CARTOON: BLOB BULLIES -- Faceless Federal Agents Wage War On Americans
Other arrest photos posted to social media by federal law enforcement portray even the backs of officers heads blurred!
By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (4/29/25)
So why are all these swaggering federal ICE, Border Patrol and cucked-out local police and sheriff’s deputies wearing masks and having their faces blobbed out in their tough-guy arrest photos of innocent college students and toddlers?
Security concerns?
Need to maintain anonymity for dangerous undercover operations battling cartels?
Nah, I think it’s a lot simpler: Embarrassment.
Embarrassment of being identified for actively shitting on the US Constitution, the First Amendment right to speak freely, our 4th and 5th amendment rights to due process and for being seen as an obedient little fascist boy apparatchik who will happily throw US toddlers out of the country, even one being treated for cancer.
Compassion? Humanity? Decency? Nah, that shit’s for sissies.
I mean — really — who the hell would want their neighbors, spouse and kids to know this is the kind of Nazi shit you do all day?
Cartoon by Mark Taylor / DeMOCKracy.ink
COWARDS: Faceless Feds Wage War On American Citizens
Hyoung Chang / Denver Post via Getty Images
“They tell me it’s for operational security. But I see something different: an army of nameless, faceless goons whose anonymity reveals their alienation from the American public they’re supposed to serve.”
By Ken Kleppenstein
kenkleppenstein.com (4/28/25)
When federal authorities arrested Wisconsin circuit court judge Hannah Dugan this week, they publicized photos of police escorting her into an unmarked vehicle, their faces blurred out so they couldn’t be identified.
Since Donald Trump came into office, the federal government is now routinely blurring out law enforcement’s faces in its frenzy of triumphant social media postings and press releases containing photos of arrests and immigration actions in particular. They tell me it’s for operational security. But I see something different: an army of nameless, faceless goons whose anonymity reveals their alienation from the American public they’re supposed to serve.
Presumably the White House thinks these G-men photo ops are good publicity for its immigration agenda; they instead smack of the exact politicization of the FBI and other agencies that Trump railed against during the election. Swarms of faceless immigration police are raiding workplaces, night clubs and other venues, carrying out arrests with the zeal of a cop manning a speed trap on the highway — and often with a photographer nearby.
Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan arrested by three blobfaced federal officers.
“This is a war on the American people, whether national security officialdom realizes it or not.”
“No one is above the law,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on X containing the photo of Dugan’s arrest.
But are they above transparency? The question appears in countless replies to virtually all of these triumphalist social media posts, with angry users demanding to know the reason for the lack of transparency — a question the news media hasn’t bothered to ask, as far as I can tell.
So I put the question to both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The FBI did not respond, but homeland security, the largest federal law enforcement organization in the country, did. A DHS spokesperson attributed the blurring of officers’ faces to an increase in “threats, assaults and doxing events,” pointing to the case of a “lunatic” accused of threatening the life of homeland secretary Kristi Noem (of purse-losing fame).
Here’s the spokesperson’s full statement to me in an email:
“DHS’ heroic law enforcement personnel are working tirelessly to restore the rule of law in this country, and doing so has exposed them to an increase in threats, assaults, and doxing events. ICE officers right now face a 300% increase in assaults during enforcement actions. Federal law enforcement, including HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] Dallas, recently arrested a violent lunatic named Robert King for making threats against DHS officers and Sec. Noem. DHS will take all necessary precautions to protect our employees while they carry out this critical mission. In some cases, that means blurring some officers’ faces in social media posts.”
When I read the email, I immediately recognized Robert King from a ridiculous arrest photo HSI had posted on social media. The photo depicted a sullen looking young man with cuffs around his hands and ankles flanked by five law enforcement officers with their faces all blurred out — as if they had captured El Chapo. …
“Robert King, a U.S. citizen was recently taken into custody in McKinney, Texas for making terroristic threats against ICE agents and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem,” HSI’s April 2 post said. “King’s alarming social media posts included intentions to "open fire” if agents are seen in his neighborhood.”
When I saw the post, I remember rolling my eyes at how melodramatic I thought the feds were being about what seemed to me like some sad keyboard warrior just acting like a tough guy online. …
Hey, You’d Wanna Hide Your Mug Too…
U.S. Citizen Children, Including 4-Year-Old With Cancer Sent Off To Honduras On Mother's Deportation Flight
By Doha Madani
NBC News (4/27/25)
Two U.S. citizen children were sent on their mother’s deportation flight to Honduras without the opportunity to speak with attorneys, leaving a 4-year-old boy with Stage 4 cancer without access to his medication, according to the National Immigration Project.
Gracie Willis, an attorney with the organization, told NBC News that the boy and and his 7-year-old sister were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday. They were taken to El Paso, Texas, and flown to Honduras first thing Friday morning, Willis said.
The 4-year-old boy, who was actively receiving treatment for a rare form of cancer, was flown to Honduras without his medication, according to Willis and the National Immigration Project.
Attorneys were preparing a habeas corpus petition when the children were taken out of the U.S. on an ICE charter flight before the petition could be filed, Willis said.
Attorney Erin Hebert, who Willis said is representing the family, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. In a press release by the National Immigration Project, Hebert called the removal of U.S. children “illegal, unconstitutional, and immoral.”
“The speed, brutality, and clandestine manner in which these children were deported is beyond unconscionable, and every official responsible for it should be held accountable,” Hebert said.
