Fascism watch thread/news and discussions

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https://bsky.app/profile/forevernever.b ... klhdvgis2w

If she had assaulted ICE agents, wouldn't they just arrest her?

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https://bsky.app/profile/normcharlatan. ... l4r6fcgs2s

I don’t think people quite understand that the occupation by ICE in the Twin Cities has more or less erased non-white people from public life. They cannot safely exist in any space accessible to the public and moving between private places leaves folks vulnerable to kidnapping by armed masked goons.

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Mussolini Had His Blackshirts, Hitler Has the SS, and Trump Has ICE
By Aaron Regunberg
January 16, 2026

Conclusion:

(Common Dreams)… ICE…poses a structural threat to American democracy. This is an unaccountable agency, by design. ICE is not subject to the rules governing local or state police departments; there are no laws barring ICE agents from wearing masks, driving in unmarked cars, and operating in plainclothes. ICE was designed after 9/11 to support the FBI’s domestic terrorism efforts, with almost nothing in the way of transparency or guardrails. So what happens when domestic terrorism gets defined as expressing “opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity,” and “hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality,” as Trump’s NSPM-7 directive and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s recent memo to the FBI do?

Well, what happens is everything that we are seeing from ICE today—a federal agency operating quite explicitly as Trump’s personal militia. Mussolini had his Blackshirts, Hitler had his SS, and Trump has ICE—an army of ideologically motivated MAGA loyalist chuds whose new members owe their employment not to the state (being largely unqualified for positions in legitimate law enforcement agencies) but rather to Trump’s personal patronage.

The existence of this profoundly unaccountable, overtly fascist military apparatus poses a structural danger to our democracy. Structural dangers like this can’t be reformed—they need to be dismantled. “We shouldn’t have a Gestapo in this country” isn’t a radical position. It’s actually the only non-radical position you can take on the question. That’s long been true morally. And today’s polling shows it’s true politically, as well. In every way, abolishing ICE is now the moderate position.

So email your Democratic elected officials, call their offices, speak up at their town halls. Tell our Democratic representatives and senators that they need to use every tool at their disposal—including, in the near term, the Congressional appropriations process—to stand up to this rogue militia. And help our Democratic leaders understand—if we are so lucky, come 2028, to get a second chance at resetting our democracy—that getting rid of Trump’s SS is nonnegotiable.

Read more here: https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/m ... p-has-ice

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Reagan Appointed Judge Accuses Rubio and Noem of an ‘Unconstitutional Conspiracy’ to Chill Speech
By Alex Griffing
January 15, 2026

Introduction:

(Mediaite) US District Judge William Young said on Thursday that he will soon issue an order aimed at stopping President Donald Trump’s administration from retaliating against “academics who challenged its arresting, detaining, and deporting non-citizens, pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel activists on US college campuses,” reported Reuters.

Judge Young, a Reagan appointee, spoke at a hearing in Boston federal court, picking up where he left off after issuing a September ruling that the State Department and Department of Homeland Security violated the Constitution’s First Amendment by detaining and trying to deport non-citizens on college campuses over their speech.

Politico’s Kyle Cheney quoted Judge Young arguing that “There was no policy here. What happened here is an unconstitutional conspiracy to pick off certain people, to twist the laws.”

“Two cabinet secretaries conspired … they intentionally, knowing what they were doing, counseled by professionals who cautioned them, nevertheless went ahead to pick off these people with the intention that your clients would be chilled. And did so rather effectively, by the way,” Judge Young concluded, accusing Secretary of State Marco Rubio and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem of unconstitutional actions.

Read more here: https://www.mediaite.com/politics/reag ... ll-speech

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ProPublica Found More Than 40 Cases of Immigration Agents Using Banned Chokeholds and Other Moves That Can Cut Off Breathing
By Nicole Foy and McKenzie Funk
January 13, 2026

Introduction:

(ProPublica) Immigration agents have put civilians’ lives at risk using more than their guns.

An agent in Houston put a teenage citizen into a chokehold, wrapping his arm around the boy’s neck, choking him so hard that his neck had red welts hours later. A black-masked agent in Los Angeles pressed his knee into a woman’s neck while she was handcuffed; she then appeared to pass out. An agent in Massachusetts jabbed his finger and thumb into the neck and arteries of a young father who refused to be separated from his wife and 1-year-old daughter. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he started convulsing.

After George Floyd’s murder by a police officer six years ago in Minneapolis — less than a mile from where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Good last week — police departments and federal agencies banned chokeholds and other moves that can restrict breathing or blood flow.

