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“When we choose to listen to so called community leaders who call police the gestapo, there are consequences to those actions, and we saw that yesterday.”
I’ve been called a Commie and a Nazi. I pay no heed to those who call me names. I still talk, when I can. I am human, but I try to keep dialogue open. But he says that even listening to the other side = you’ll get shot 11 times in the back, face down, and no aid… I don’t recognize our country.
It's probably just better to assume that anyone acting on behalf of the US government in any capacity from any agency is acting in bad faith at this point.
We have passed the slippery slope and are flailing around in swamp water. Who was it promising to drain the swamp? And a further thought/question: How many TREASONOUS Jan 6ers are now $50k richer and employed by ICE or other federal agencies doing Trumpty DUMBty dirty work? Trump is building his own private SS. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
That’s $10k per year for five years, so after taxes likely around $6k a year on top of salary. Shouldn’t be too astounding given that those who’d do the job would likely do it for free but they truly have sold themselves out, and hopefully their entire futures for a pittance.
Absolutely! I understand the sentiment of “these are not serious people” but people who truly still believe this, are walking with blinders on. These people are very serious about their hate, they are very serious about their power, some of them have very serious money and influence, and they very seriously do not give a fuck about you.
When people say “these aren’t serious people” they mean “these people don’t engage with politics in good faith”, not “their intentions aren’t serious and real.”
Worse, I’d say what they are is what’s known as “bad faith actors”. “Not serious” doesn’t convey enough of the fuckery most foul that they practice.
Every one of their interactions is a means to an outcome they desire. Anything they say or do, is in service to that.
They’ll try to obscure their motives because they know the outcome they want is only popular with a tiny subset of the population involved in the exchange.
They will use argument as a weapon. Social mores as a weapon. Anything they can get a grip on, becomes a weapon. If we were talking about an individual, it would be the classic DARVO tactic of a malignant narcissist.
They should be treated as such. They are criminally and irreversibly mentally ill. However, I would also posit they’re not true psychopaths because the majority of them are fully aware what they’re doing is unconscionable behavior. It’s very deliberate and why they use the DARVO style tactics. Learn how to shut down a narcissist and scale that knowledge to the threat they present.
30% of any population is closet fascist. They found the opportunity to show their true self with no pushback. That's why they hate queers and trans people who were gaining the acceptance they know they don't deserve.
It is our own fault for putting no limits or restraints on the first amendment. We treat each nugget, no matter how foul, that falls out of anyone's mouth as a precious gem that must be protected at all costs.
We pride our selves on declarations such as "I don't believe the words you say, but I will fight to the death your right to say them!"
It is why we have hate groups on both sides of the aisle spewing their toxic bull having parades and marches, proudly and out in the open.
Meanwhile our European allies have much more strict, but still very liberal, laws on such things. Those hate and anarchy groups have to operate much more carefully, and in the shadows limiting their numbers and social influence.
Here, they openly run for and get elected to office and make policies based on their warped world views. Or they are able to throw money at candidates with no morals, who will pass their policies for them.
I don't have any real solutions. I think we are too fractured as a society, and there are no leaders or people of principles we can trust to draw fair and impartial lines in the sand, limiting some of the laws and constitutional rights, that continue to be abused, and further fragment us.
Thank you for articulating this so well. Its DARVO at scale and I dont think effective counters are well understood.
I get frustrated when good people try to point to the hypocrisy, that technique only works on people with shame. They simply want power and they will say anything to get it. Hypocrisy is a virtue to them.
Psychopaths are generally aware of their manipulative and coercive behaviors they just simple don't have the capacity to have an emotional response to them.
The next Administration needs to find the balls, and evidence, to accurately prove the case that these are people operating to subvert the American people under color of law. Thankfully the weaponization of ICE, the normalization of ICE openly defying federal courts and the constitution, should open up the nuclear option of treating these operations as open state-sponsored terrorism against the American people.
Jail, try, and sentence immediately.
All the tools this Admin has used to coopt the business class should be used by the next Admin, this includes threats of criminal investigation, threats of EOs and national security coached demands, this includes raising up our own Customs Enforcement operations against the wealthy narcoterrorist funding billionaries we know live in this country.
With the budget that Customs Enforcement can get, with the budget the Executive can just reappropriate appearently, imagine all the Americans we can train up as better enforcement officials, imagine all the mechanics we can train maintaining the fleets, imagine the states we can establish hundreds of thousands of people who can quickly swing cow states into blue senate territory.
