FASCISM IN THE TOWN HALL: Unidentified Trio Of Goons Haul Woman From Public Meeting
We are in the midst of a brutal fascist coup. There is no cavalry behind the hill to come and rescue us. We are the ones who need to act to rescue ourselves. Resist and persist.
Imagine in the scene below if these goons had been encircled by 20 or 30 concerned citizens who told them to let the woman go and leave the meeting.
By Mark Taylor
DeMOCKracy.ink (2/26/25)
Fascism always filters from the top down and is facilitated and fueled from the bottom up by unofficial thugs, gangs and militias. In Nazi Germany the Brown Shirt force was made up of average citizens tasked with pillaging Jewish-owned businesses, defiling synagogues, roughing up and terrorizing individual Jews or other minorities. The Black shirts and Gestapo were more formally a part of the government, but did a lot of the same kind of localized terror and enforcement.
As detailed in the third item below, corporate fascist war criminal Erik Prince, of Iraq War Blackwater infamy, has proposed a private for-profit corporate operation of tracking, round-ups and detention camps to deport immigrants and, no doubt, others — a kind of modern Gestapo. Given his bloody record, no doubt Prince’s plan would be hell-scale depravity and corporate profit.
As we are seeing on the national level with Musk/Trump, fascists move fast to distract, disorient, overwhelm and terrorize the population to bulldoze their agenda in a blitzkrieg of bombastic declarations and legislation. And — as with 1930s Germany — we are beginning to see the same thing now at local levels of government.
Thugs in Idaho
A recent example occurred in a Coeur d’Alene, Idaho town hall meeting where three unidentified rent-a-thug private security goons grabbed, physically abused and removed a woman, Teresa Borrenpohl. The two videos below give a good summary of what happened, with on-the-scene video documentation.
The first video concludes with good advice on steps citizens need to take with this kind of situation. While a number of courageous people at the Idaho incident also demanded the goons provide identification and questioned their authority, only one man — ONE — stood up to intervene and he was quickly hustled out.
The second podcast provides additional video and context.
Get involved
This is not the time for citizens to be compliant and complicit. The closing comments in the first video need to be taken to heart. Imagine in the scene below if these goons had been encircled by 20 or 30 concerned citizens who told them to let the woman go and leave the meeting. Or imagine if one person had even used their phone to call, for support from city police in the nearby parking lot.
We are in the midst of a brutal fascist coup. There is no cavalry of good guys behind the hill to be called and come to rescue us. We are the ones who need to act to rescue ourselves. Resist and persist. This is not the time to sit back and be complicit.
You can call Idaho officials to make your concerns known and defend the right of Teresa Borrenphal and all citizens to speak at public meetings:
Gov. Brad Little: (208) 334-2100
Mayor Woody McEvers, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho: (208) 769-2204
Three Guards Who Attacked Woman At Town Hall Just PAID A BIG PRICE
Occupy Democrats (2/25/25)
The pro-Trump security guards who viciously attacked a Democratic woman at a town hall just paid a BIG price their actions!
8-minute video
Private Security Goons REFUSE To ID Themselves In Violent Town Hall Confrontation
Due Dissidence (2/26/25)
16-minute video
Mercenary Mogul/War Criminal Erik Prince Pitched Trump On Private Militarized Deportation Force & Internment Camps
"Our leaders face a defining choice: stand against this atrocity now, or be complicit in what history will remember as America's darkest chapter.”
By Brett Wilkins
Common Dreams (2/25/25)
Private military contractors including Erik Prince—the founder and ex-CEO of the notorious mercenary firm formerly known as Blackwater—pitched advisers to President Donald Trump a $25 billion plan to deport 12 million undocumented immigrants before the 2026 midterm elections using a "small army" of citizens, a fleet of 100 private planes, and a network of "processing camps," according to Tuesday reporting.
Prince also reportedly helped raise money to spy on progressives and Democratic organizations opposed to Trump, and was involved in former senior Trump adviser Steve Bannon's fraudulent campaign to ostensibly build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.
Politico's Dasha Burns and Myah Ward reported that the 26-page blueprint for an aggressive mass deportation campaign, a copy of which was obtained by the journalists, was presented to advisers to Trump before his inauguration. The group of private contractors, who call themselves 2USV, is led by Prince and also includes former Blackwater chief operating officer Bill Mathews.
Burns and Ward wrote:Burns and Ward wrote:
Deporting 12 million people in two years "would require the government to eject nearly 500,000 illegal aliens per month," the document says. "To keep pace with the Trump deportations, it would require a 600% increase in activity. It is unlikely that the government could swell its internal ranks to keep pace with this demand... in order to process this enormous number of deportations, the government should enlist outside assistance."
Top White House officials are having multiple conversations with military cfontractors, coinciding with Republicans' mad dash on Capitol Hill to secure more resources for the president's immigration crackdown. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) increased arrests during Trump's first couple of weeks in office, but the pace has since slowed, and arrests do not always equal deportations.
Bounties and law breaking
To boost deportations, the 2USV plan calls for deputizing 10,000 private citizens, forming a "skip tracing team" to locate targeted immigrants, a "screening team of 2,000 attorneys and paralegals," a "bounty program which provides a cash reward for each illegal alien held by a state or local law enforcement officer," and "mass deportation hearings." Legal experts warn that components of the plan likely run afoul of the law.
It is unclear whether Trump has seen the 2USV white paper. White House spokesperson Kush Desai told Politico that the Trump administration "remains aligned on and committed to a whole-of-government approach to securing our borders, mass deporting criminal illegal migrants, and enforcing our immigration laws."