But those tactics are back, now at the hands of agents conducting President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

Examples are scattered across social media. ProPublica found more than 40 cases over the past year of immigration agents using these life-threatening maneuvers on immigrants, citizens and protesters. The agents are usually masked, their identities secret. The government won’t say if any of them have been punished.

Read more here: https://www.propublica.org/article/vid ... citizens

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Trump says he’ll protect time slot for Army-Navy game by executive order

https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... navy-game/

State control of the media.

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'Abolish ICE' messaging is back. Is it any more likely this time?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... r-AA1UrALZ

Man, this article spends way too much time acting like we're in 2024 or something. People do not like ICE, which is not even that old and is not exactly an integral part of the US government. Furthermore, people have soured on GOP migration policy and are not going to fall for GOP talking points on the matter. The only thing that the article did well was beg the question of what comes after ICE abolition.

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So, How’s the Occupation Going for You?
By Taylor Carik
January 14, 2026

Introduction:

(Liberal Currents) After being told that school was cancelled for two days because of ICE, my elementary school-age daughter replied, “That makes sense, it’s really slippery outside.”

I’ve told that anecdote a few times already this week, along with another very recent exchange from when the school reopened, albeit with heavy community safety patrolling by parents.

After saying a quick hello at afterschool pick-up, followed by a pregnant pause in its truest elephant-in-the-city way, another parent asked me sardonically, “So, how’s the occupation going for you?”

These simple exchanges capture both the enormity of the experience of living under this new modern form of domestic occupation in Minneapolis-St. Paul and the day-to-dayness of having to navigate it.

I don’t say “navigate” in a passive way, as if it’s an imposition that I could somehow opt-out of, but in more of a manner of incorporating the reality—the potential extended reality—of doing all the things that we do in the Twin Cities while trying to resist an authoritarian military takeover.

Read more here: https://www.liberalcurrents.com/so-how ... for-you/

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ICE Puts All of Us in Danger
By Farrah Hassen
January 14, 2026

Extract:

(Other Words) Citizens and non-citizens alike have been racially profiled and kidnapped at courthouses and off the streets without warrants or probable cause. Trump has also used ICE to attack free speech, abducting and jailing students like Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Rümeysa Öztürk who spoke out against the Gaza genocide.

In addition to the shootings, 32 people died in ICE custody last year alone — and as of this writing, four more people have died in custody so far this January.

Abysmal conditions in ICE prisons, including medical neglect, have resulted in these tragic and avoidable deaths, leaving families shattered and still searching for answers. Nearly 69,000 people are currently being held in ICE prisons, the vast majority of them without a criminal record. According to ProPublica, ICE also detained over 170 U.S. citizens last year.

ICE has repeatedly denied members of Congress entry to its detention facilities, interfering with Congress’s constitutional oversight authority. Still, Congress enables ICE’s abuses through billions in funding increases. ICE’s $14 billion annual budget for detentions alone, note Lindsay Koshgarian and Sarah Lazare, is more than the total military spending of 124 countries.

Across the country, more communities are responding to our nation’s descent into lawlessness by uniting around our shared humanity and demanding justice. A recent poll shows, for the first time, net positive support — including among self-described moderates — for abolishing ICE.

Read more here: https://otherwords.org/ice-puts-all-of-us-in-danger/

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Civil Rights Leaders Issue Warning and Call for Noem’s Impeachment
By Jeff Brumley
January 16, 2026

Introduction:

(Baptist News Global) “The excessive use of force coupled with the distortions and lies used to defend these extreme actions have concerned and outraged many in this nation,” Murguia said. “And now most recently, President Trump and his administration have continuously raised the threat of invoking the Insurrection Act.”

The rarely used 1807 law would enable the administration to deploy military forces to Minnesota. Trump threatened to invoke the statute after an ICE agent shot an immigrant during a traffic stop in Minneapolis on Jan. 14 — precisely a week after a federal agent shot and killed American Renee Nicole Good as she watched a protest from her vehicle.

“We believe this is really an effort to create an unlawful attempt to manufacture and provoke unrest, and it must be seen for what it really is: another attempt to undermine and erode our civil rights,” Murguia said.
…
U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly of Illinois on Jan. 14 introduced articles of impeachment against DHS Secretary Krisi Noem for barring Congress from investigating immigration efforts and for using her position for personal profit, CBS News reported.
…
(Voto Latino President Maria Teresa) Kumar said Voto Latino is among 74 civil rights groups that have joined forces to push for Noem’s impeachment, especially now that ICE is employing “Gestapo” tactics such as going door-to-door regardless of residents’ legal status.

Read more here: https://baptistnews.com/article/civil- ... chment /

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ICE Prosecutor Who Runs Racist X Account Returns to Dallas Immigration Court

https://www.texasobserver.org/ice-prose ... ion-court/

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