Some of the escalations we're seeing, including the attack on Ilhan Omar's home (I will not pretend this act was "investigatory"), are desperate acts. But we must remember that desperate people can be very dangerous. A domestic abuse victim, for example, is in the most danger when trying to leave.

If you want to focus on the harm ICE is causing in our communities, and how you can interrupt it, you can find some great resources here:

Block It! — Interrupting Criminalization

A mini toolkit to take action to disrupt the ICE kidnapping, detention, and deportation machine. This online resource is an invitation to join efforts already in motion in your area and across the cou...

interruptingcriminalization.com

Novelist James Lee Burke writes about the fight against corruption, cruelty, and evil, locating much of it in "respectable" corporations, public/private institutions, and abusive families/relationships. In one Dave Robicheaux novel, he writes, "Is there a more disturbing sound than... (cont'd) 1/3

The administration's goal, openly stated, is to consolidate police power in the country and create a huge, well-funded, extremely aggrieved, pro-MAGA, anti-immigrant, anti-protestor police force the likes of which we have never seen in this country.

criminalization is the fuel of fascism.

jon ben-menachem@jbenmenachem.com · 11h ago

personally I think it is not great that the federal government is not only weaponizing the criminal legal system against political opponents, but citing as their justification a 4chan conspiracy theory

Can we be honest that so called 'wokeness' meant Black people demanding full social personhood and refusing to be silent about getting murdered/harmed by the state? So yes, that is more threatening to many in this country than is fascism. I think that's been clear.

Don Moynihan@donmoyn.bsky.social · 2d ago

If you only read the opinion journalism in elite media over the last decade, you would have been convinced that wokeness, not fascism, was the greatest threats to American society. Now some of those authors are retconning by trying to relabel fascism as "the woke right." bsky.app/profile/donm...

Gonna share @stschrader1.bsky.social's new book again because it is and will continue to be relevant. www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/stuar...

Blue Power

A history of police unions that reveals how American law enforcement built a political movement that made cops untouchable. “A tour de force ... Read it no...

hachettebookgroup.com

People getting mad about this probably don’t remember AEDPA, the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which passed the senate by 91-8, and the House 293-133, and was signed into law by Bill Clinton.

Liliana Segura@lilianasegura.bsky.social · 3d ago

One more thing about the death penalty before going offline. As disgusted as we should be by Trump's bloodlust, we should NOT lose sight of the CENTRAL role of Democrats in upholding, expanding, and enabling this system that seems to horrify so many people right now. It really cannot be said enough.

Most people in the USA have been very willing to allow a great deal of state violence so long as they do not need to witness or experience it regularly. MAGA has used this to push the limit of how much violence the USA will tolerate. There is no reason to think the escalation will stop.

The MS Supreme Court denied Lisa Jo Chamberlin, the only woman on MS Death Row, a rehearing today. My latest for @truthout.org : truthout.org/articles/mis...

Mississippi Is in Danger of Executing Woman on Death Row, Despite Key Evidence

Lisa Jo Chamberlin’s co-defendant confessed to coercing her into their crime. Will that be enough to stop her execution?

truthout.org

this country will not be transformed without addressing policing, prisons, surveillance and militarism. Sorry. Cannot get around it. The carceral socialists may make incremental progress but they will ALWAYS come up against state violence.

We are continuing our week of tributes to our beloved collaborator, costruggler, and friend Curtis Renee. This is video of Curtis in conversation with IC Co-founder Andrea J. Ritchie at the Detroit in-person launch of Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies.

Sickening. This administration thrives on death, cruelty, and fear.

Nathan Goldwag @goldwagnathan.bsky.social · 4d ago

Yes. And in the process, I urge people to eschew the politics of contempt. Despite the temptation to believe so, not all those who voted for T are reprehensible. There are so many varieties of T/MAGA supporters, a growing number of whom are expressing their regrets publicly and privately.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat@ruthbenghiat.bsky.social · 5d ago

One thing to tell anyone you know who’s part of MAGA: When you have people like Trump in office, you are paying for your own repression. It’s important for all of us to help people to connect the dots. More of my conversation with Wajahat Ali at Lucid.substack.com.

Ratcheting up public ceremonies of death – because that's what this administration thrives on, public displays of death and cruelty. Many others are likely to follow; Hegseth thinks this is a sign of strength and dominion. So do his cronies. ICE murders aren't enough.