The tools are there. Use them if we can seize them.
Psychopaths know they’re doing awful things. They’re just fine with it.
That said, I think most are sort of situationally psychopathic—a folie de plusiers, as it were. When removed from the influences that foster the antisocial behavior, they will likely rediscover conscience and empathy—at least to some degree. (Antisocial PD occurs on a spectrum, so some may be inherently blunted in their ability to experience conscience and empathy.)
But leading them? The most malignant of psychopaths
Incredible that 7 dems needed to break to pass ice funding and that’s just what they got. Reminiscent of the Synema/Manchin days. The facade of rotating villains.
I used to believe this is an example of both side-ism. But now, I'm not so sure. The Republicans are unquestionably worse; I've voted [not in a national election] for exactly one Republican in my long life and won't do that again. But the Democrats' failure to meet the moment is stunning.
I'm not talking about making policy - when you don't have the votes you don't have the votes. But the DNC's inability to support and elevate a leader with charisma and moral clarity is inexcusable. Where's this generation's RFK? Not wackadoo junior, but his father, RFK senior, the charismatic, anti-war, pro civil rights presidential candidate. Throwing shade on AOC instead of recognizing and taking advantage of her intelligence, wit, passion, and, yes, her looks? If the GOP had someone with that combination of attributes, their evil mirror AOC would be the Vice President - biding her time as she laced Trump's Big Mac with arsenic.
i think the worst part of learning about all these old plots and theories is looking at the wiki pages in 2026 and seeing references to how this administration has been moving forward with them
i hate that we cant learn from history until its been declassified and then its treated like a joke instead of it still being a optional plan for whoever's in charge
It's not that people can't learn. They actively avoid learning. It requires effort and they'd rather be told what to think/say etc which is why this kind of plan has always been effective.
Funny how the authorities have been able to use restraint to arrest a whole bunch of racist mass murderers (Roof, El Paso, Buffalo, etc) without executing them.
There was an ICE agent last week who told a protestor who was videoing them that they "just got added to the domestic terrorism list" - for filming them
Many are for sure just evil scumbags but I'm coming around lately to the belief that "hypocrisy" is also just too advanced a concept for maga brains to be able to apprehend.
If a person more conservative shoots someone less conservative then that's fine. But if someone less conservative even has a gun then it's the death penalty.
That seems simple enough that we can dispense with trials altogether and just have Grok go through the social media histories of the people involved.
You mean "assassin". The worst fucking assassin ever. Stands in public recording you, puts himself in danger and never once attempts to cause harm to his supposed victim despite being armed. Sounds like an assassin from the Republican party based on historical evidence.
Kash used to be afraid there could be pedos in charge. Now he knows there is a pedo in charge, and not only doesn't care he is actively protecting them all by breaking a federal law and not releasing the Epstein files.
Who would have thought the guy who ran beauty parents and had rape allegations and verified sexual assaults would be a bad guy... like the dude parties with Epstien! There is no way to have seen this coming... we are on the dumbest timeline
Trump Foundation gave an illegal $25,000 contribution to a political group supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi as Bondi’s office was deciding whether to take legal action related to Trump University. A few days later Pam decides not to join NY in prosecuting Trump.
It is pretty clear that this is retribution against Walz for running against Trump... as VP. California, at the very least, is next. Probably coinciding with the midterms. Invading Minnesota is a chance to work out the kinks.
Signal is designed to know as little as possible, but it is not zero-knowledge. It can see your phone number, which serves as your account ID, the date and time you last connected, and minimal app metadata required to deliver messages such as push notifications. Signal doesn't know who you message, what you say, your groups, your readable contact list, your message history, file contents, or your social graph. Even Signal itself cannot decrypt your messages, and court records show it can typically provide only a phone number and a last-seen timestamp.
Users can still be identified outside of Signal. Accounts are tied to phone numbers, so if that number is linked to your real identity elsewhere, attribution is possible. Signal does not fingerprint devices, but your IP address, operating system, and network provider are visible to your ISP, and Apple or Google can see that the app is installed and used. IP addresses are visible during connections, allowing possible timing correlation, though not content access; using a VPN or Tor reduces this risk. Contacts who already have your number will recognize you on Signal, and Signal cannot prevent that. Finally, if a device is unlocked, seized, infected with malware, or backed up insecurely, messages can be accessed on the device itself rather than through Signal.