Prince, a former U.S. Navy SEAL, founded Blackwater—now called Constellis—in 1997. He rose to prominence during the George W. Bush administration and the so-called War on Terror, in which the U.S. relied heavily upon private contractors.
Erik Prince’s Iraq massacre
On September 16, 2007, Blackwater guards massacred 17 men, women, and children in Nisour Square in Baghdad, Iraq. This was one of at least several incidents in which the company's mercenaries harmed Iraqi civilians. Trump pardoned four of the Nisour Square killers—who had been sentenced to 12 years to life in prison for crimes including first-degree murder—in 2020 shortly before his first term ended.
Trump and Prince have long enjoyed warm relations. Prince was a major Trump donor whose sister, Betsy DeVos, served as education secretary during his first administration. Prince also reportedly helped raise money to spy on progressives and Democratic organizations opposed to Trump, and was involved in former senior Trump adviser Steve Bannon's fraudulent campaign to ostensibly build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.
Last year, Venezuelan authorities launched an investigation into an online site allegedly fronted by Prince that raised funds for the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Critics interviewed by Burns and Ward cast doubts on 2USV's plan, with former ICE Chief of Staff Jason P. Houser saying that "the idea of forcibly removing 12 million people from the United States is not just operationally impossible—it is a moral and economic catastrophe in the making."
Responding to the Politico report, Beatriz Lopez, co-executive director of the Immigration Hub, an advocacy group, said in a statement that "war profiteer Erik Prince, the same man infamous for spreading chaos and profiting off human suffering, is signing up to help carry out Trump's mass deportation and family separation agenda."
"Simply put, this despicable plan will deploy mass internment, detention camps, and a civilian army to come after our neighbors, family, and friends," she continued. "At $25 billion, this cruel machinery would merely be the opening act in Trump and [White House Deputy Chief of Staff] Stephen Miller's $350 billion campaign of state-sanctioned 'hunts' for immigrant families."
"We're witnessing the deliberate transformation of everyday Americans—parents dropping children at school, healthcare workers saving lives, farmers feeding our nation—into targets who, if the Trump administration has it their way, could be hunted by an unaccountable militia motivated by profit and prejudice," Lopez added. "As Trump expands the definition of who is 'deportable,' the circle of safety shrinks until it contains only those who share his extreme vision. Today immigrants, tomorrow anyone who opposes them."
"Our leaders face a defining choice: stand against this atrocity now, or be complicit in what history will remember as America's darkest chapter," she warned.
Common Dreams work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
‘THE GESTAPO IS HERE’: War Criminal Plans 10,000 Man Force For Trump
Secular Talk (2/26/25)
8-minute video
Blackwater: The Rise Of The World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army
On September 16, 2007, machine gun fire erupted in Baghdad's Nisour Square, leaving seventeen Iraqi civilians dead, among them women and children. The shooting spree, labeled "Baghdad's Bloody Sunday," was neither the work of Iraqi insurgents nor U.S. soldiers. The shooters were private forces, subcontractors working for the secretive mercenary company, Blackwater Worldwide, led by Erik Prince
Award-winning journalist Jeremy Scahill takes us from the bloodied streets of Iraq to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans to the chambers of power in Washington, to reveal the frightening new face of the U.S. military machine, and what happens when you outsource war.
VICTORY: Mississippi Town Votes To Drop Lawsuit That Had Forced Newspaper To Take Down Editorial
FIRE (2/25/25)
CLARKSDALE, Miss., Feb. 25, 2025 — After receiving widespread condemnation for obtaining a temporary restraining order that forced Mississippi’s Clarksdale Press Register to take down an editorial critical of the city, Clarksdale’s Board of Mayor and Commissioners voted Monday to drop the lawsuit.
Last week, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression first called national attention to the plight of the Press Register after the city sued the small-town Coahoma County newspaper to force it to take down an editorial criticizing local officials. On Friday, FIRE agreed to defend the Press Register, its editor, and parent company in court to have the unconstitutional restraining order lifted.
“The implications of this case go beyond one Mississippi town censoring its paper of record,” said FIRE attorney David Rubin. “If the government can get a court order silencing mere questions about its decisions, the First Amendment rights of all Americans are in jeopardy.”
By Monday, Clarksdale’s Board had convened, voted not to continue with the lawsuit, and filed a notice of voluntary dismissal with the court. That means the city’s suit is over and with it the restraining order preventing the Press Register from publishing its editorial. …
Link to story and 7-minute video
I really appreciate this piece, Mark. Kudos and thank you. Personally, I would never encourage people to call the police to help protect them from fascists. Also, the gentleman on the Occupy Democrats is IMHO incorrect in his assumption that Sheriff Bob is "definitely" getting investigated. I'd love to see it. And I'll believe it when I see it. Keep up the great work!
Welcome to Nazi Fascism guys!
I'm very surprised that you guys are surprised of the Fascism at home, when USA has been spreading and financing Nazi Fascism all over the world since 100 years...
Do you need examples? I do not think so.
If you really are a democratic person that respect other people and other countries, how you didn't realize that your Government and your media and even the majority of Americans supported killing other Countries Government, killing millions of civilians, supporting genocides and all the worst thing that happened in the World since 1920s?
Oh, sure! All of those bad things didn't happened in US so who fking cares, eh?!!
U deserve Nazi Fascism, it's the minimum after all you did for a century!