I feel like we are witnessing the #moronification of government. Add violence/genocide and not too different from the Khmer Rouge -- Kendyl Hanks

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FactPost (@factpostnews.bsky.social)

HHS Secretary RFK Jr: "This idea that you should trust the experts, a good mother doesn't do that"

A federal judge Thursday decried what he said were “breathtaking” constitutional violations by senior Trump administration officials and called the president an “authoritarian” who expects everyone in the executive branch to “toe the line absolutely.” 
In remarks laced with outrage and disbelief, U.S. District Judge #William #Young said Donald Trump and top officials have a “fearful approach” to freedom of speech that would seek to “exclude from participation everyone who doesn’t agree with them.” 
Young, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, leveled the searing critique during a hearing in Boston to determine the appropriate remedies for the administration’s ⚠️detentions of pro-Palestinian students last year. The judge had ruled in September that senior administration officials engaged in an 👉 illegal effort to arrest and deport noncitizen students based on their activism.

On Thursday, he again denounced the administration’s conduct in unusually stark terms. “Talking straight here,” he said. “The big problem in this case is that the cabinet secretaries and ostensibly, the president of the United States, are not honoring the First Amendment.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio engaged in an “unconstitutional conspiracy” to deprive people of their rights, Young said. “The secretary of state,” he noted, his voice full of incredulity, “the senior cabinet officer in our history involved in this.” 
Spokespersons for the White House, Noem and Rubio did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, last year called Young a “craven” judge who was “smearing and demonizing federal law enforcement.” 
The government actions at the core of the case date to early March, when the Trump administration launched a campaign to detain and deport noncitizen students at U.S. universities who had been active in opposing Israel’s war in Gaza. Though not accused of any crime, those arrested spent weeks confined in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities, at times hundreds of miles from where they lived, before being released on bail. 
The plaintiffs in the case are the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association. The groups of scholars accused the administration of having an unconstitutional policy of deporting people based on their political views, a policy intended to chill the free-speech rights of their members.

The trial last summer focused on the targeting of five noncitizen students and scholars: #Mahmoud #Khalil, #Yunseo #Chung and #Mohsen #Mahdawi, who were students at Columbia University; #Rumeysa #Ozturk, a graduate student at Tufts University; and #Badar #Khan #Suri, a postdoctoral scholar at Georgetown University. 
All were arrested except Chung, who obtained a restraining order before ICE could find her. The other four were released on the orders of federal judges, but the Trump administration is still trying to deport them. ⭐️On Thursday, an appellate court in Philadelphia overturned a Ruling lower-court ruling in Khalil’s case on jurisdictional grounds, ⛔️raising the possibility that he could be rearrested.
 The president and other officials hailed last year’s detentions as part of a fight against "antisemitism", alleging without presenting evidence that the targeted students promoted violence or were pro-Hamas.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/01/15/protesters-trump-administration-free-speech-violations/

"Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared." - Diary of Anne Frank January 13, 1943

We hear a lot of talk about “freedom” from my Republican colleagues. And yet these same Republicans are working overtime to deny tens of millions of women the basic freedom to control their own bodies. That is wrong, and it represents a fundamental betrayal of what freedom is about. -- Bernie Sanders

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Senator Bernie Sanders (@sanders.senate.gov)

We hear a lot of talk about “freedom” from my Republican colleagues. And yet these same Republicans are working overtime to deny tens of millio...

This is not a memo to ICE personnel. They each have a federal email account and that is a better was to disseminate info. This is a threat to everyone else.

Bluesky Social

Shoe+ (@shoe.bsky.social)

This author has chosen to make their posts visible only to people who are signed in.

The Justice Department refuses to open a criminal civil rights investigation into the killing of a woman by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis. The decision to keep the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division out of the investigation into the fatal shooting of #Renee #Good marks a sharp departure from past administrations, which have moved quickly to probe shootings of civilians by law enforcement officials for potential civil rights offenses. On Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement that “there is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation.” The statement, first reported by CNN, did not elaborate on how the department had reached a conclusion that no investigation was warranted

AP News

Justice Department sees no basis for civil rights probe in Minnesota ICE shooting, official says

A top Justice Department official says there is not currently any basis to open a criminal civil rights investigation into the killing of a woman b...

GoFundMe Ignores its Own Rules by Hosting a Legal-Defense Fund for the ICE Agent Who Killed Renee Good

WIRED

GoFundMe Ignores Own Rules by Hosting a Legal-Defense Fund for the ICE Agent Who Killed Renee Good

The fundraiser for the ICE agent in the Renee Good killing has stayed online in seeming breach of GoFundMe’s own terms of service, prompting ques...

Federal immigration officers have started using Renee Good’s death to threaten more U.S. citizens. A video posted to Reddit showed a screaming ICE agent repeatedly threatening to kill a man who was sitting in his car, asking how he didn’t “learn from what just happened.” In the two-minute clip, a masked agent wearing a Minnesota Timberwolves hat approached the vehicle already furious, while the driver rolled down his window. “Stop fucking following us, you are impeding operations, this is the United States federal government,” the officer shouted. “I live over here, I got to get to my house,” the driver replied calmly. “This is your warning, alright? Go home to your kids, go home to your kids. This is your last warning. I won’t arrest you,” the officer threatened, before stomping away. When the driver tried to engage another agent on the other side of his car, the agent urged him not to “make a bad decision.” “I’m not making any bad decision, I’m peaceful. I serve the Lord, not a draft-dodging coward,” the driver said. “You’re not gonna like the outcome of this, sir. I guarantee you that,” the first officer said, circling back. “I guarantee you’re not gonna like the outcome. Go home to your children. It’s Sunday. It is Sunday. You did not learn from what just happened?” “Learn what?” the driver asked, but the officer did not elaborate, and the group of federal agents appeared to leave without arresting anyone. It seems clear, however, that the agent was referring to Renee Good, the U.S. citizen who was shot multiple times by an ICE agent last week after federal officers surrounded her vehicle. While the Trump administration initially justified the deadly use of force by claiming Good was a “domestic terrorist,” Donald Trump most recently claimed her death was the result of being “disrespectful” of law enforcement. It’s evident that the driver in the latest video hadn’t done anything illegal because none of the agents made the slightest effort to detain him. In fact, the officer seemed to suggest that even if he could, he wouldn’t actually arrest him—he would just kill him. This isn’t the only time that ICE agents have apparently invoked Good’s killing. Another protester, who identified themself as a former U.S. Marine, claimed in an interview posted on X that federal officers had mocked Good while violently arresting them. “They said, ‘Have you not learned? This is why we killed that lesbian bitch!’” the protester said.

“We Killed That Lesbian B*tch”: ICE Uses Renee Good’s Death as Threat | The New Republic

The Miccosukee Tribe blocked Alligator Alcatraz. Then Trump blocked a bill to return their land. After the tribe sued to stop an immigration detention center, the White House vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have expanded Miccosukee land and environmental stewardship.

Grist

The Miccosukee Tribe blocked Alligator Alcatraz. Then Trump blocked a bill to return their land.

After the tribe sued to stop an immigration detention center, the White House vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have expanded Miccosukee land and...