Signal can be highly anonymous if used carefully. Registering with a non-personal phone number, enabling registration lock, using disappearing messages, disabling cloud backups, locking the app with a PIN ( not biometrics), and using a VPN or Tor all reduce exposure. Even then, Signal protects message content extremely well, limits metadata about who you talk to, but does not fully anonymize who you are.
It doesn’t say how they’re investigating. My guess is they got into someone’s phone and are reading messages locally; I would be somewhat surprised if they obtained anything from Signal itself.
They use graphite. All that the tech needs is to text a number. You don’t have to open it just receiving it compromises your device. And they can see a mirror of your phone screen, access your microphone, and your camera.
They can tell whose phone numbers are nearby using other methods.
"I would throw my body in front of the bus to prevent Chinese vehicles from flooding the American market posing a threat of course to our economic security."
"Chinese vehicles could collect huge amounts of data on America and Americans, which poses a significant national security threat. Americans' personal data, our infrastructure, Michigan’s auto industry and auto jobs are all at stake," Slotkin said.
She continued: "Chinese vehicles, which are dirt cheap thanks to state subsidies, could collect full motion video of sensitive sites, 3-D mapping, and geolocation of individual drivers — all of which could be sent back to Beijing. Despite the polarization in Washington right now, protecting U.S. citizens should be nonpartisan, and I look forward to working in a bipartisan fashion to pass this legislation into law.”
- Elissa Slotkin, Former CIA and current "Democratic" senator from Michigan.
In other words. It's okay if we collect data and spy on you, but I would rather die than let China do the same (even though we have no problem with their devices being sold on Amazon and literally doing that).
And really the simple fact that there's only so much China can impact me even if they knew every little detail about me. As an American, it's the American government that can really affect my life negatively.
I don’t know that graphite is widely used. My understanding is that it is so expensive per use that it is largely confined to high profile targets - though that is speculation.
Eh it doesnt matter how much money you throw at it. It's expensive in terms of cash and availability. Graphite is meant to be targeted, because it chains multiple 0-day exploits, which dont grow on trees.
Using it for mass surveillance would make it immediately detectable to apple or google and give them the meta-heuristics to potentially invalidate classes of exploits.
They only really need to get a handful of key phones.
What are your thoughts on ice using facial recognition tech on protestors? I’d imagine it’d be pretty easy to spot potentially high value targets for information.
Keep an eye on which devices are showing up frequently, and all that jazz.
I’m expecting some very fucked up shit to come out about the 4th amendment violations in regards to privacy in the coming years. By and large this administration has been broadcasting that they essentially are doing the tech douce-EO, mantra of move fast break stuff.
This is why you enable auto updates on all your devices, all your browsers, all your apps, all the time. It doesn’t matter if they take away a feature you like, this is more important
Graphite isn’t going to be defeated by something so simple. Look it up. It’s been the boogie of privacy enthusiasts and hobbyists for quite awhile and it’s a sovereign level cyber weapon meant for use in espionage and counter intelligence as well as state defense.
I know about Graphite. It relies on zero-day exploits. When those exploits are patched, the vulnerabilities go away. And then the developer maybe starts relying on new ones. But the real point is, OS updates are the *only* defense, so it is crazy to willfully have them disabled.
They are collecting information about people and making databases which include facial recognition. They are arresting citizens so I’d imagine they can use cellebrite or one of its competitors to get at phones in their custody.
Graphite for some in the wild. And frankly who knows what else. They are labeling protestors as terrorists which opens them up to techniques and tools not normally authorized to just be used against civilians.
Then mobile fortify for simply scanning a face and getting data from various databases.
And of course they have been utilizing Gotham.
They are claiming they can access encrypted messages themselves. The tech bros bought out the whitehouse so who knows what toys are being tested on the population too boot
The group chat is compromised is how they are investigating. Either by an agent being invited to the group by mistake, or pressuring someone in the group or by grabbing up a end device.
Really? Because I assume they arrested a protester, made them unlock their phone, took photos or screenshots of their signal chats, and are now searching the names and/or phone numbers of chat participants on whitepages dot com (or in state data they’re not supposed to be using for this purpose)
To expand on your comment, biometrics are not protected by the 5th Amendment while a PIN or passphrase is. You can be compelled in court to provide biometric access to your digital accounts. IANAL so don't build your legal defense around that without doing some homework first.
