hate the war too,” he told a concerned voter. “But the Democrats want to trans your kids.”

Partly, this is because Republicans don’t have much else to say. The administration’s immigration-enforcement strategy isn’t exactly popular. Voters have lost faith in the GOP on economic issues. Meanwhile, the president is obsessing over Corinthian columns. But Republicans also have some reason to believe that making trans happen is a useful strategy: It’s helped them before.

“They believe that it energizes the base and divides ours,” Lanae Erickson, a senior vice president at the center-left think tank Third Way, told me. “And they’re right about that.”

The most jaw-dropping attack on Talarico probably comes from the American Principles Project, which has released an ad that is essentially a modern version of Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Daisy,” a sinister spot about the threat of nuclear war. The ad opens with a little girl standing in a field, counting flower petals. Everything is gray. Suddenly, the scene shifts, and the girl is in a hospital bed wearing an oxygen mask. An AI-generated Talarico looms over her in a pair of scrubs. “Irreversible puberty blockers. Cross-sex hormones. Sex-change surgeries,” the vaguely southern narrator declares. “This November, stop them before it’s too late.” . . . . (Talarico, for his part, is running ads focused on funding schools and health care, and countering corruption in Washington.)

The [Felon] president is aligned on the persuasive power of the anti-trans message. At the GOP convention in Dallas last month, Trump said that he was “petrified” that Democrats might change their position on transgender athletes in sports. “That will really hurt us,” he said. “That’s one of our great sound bites of all time.”

Unfortunately for him, some Democrats are already doing just that. . . . Asked last month whether girls should play in boys’ sports, he [Talarico] answered: “As a former public-school teacher, I care a lot about our student athletes, I care a lot about our students. And so I will oppose trans athletes playing in girls’ sports if it risks safety or fairness.”

Two years ago, this might have gone differently; Talarico might not have responded to Republican attacks at all. . . . In the run-up to November, Erickson, who advises Democrats on how to talk about LGBTQ issues, has seen a sharp increase from candidates in requests for help. As GOP campaigns launch their last-minute trans-focused ads, Democrats want to know when to respond, what to say, and how to avoid offense. “They’re so scared they’re going to say the wrong thing,” she said.

Erickson, who declined to name the specific candidates she’s advising, offered some general advice. When answering questions about transgender players in sports, she argues, Democrats should embrace the sandwich method: Start with empathy, mention rules and fairness, and end with a little more empathy. Questions about health care for minors can be answered by reiterating that parents, not lawmakers, are the best decision makers for their own kids.

Gina Hinojosa, who is running to replace Texas Governor Greg Abbott, has said that she won’t take up legislation related to the “culture wars” as governor; in a new ad, she declares, “My pronouns are mom, Texan, and soon-to-be governor.” The Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown’s strategy is to point out the absurdity of focusing on trans issues at a time like this. “Here they go again, those same attacks against Sherrod Brown,” one voter says in a new Brown ad. “With everything going on, that’s what they’re talking about?” says another voter.

Republicans are hopeful that a dogged focus on trans issues in the final days of this election season can depress turnout among Democratic voters like Childrey just as much as it energizes their own base. Democrats will have to hope that, this time, the GOP’s gambit will fail.

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