With more money than most countries' militaries, ICE is running amok over Americans' rights
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Trump signed his heinous creation into law in an overly produced,
lavishly made-for-Fox-TV moment paid for by American tax dollars. On
the Fourth of July, cameras zooming in, Trump raised his sharpie,
perfectly choreographed to follow B2 bombers flying overhead in
formation, at a cost
to taxpayers of $2 million per.
Once again using the nation’s military as a political prop,
Trump’s high-res production team finally turned out the spectacle he’s been
craving since his military
parade became an international joke.
Trump got to perform his assault on America’s interests on America’s own
birthday, after he forced
his 950 page abomination of a bill down scared Republican throats. No
democrat in either chamber voted aye.
July 4 was the artificial deadline Trump imposed for
Congress to pass the bill, to guarantee that no
one would have time to read it before they voted for it. Dubbed
the cruelest
piece of legislation in US history, Trump’s monstrosity will:
- Remove
over $1 trillion from Medicaid, which will leave 12 to 14 million
Americans without health care;
- Extend
already unaffordable, damn-near-theft tax
cuts to wealthy Americans and corporations that don’t need them;
- Adjust
Medicaid payments forcing many
rural hospitals to close their doors;
- Slash Food
Stamps and food assistance for approximately
42 million Americans, including children and senior citizens; while
- Increasing
the already-bloated
federal deficit by $3.4 trillion, an unprecedented debt level many
economists consider dangerous.
Trump and his party are spending money like drunk sailors on
leave, dampening the economy with a deficit to GDP ratio that will affect
interest rates, bond markets, the strength of the US dollar, and the cost of
repaying the national debt owed to foreign governments, including,
primarily, China.
What about the political backlash, you ask? Too clever by
half, republicans delayed cuts to Medicaid until after the midterms to insulate
themselves from consequences.
Republicans just created an American police state
Even worse than the misery awaiting America’s poor and
working class, the bill specifically
funds a new and unprecedented American police state. Draped in
anti-immigrant language, the bill creates a standing army of masked ICE agents,
and funds enough of them to terrorize every city in the nation.
The
bill provides $45 billion to build new immigration detention centers, and a 265
percent annual budget increase to ICE’s current detention budget. This
funding level is a 62 percent larger budget than
the entire federal prison system, where 155,933
inmates are currently incarcerated, some of them for life. Trump will soon
spend more on ICE domestic apprehensions, transportation and detentions than most
nations spend on their entire military budgets.
Republicans are building a police state beyond the comprehension of most Americans. We’ve all seen the videos of ICE goons beating migrants in front of their children; any one of them could have been recruited from Trump’s applicant pool of pardoned felons. After Trump was somehow re-elected, he pardoned rioters who were convicted of violent felonies and assaults against police officers during Trump’s J6 uprising.
Here, he at least gets a nod for sinister
efficiency: J6 cultists who thrive on hate in service to Trump need something
to do. They were already armed and in search of political violence, why not
give ‘em an ICE badge? If they were recorded while beating capital police with
vigor, or carrying a noose for Mike Pence because he honored the Constitution
over Trump, all the better.
Trump’s $1 trillion defense budget will not end well
Trump now has $1 trillion—with a T— to spend on his defense
budget. Anyone wondering how he’s going to spend it, after shamefully
withholding military aid and weaponry Congress already approved for
Ukraine, should consider Pete Hegseth. Trump’s SecDef recently testified
before Congress and described how national defense, under Trump, is
transitioning from a force fighting foreign threats into a “domestic affair,”
testifying that,
“we’re entering another phase, especially under President
Trump with his focus on the homeland, where the National Guard and Reserves
become a critical component of how we secure that homeland.”
Juxtapose that promise over Trump telling reporters that the
worst threat to national security is ‘the
enemy within,’ ie, people who don’t support him, and it all comes into
view. Pan wide for Trump’s wet dream gulag agenda: ICE
facilities where migrants, political prisoners and journalists are baked
alive, guarded by reptiles, or denaturalized and deported.
Republicans have empowered a lunatic
With this bill’s passage, Trump has now been handed the most
heavily funded law enforcement agency in United States history.
This follows the Supreme Court making him the most unchecked
and unbridled president in our nation’s history, both by allowing him to break
criminal laws with broad impunity, and by blocking
nationwide injunction orders to stop him. The republican 6-3 majority
on SCOTUS has now permanently knee-capped federal judges who were doing their
best to stop Trump from doing his worst.
The criminally insane president they empowered wants masked
ICE goons and military
tanks on every city street, and Congress has just written him the check to
pay for it. Whether they accept or acknowledge their culpability or not,
Trump’s Supreme Court justices bear complete moral responsibility for the
crimes against humanity and suffering about to come.
Trump was barely elected; this was not a mandate
Despite Trump’s bluster, which Fox News repeats on the
nanosecond, Trump was not elected “by a mandate.” He eked out his win by
a margin
of only 1.5 percent over Harris, while 91 million voters were so disgusted by
the election, or so disillusioned, or so stoned, they didn’t bother to vote.
Trump’s bill was tied 50-50 in
the Senate and squeaked by with one vote when JD Vance voted to break the tie.
It passed by only two votes in the House. Polls show most Americans opposed
the bill now law, which suggests one of the following:
· Republicans in Congress assume Americans’ short
attention span and memory loss will save them; or
· They have faith in Trump’s spin machine to control the
narrative, presented 24/7 by Fox News, OAN, Newsmax and more than
1500 rightwing radio stations; or
· They know there won’t be any real mid-term elections.
If anyone doubted Trump’s death grip on the Republican
Party, the police state we’re embarking on will remove all doubt. Republicans
will now die with Trump, or democracy will die with them.
Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial
attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A
defense. Her Substack, The
Haake Take, is free.