@drempathynow
Iβm passionate about supporting human rights, justice, healthcare, science, climateβ¦ππ»π³οΈβππ³οΈββ§οΈπΊπ¦Ρπ·ππ½βοΈποΈπ§·π«Άπ¨π¦π΅π±πͺπΊπ¦ πΈ πEvil is the absence of empathyβ - G.M. Gilbert. Nobody is safe unless everybody is safe!
The truth about Donald Trump is that he should have been in prison decades ago.
Fraud, Epstein Island, disappearing wives.
The problem isn't just American politics, it's America.
The criminals are in charge.
Trumpβs shoe test borders on humiliation ritual. They appear much too big on most of the recipients, and with their pants hemmed to match the presidentβs absurdly short length, itβs comical. One might assume that Trump purchases the incorrect sizes on purpose. www.democracydocket.com/opinion/who-...
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Theyβve found another immigrant tragically dead on the street after being released from ICE custody.
My latest piece for Substack:
substack.com/@katiephang/...
The is the federal government telling news stations to provide favorable coverage of the war or their licenses will be pulled.
A truly extraordinary moment.
We aren't on the verge of a totalitarian takeover. WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF IT.
Act like it.
Now that he has nearly destroyed the Kennedy Center, doing damage to other DC institutions along the way - the National Symphony, the Washington Opera - Ric Grenell is leaving, perhaps to ruin something else
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/a...
Trump Admin starts war.
Trump Admin shocked by consequences of war.
Trump Admin urgently (!) tells Americans caught by those consequences to get out! get out! and no there's no help coming from the Trump Admin, and good luck finding a land route out somewhere.
www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03...
Once againβNew Mexico is leading the way by protecting free and fair elections! NM becomes the first state in the nation to ban armed federal agents at the ballot box. This is how you do it! π³οΈπΊπΈπͺ
Horrific. Texas Supreme Court ruled that PFLAGs in Texas have to turn over records related to fleeing the state, contingency plans to get care, doctors lists, and more.
Texas has become such a terrifying place for trans people.
www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/lgb...
βThe clear winner of this war is Putinβ
Must be a coincidence π
Ossoff: "When American service members are returning in flag-draped coffins... this White House treats war like a [videogame].
It's a disgrace... it speaks to the moral rot of this administration."
It's a shame this is where we are as a country.
IRAN WAR $11.3B Six days of war in Iran TREATING MALNUTRITION $4B Treating every acutely malnourished child on Earth
Attended a meeting with the ministers of Ethiopia and Uganda governments on the state of refugees and learned that little girls (6-8 y/o) are being raped in schools in masses..
What is this world. What are we doing.
Also, this β¬οΈ
Americans are dying so that Kushner can make money
I have nothing to add here. Yes, itβs that bad.
The same message is built into enforcement oversight and training. At the ICE academy, ex-instructor Schwank reported, he had been shown a memo authorizing agents to enter homes without a judicial warrant β contradicting both the Fourth Amendment and the academyβs own written materials β and told to teach it verbally, without notes, without changing the curriculum. And when agents cross the line, no one is watching. Between March and December 2025, DHSβs civil-rights office received nearly 6,000 complaints. It investigated three percent. Its staff was cut from 147 to fewer than 40. The detention ombudsmanβs office went from 118 to 5. In a year with 32 deaths in custody, the office investigated one. When ICE agents killed US citizens in Minneapolis, the regime investigated the victims. For every agent in the field, the message is unmistakable: the accountability rules of the first pyramid no longer apply in the second.
A key step in building a secret police for an authoritarian regime is to signal impunity loudly and publicly. The Trump administration is unmistakably doing this with immigration officials. They are being trained to break the law with promises of protection.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-secret...
DOGE-driven cuts, mass dismissals of career officials, the elimination of entire bureaus and the firing of inspector generals and watchdogs: these generate the anxious, displaced personnel that the second pyramid needs. The officials in other law enforcement agencies compelled to work with DHS via agreements or presidential directives without ever leaving their home organizations, including the FBI agents reassigned to immigration enforcement; the career civil servants who no longer know whether they will have a job next month; the U.S. Army officers who asked for too big of a bonus β these are, functionally, the labor supply for the alternative structure being built alongside them.
As the secret police pyramid is created, traditional govt career structures are deprofessionalized, making them less attractive. We are seeing this with Trump: FBI agents are watching competent agents being shown the door, while they are being reassigned to serve ICE. See also 287(g) agreements
ICEβs $50,000 signing bonus, reduced training requirements from 13 weeks to 6, and the admission of recruits under looser standards, including some found to have disqualifying criminal histories or gang affiliations, are not implementation failures. They are the point. As former ICE instructor Ryan Schwank testified before Congress, βno matter how badly a cadet does at those practical exams, no matter how many mistakes they make, no matter how egregiously they violate the law during a practical, we graduate them.β They are not trying to hire the best. They are trying to hire whoever is willing. Source: https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-secret-police-playbook
A key strategy in secret police formation is to create a parallel career pyramid alongside more professional existing forces (like the military and FBI). This is the purpose ICE/CBP serves. Pour money and relax standards in that pyramid. This is what the Trump admin has been doing.
But in Argentina in the 1970s, the military dictatorship offered another option: a parallel unit that needed staffing, valued loyalty over competence, and offered career-pressured officers a second chance. The dirty work of state terror β kidnapping, torture, disappearing people β was psychologically repugnant enough that high-performing officers with smooth career trajectories had every reason to avoid it. But for the men at the bottom of the cohort, it was a ladder. A ladder that paid off in terms of higher positions at the end of the career, more salary, and better pensions. The worse an officerβs academic record, the more likely he was to join the secret police. Once inside, the worst performers were assigned to the most brutal departments, where the work was most repugnant and the career reward for doing it most valuable.
Who is willing to to the dirty of an authoritarian regime? A study of the Argentinian secret police found that those who joined "were not the most extreme officers in Argentinaβs army. They were the most stuck." Mediocre men whose careers had stalled out.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-secret...
New, at Can We Still Govern?: Christian GlΓ€Γel and
@ascharpf.bsky.social have studied the formation of secret police in other countries. They explain the parallels with Trump's immigration enforcement.
The key factor is career incentives not ideology. π§΅
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-secret...
"career-pressured officers 'detour' through repressive units not because they are fanatics, but b/c the detour is the only viable path upward. The regime does not need to recruit extremists. It only needs to create the right organizational conditions and then let ordinary career anxiety do the rest"
With these 2 EOs Trumpβs regime gave itself the power to 1) create national enemies out of whole cloth to suit its own purposes; 2) target its political opposition as enemies of the state; & 3) change definitions as needed to ensure complete oppression when enforced by surveillance & secret police.
Dept of Justice - AG Pamela Bondi "Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization that has been allowed to flourish in Democra led cities - not under President Trump..."
Is she going to dig up the graves of WWII soldiers to get rid of Antifa?
No signs of sanity at DOJ.
the country is at war and the president is leaving DC this afternoon for a weekend at his private club in Florida that he'll spend with his paying customers
Ossoff: "The WH put out a video depicting this war as a video game. When service members are returning in flag-draped coffins, & even more have lost limbs or suffered brain injuries or are fighting for their lives, this WH treats war like a game. It's a disgrace. And it speaks to a moral rot."
The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has expressed concern that Poland has yet to fully comply with several European Court of Human Rightsβ judgments, which require authorities to ensure that access to lawful abortion is accessible in practice.
Your reminder that the current occupant of the White House is an adjudicated rapist accused of raping a child and has been explicitly identified as a rapist in the Epstein files.