Willis is representing a similar case involving the mother of a 2-year-old U.S. citizen who was deported with her child on Friday. …
TRUMP’S FATAL FLAW! How To Take Down A Fascist President
[Editor’s Note: Thom’s call for Democrats to focus a relentless spotlight on Trump’s corruption misses a huge weakness of the Dems. He needs call for the reform Democrats need to do on their party’s corruption to gain credibility and legitimacy with voters weary of bipartisan corruption and servitude to the corporations and billionaire class. Remember, the new DNC chair Ken Martin (a multi-millionaire) said Democrats would continue to take money from the “good billionaires” — a reality-defying contradiction if there ever was one. — Mark Taylor]
Thomas Hartmann Show (4/18/25)
Want to take down Trump? Demonstrate how corrupt he and his oligarch buddies are... The one consistent and defining characteristic of the oligarchies is corruption.
Trump’s corruption isn’t limited to international businessmen and deals, either; give him large enough campaign contributions or other gifts and you’ll get deregulation, government contracts, and even favorable legislation here in the US.
This laid the foundation for Trump’s shocking level of corruption today, and taught GOP legislators to look the other way as their colleagues slipped one loophole after another into existing laws to make life easier for the morbidly rich and harder for you and me.
10-minute video
"I run the country and the world."
— Donald Trump
Trump’s First 100 Days Show Immigrant Jails Are Authoritarian Testing Grounds
Trump has a plan to triple ICE’s incarceration capacity, enabling it to detain an additional 84,000 people at any time.
By Silky Shah
Truthout (4/28/25)
Since taking office in January, Trump and his regime have increasingly weaponized the immigrant detention system for his white supremacist agenda. Suppression of dissent and intimidation have been cornerstones of the MAGA regime, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) forcefully abducting and incarcerating students and scholars for what is essentially a thought crime — expressing solidarity with Palestinians. The Trump administration’s total disdain for basic human rights has been laid bare through its extrajudicial offshoring of detention to CECOT, an abusive mega-prison in El Salvador, where people are being detained indefinitely with no due process. And even as Trump has given Elon Musk free rein to dismantle the federal government, decimating vital programs and services that support the needs of all people in the U.S., the Republican Party is pouring billions into expanding the cruel and harmful immigrant detention system.
The changing infrastructure and scope of immigrant incarceration has become a clear testing ground for this administration’s authoritarianism.
A view of the shuttered Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, on February 14, 2025, being considered as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center by the Trump administration. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
But these policies did not emerge overnight. For decades, government leaders from across the political spectrum set the stage for these draconian moves by diminishing immigrants’ due process rights under the pretense of “protecting public safety.” Transferring immigrants to remote immigrant jails is also a familiar tactic intended to impair access to legal counsel while putting cases before more hostile courts. Trump’s deportation machinery is building on what prior administrations, including those of Obama and Biden, had already put in place. An honest stock-taking of the Trump administration’s first 100 days reveals how bipartisan support for detention expansion and criminalization of immigration created the ideal conditions for today’s war on immigrants.
ICE detention is an archipelago of over 150 private prisons, county jails and federal facilities across the country through which hundreds of thousands of immigrants pass each year. Seeking to fulfill his campaign promises, Trump is moving full steam ahead with a multilayered detention expansion plan, which, if realized, will triple ICE’s incarceration capacity, enabling it to detain an additional 84,000 people at any given time. In February at the National Sheriff’s Association annual meeting, Tom Homan, the career ICE official turned “border czar,” said ICE will be lowering detention standards in order to make it easier for sheriff-run jails that don’t meet current standards to be used for immigrant detention. Detention center conditions have always been abysmal, but as the numbers increase, so have reports of people sleeping on floors and unhygienic conditions, including a lack of clean clothing, a lack of adequate food, and food quality issues leading to rampant weight loss and gastrointestinal illnesses.
Rapidly expanding network of concentration camps
In just 100 days, ICE has made plans to reopen family detention centers in Texas and previously shuttered prisons in California, Kansas, Michigan and New Jersey. It has signed several new county jail contracts and is using numerous Federal Bureau of Prisons facilities for immigrant detention. Current plans include using military bases for detention, including Guantánamo Bay. The use of Guantánamo in particular is designed to hype paranoia around immigration as a national security concern. ICE has also issued multiple proposals for new immigrant jails across the country. But it is worth noting that many of these detention center expansions were already underway prior to Trump taking office. In Biden’s last year in office, ICE requested proposals for several 950-bed detention centers throughout the country and was working to extend contracts at 14 facilities that have come under scrutiny for their deplorable conditions.
This Woman Dated Only Far-Right Men For A Year: ‘They were so insecure’
CNN (4/13/25)
The “manosphere” is made up of macho podcasters and influencers, a space where UFC fighters are among those that reign supreme, like Jake Shields. CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan sits down with Shields and also speaks with independent journalist Vera Papisova as part of "MisinfoNation: Extreme America.”
6-minute video
We have to stop this and now. Thanks, Mark.
I think the SF B-movie character of the "Blob" was less of a monster than these modern-day Brown Shirts (ICE) with blurred out faces. They know their friends and neighbors are going to snitch on them some day, so they hide behind masks, hats, and dark glasses. Really brave of them, eh? I can't wait until we get to lock them and their bosses in the White House up in one of their torture prisons. They deserve it.