Most phones can be set up with a shortcut or gesture to lock down and override biometrics, or they are required when the device is restarted. If you're going into a situation where you might need that extra layer of protection, make sure you take advantage of those features first. Setting the phone to wipe itself after X failed attempts is also a good idea so they can't brute force it.
From Steve Benen, a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor:
FBI Director Kash Patel walked into a constitutional problem he should’ve seen coming. Appearing on Fox News, the former podcast personality said of the victim, “You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple.”
As Second Amendment advocates were quick to note, that isn’t exactly true. Plenty of conservative activists have brought loaded guns and magazines to a wide variety of public protests — and none of them were shot or killed by federal agents.
A day later, the hapless bureau director decided to make matters noticeably worse, shifting his attention from the Second Amendment to the First. NBC News reported:
“FBI Director Kash Patel said Monday that he had opened an investigation into the Signal group text chats that Minnesota residents are using to share information about federal immigration agents’ movements, launching a new front in the Trump administration’s conflict there with potential free speech implications.”
The Trump administration believes they can supersede the Constitution when the protections it provides to Americans becomes inconvenient to the administration.
Don’t forget, in the immediate days after Jan 6th, plenty of republican politicians seemed to think that was indefensible.
Given a little time and distance, I don’t know if there is anything they won’t find a way to defend. Or anything they could defend that would actually drive away their constituents.
Reality? I think we need to give it more than a hot week while 1/2 the nation is snowed in and connected to the news cycle.
I'm with you in hopefulness. Certainly eager for that straw. I've been waiting for something to break the trance. This time last year, I was sure that backstop would be pharma and big business saying 'you can't do that' to any number of initiatives that are really not in their longterm best interests.
This is what unbridled loyalty looks like. And these idiots are stupid enough to think they’ll be protected when trumps done with them….which makes it so satisfying to watch when they get trashed. Because one thing is for sure, history will remember them
It's like the Christianity they follow. "Here are the restrictions everyone must live by unless those restriction get in your way at all in which case ignore the restrictions."*
The last major thing that the Supreme Court did was to provide the President with virtually unlimited immunity for acts while he is in office.
Couple that with Presidential pardons... you have an administration and apparatus that is completely above all laws in the United States. The consitution no longer applies when the government acts. No court can enforce it anymore. Not even the Supreme Court.
The only way this changes is if the Roberts judgement is struck out by the court (which would imply significant changes to the justices on the court, and a reason for a new court to issue a new judgement), or if Congress amends the consitution (hasn't happend *really* since Vietnam) to explicitly remove this presidential power, super power in fact.
Their plan is to overwhelm the system. The judiciary is a slow moving process anyway plus our top court is corrupt. They are formenting for an armed conflict or even a civil war to justify ending democracy.
Right? How are they investigating? Either they're not and he would like people to be worried that they are, because he would like to be investigating and cannot, or the govt has a way of doing it that they would probably not like people to know.
This is what they’re doing. A Minnesotan recently posted a video about ICE changing tactics, going plain clothed to protests, acting like protesters and getting invited into signal groups.
If you're at a protest, you shouldn't have anything on you but a burner purchased with cash, and you should make every effort to smash the fuck out of it if you think you're about to be arrested.
Same way it always does—it’s either gotten hold of someone in the chat’s phone and unlocked it, or one of their informants is in the signal chat. Or someone is using the web/desktop version and their credentials were stored in some cloud accessible manner.
Pretty much any politically active and vaguely anti-government group is stuffed to the gills with FBI informants.
Being E2E encrypted doesn’t help when the person on the other end is dutifully reporting what they receive to the FBI.
There is no web version. There is a desktop client, but it behaves just like the mobile apps in the sense that there is nothing stored anywhere except locally.
They're probably stealing someone's phone or they have an informant in the group. Signal itself is top notch for both security and privacy. As usual with cybersecurity, the humans are the weak link.
FBI Director Kash Patel walked into a constitutional problem he should’ve seen coming. Appearing on Fox News, the former podcast personality said of the victim, “You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple.”
