DrEmpathyNow

At any other time in history; this would be news-worthy.

Pro gun “activists” are at the Virginia state legislature protesting a bill banning the sale of AR 15 magazines

They handed a 30 round magazine to a child

This is not normal

No one needs assault rifles

There’s a reason you have more gun deaths & mass shootings than any other developed country

Explain it to me like I’m five… 🤬

Exclusive: ‘Rescuers were flying blind’: Inside the crucial $200,000 contract Kristi Noem’s team let lapse | CNN Politics As deadly tornadoes tore through the Midwest and Plains last weekend, state and local search-and-rescue crews rushed to the devastated areas to look for survivors. It wasn’t until the teams deployed t...

"As of earlier this week, the tornado mapping contract still had not been renewed..."

www.cnn.com/2026/03/13/p...

Donald Trump says he’ll block every Congressional bill until we pass the SAVE Act—basically saying he wants to hold us hostage unless we disenfranchise millions of voters and their access to the ballot box. So let us be clear.

We are NOT 👏 going 👏 to 👏 pass 👏your 👏 voter suppression bill.

Period.

There is absolutely no bottom.

@cnn.com
www.cnn.com/2026/03/13/p...

Brendan Carr, FCC chair, threatens broadcaster licenses. This is a violation of the First Amendment.

First Amendment violation, Brendan.

I wonder if a class-action lawsuit (with 320 million of us being the injured class) might change your mind.

Do this and ALL of us will see you in court.

Concentration Camp Labor Cannot Become Normal

I wrote this essay about the private sector's exploitation of American concentration camps in July 2025. The situation has since advanced much further.
snyder.substack.com/p/concentrat...

ICE hasn't slowed down. We must continue to speak up and defend our undocumented brothers and sisters.

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.

Who will be the first to take off their shoes? Across Washington, D.C., a new fashion trend has taken hold of those in Trump’s circle: embarrassingly oversized clown shoes.

Trump’s shoe test borders on humiliation ritual. They appear much too big on most of the recipients, and with their pants hemmed to match the president’s absurdly short length, it’s comical. One might assume that Trump purchases the incorrect sizes on purpose. www.democracydocket.com/opinion/who-...

🇨🇦🇨🇦

The Cruelty is the Point The Deaths of Daphy Michel and Nurul Amin Shah Alam

They’ve 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.

Kennedy Center’s President Is Leaving After Tumultuous Year

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...

Ray Dalio: I've studied 500 years of history and fear we're entering the most dangerous phase of the 'Big Cycle' | Fortune I believe the times ahead will be radically different from what most people have gotten used to—more like the era before 1945 than since.

fortune.com/2026/03/14/r...

Once again—New 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! 🗳️🇺🇸💪

PFLAG must turn over records in Texas probe tied to transgender youth care ban, court rules | Houston Public Media The Texas Supreme Court said the state only needs a reasonable belief that the group may have relevant information, not proof, and allowed PFLAG to redact identifying details about families before pro...

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...

“The clear winner of this war is Putin”

Must be a coincidence 🙃

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 ⬇️

Americans are dying so that Kushner can make money

I have nothing to add here. Yes, it’s 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 — contradicting both the Fourth Amendment and the academy’s own written materials — 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, DHS’s civil-rights office received nearly 6,000 complaints. It investigated three percent. Its staff was cut from 147 to fewer than 40. The detention ombudsman’s 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 — 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

ICE’s $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, “no 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.” 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 — kidnapping, torture, disappearing people — 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 officer’s 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 Argentina’s army. They were the most stuck." Mediocre men whose careers had stalled out.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-secret...

The Secret Police Playbook How DHS reflects historical lessons from dictatorships

New, at Can We Still Govern?: Christian Gläßel 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. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-secret...