Hegseth Wants Public to Watch First Firing Squad Execution Since WWII

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says Nidal Hasan’s execution should be watched by everyone.

newrepublic.com

Yes! And I strongly urge us all to eschew a politics of contempt for anyone who voted for T. We can help create space for those who are not die-hard racists, Nazis, and white Christian nationalists to come out of the fog of repression.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat@ruthbenghiat.bsky.social · 5d ago

One thing to tell anyone you know who’s part of MAGA: When you have people like Trump in office, you are paying for your own repression. It’s important for all of us to help people to connect the dots. More of my conversation with Wajahat Ali at Lucid.substack.com.

Everything we've been warning about for years re: policing is playing out globally.

In which the Ohio Democratic Party considers LGBTQ+ issues a harmful "distraction." #translives #transliberation

Arienne Childrey@ari4ohio.bsky.social · last wk.

Today, I resigned as Vice Chair of the ODP Pride Caucus. The state party expects us to be a sales team, censoring our voices when we beg candidates not to trade on trans lives. I am still a Democrat, but I will not value party approval over true, defiant advocacy. Full text below. 👇

Touting "trauma informed" prisons for the ladies just fills me with rage and irritation. truthout.org/articles/inc...

Incarcerated Women Are Pushing for Decarceration, Not “Trauma-Informed” Prisons

Organizers discuss how they are fighting new women’s prisons in Vermont, Massachusetts, and Illinois.

truthout.org

This is incredibly hard to hear—grateful for those who bear witness.

Bill Grueskin@bgrueskin.bsky.social · 2w ago

Nashville Banner reporter Steven Hale, describing how prison officials kept drawing the curtain to hide how badly they were botching this: “A lot of this execution — or attempted execution, whatever it was — happened when we could not see what was going on.”

“Fascism is geographically uneven. It is built with existing materials and maintained through existing relationships.”

The Disappearance Machine | Jack Norton

As I listened to Ahern in his small office, I was struck by how much he knew about, and how much time he spent thinking about, immigration detention. He was a competent and civic-minded public servant...

nplusonemag.com

The death penalty is a moral abomination. State-sanctioned barbarism pushed by incompetent morons and sanctioned by the Supreme Court. Absolute ghoul shit. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

A wrenching loss of a remarkable person. All respect.

Interrupting Criminalization@interruptcrim.bsky.social · 2w ago

IC joins many in grieving the loss of beloved costruggler Curtis Renee, who practiced abolitionist presents and futures with Detroit Safety Team, resisted criminalization and cultivated communities of care with BLM Detroit, supported Black migrants, and embodied Black trans and queer liberation. 🧵

They quoted me in this New Yorker piece about AI today. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

don’t turn my mailman into a cop, that sucks

Joseph Cox@josephcox.bsky.social · 2w ago

New: USPS is to put cameras in its trucks that continuously record. This is to gather data on roads, signage, and to improve "community safety," the agency tells me. The cameras are marketed to capture passing license plates too, but don't run ALPR software www.404media.co/usps-to-put-...

Amen. He enabled and supported police torture as mayor of Chicago. Activists fought for years - and successfully - to bring pilice torture to light and secure some reparations for some of the many incarcerated people who suffered from that torture.

Robert Reich@rbreich.bsky.social · 2w ago

I know Rahm Emanuel. I worked with him for years in the Clinton administration, and then when he was Obama’s chief of staff. Rahm Emanuel represents everything that’s been wrong about the Democratic Party for the last 30+ years. Be warned. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-rahm-bomb

We should understand this as an intentionally criminalizing move against queers. Along with other measures, it accelerates demolition of the framework of civil rights in order to replace it with processes of criminalization against groups that challenge supremacist governance.

Headquarters@headquartersnews.bsky.social · 2w ago

The Trump administration has formally rescinded Title IX protections for LGBTQ+ students nationwide.

Social media = surveillance hellscape; Internet = AI nightmare; & Signal threads = insecure! In the context of rising criminalization & authoritarianism, communities of resistance need to build our own communication networks! Join this half-day interactive skill share: bit.ly/infopowerskillshare

As an activist/former organizer who came of age in the time of COINTELPRO, I read this piece with great interest and commend it to you. It offers so many valuable insights.

Learning from COINTELPRO’s Survivors: Accountability and Repair - The Forge

For Watani Stiner, accountability for tragedy isn’t about who pulled the trigger, but how he contributed to a culture that made it possible. “Stiner,” a San Quentin Prison correctional officer yelled....

forgeorganizing.org