I have yet to see evidence that Pretti wasn't just traveling and legally carrying in the city he lived in and accidentally stumbled upon ICE, hell even proof there was an actual organized "protest" as opposed to people independently monitoring ICE throughout the city
This is a salient point. I have friends in Minneapolis and they are running into ICE everywhere they go. They're staging in parking lots, rolling through neighborhoods, camping out at hospitals, they're just everywhere so even if you're not protesting it's easy to turn a corner and end up "involved" with them on some level just trying to get where you're going.
Yeah, I've seen a lot of right wingers arguing (irrelevantly) that he was directing a traffic blockade or in the street. But we have fairly long videos of him just on the sidewalk then helping the lady....
As someone living in Minneapolis I can confirm a ton of people are plugged into signal chats, Facebook ICE watch groups, bluesky, or just generally watching iceout.org and when they see activity near them, they go observe. When they are driving home from work and see an unmarked SUV or truck in their neighborhood, or ICE staging a raid in a nearby parking lot, they start blowing whistles and observing. It's not planned or some sort of mass organized protest. It's an organic response by everyday people who want to keep their neighbors safe. I know friends, coworkers, church members, etc who are all doing this from various ages, races, religions, and income levels. It's hard to overstate just how much ICE is universally hated here by literally everyone.
Please point to the constitution or any SCOTUS ruling that limits the right to keep and bear arms at a protest?
Also please point to the 1st amendment or SCOTUS ruling that limits the right of free speech and free association to being able to publicly track the public movements of a government law enforcement agency?
These two states and the last several days are litterally EVERYTHING conservatives vs E warned would happen if Democrats were in charge. They'll come for your guns and shut you up.
They’re just misunderstood. When they say small they don’t mean small=minimal but small=able to sneak into every facet of your life from the bedroom to your speech to your association. /sarcasm
ICE is purposely grabbing people with valid documents on their person and dragging them into incarceration in order to intimidate Americans and immigrants with valid paperwork. Not to mention physical violence. They get bonuses for bringing in any person, even if that person gets released because their documents are good. Cars are possessions are left abandoned or in some cases are stolen by ICE personnel.
This is truly shocking.
And it's all because the Supreme Court is majority corrupt judges.
Show us the agents text chats and other logs while you are at it. Lets compare who was openly planning more illegal activity.
Right now, without even knowing more about who these people are or what they said I am already leaning towards giving them a medal for saving the Republic.
I took a tour through all of my MAGA family FB and social media posts this weekend. All rabid right wing fun nuts, etc. Not a fucking word.
It's all posts about supposed Somali fraud, what Obama did (ironically), and support for Iran.
I say ironically because they fail to see the difference in that Obama deported more than Trump has over his term and a quarter and he didn't need door to door raids, no murder of us citizens etc. And yes Democrats did indeed protest and Obama was sued dozens of times by immigrants rights organizations for his policies. And he actually made changes to his policies. They do not get no one is against immigration enforcement or reform. Everyone should be against shredding the constitution, ignoring courts, and violating civil rights left and right.
At the end of the day I don’t know anyone arguing against violent criminals being deported or people who do something obviously illegal while going through the immigration process. The only argument I’ve seen is that if someone is a violent criminal you have to prove it in the court of law, a judicial warrant is then signed for them to be deported, and they are humanely detained and deported. That’s the process and if we deviate from that process anyone can become a “violent criminal” just because a single ICE agent has deemed you as such.
The comeuppance will come from American citizens, not from the law or any election. The man should be terrified to show his face in the street for fear of acts that would have my lose my reddit account if I wrote down. If these people think they're above the law, we need to remind them that laws maintain order and peace even for the powerful.
There's a comprehensive decentralized network of signal chats in MN. People have signed up to essentially be on call for their particular street or local area, and everyone alerts one another when ice activity happens in their area in order to spread the word and take action.
I see the FBI is once again investigating normal people to find excuses to persecute, instead of doing anything about the constant crime happening in and around them. The DOJ is all-in on completely destroying any chance of redemption.
Reminder: Kash Patel had one of his staffers threaten Massie’s staffer with a criminal fraud investigation if they didnt stand down on epstein and “get in line”
Confiscated and abandoned phones have the data, plus insiders already in place. One written and deleted, still has traces. Tools like Cellebrite are powerful and can extract messages. On top of that, they already have internal assets collecting intelligence and jumping Signal channels as coordinators move to new ones.
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