Show Us Your Papers

Avatar photoby

They want IDs.

We want files.

Attribution: Distraction not working for Trump by Michael de Adder, CagleCartoons.com

[Michael de Adder was a political cartoonist for various publications in Canada and the USA. His work has appeared in just about every newspaper in Canada. In 2020 he was awarded the Herblock Prize for editorial cartooning. Michael is a two time winner of Canada’s National Newspaper Award.\

💬 Add your voice: Comment on today’s post
Share

91 thoughts on “Show Us Your Papers”

  1. https://www.commondreams.org/news/kristi-noem-ice-minneapolis

    ‘This Is Just a Lie’: Kristi Noem Denies ICE Is Using Show-Me-Your-Papers Tactics in Minnesota
    “If you’re Black or brown, Kristi Noem thinks it’s fine to stop you, cuff you, and demand proof you’re American.”

    US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday was called out for making a blatantly false claim about whether federal immigration agents are arbitrarily demanding that Minnesota residents provide evidence of their legal status.
    While speaking with reporters outside the White House, Noem was asked about videos that have emerged from Minneapolis showing federal agents asking passersby to give proof of citizenship.
    “Is that targeted enforcement and are you advising Americans to carry proof of citizenship?” a reporter asked Noem.
    “In every situation we are doing targeted enforcement,” Noem said. “If we are on a target and doing an operation, there may be individuals surrounding that criminal that we may be asking who they are and why they’re there, and having them validate their identity. That’s what we’ve always done.”
    In reality, there have been multiple alleged instances of federal agents asking Minneapolis residents for proof of citizenship that were completely unrelated to any “targeted” enforcement operation.
    A lawsuit filed by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Monday documented numerous such instances, including one where federal agents surrounded and questioned a driver at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport about his citizenship, and another where US Department of Homeland Security agents approached a team of Minneapolis Public Works employees and questioned them on their citizenship.
    A Monday report from the St. Paul Pioneer Press, meanwhile, quoted a St. Paul resident who said federal agents knocked on her door and asked her to help them “identify Hmong and Asian households” in her neighborhood.
    Given the extensive evidence of federal agents hounding Minnesotans for proof of their citizenship, many critics were quick to call out Noem for dishonesty.
    “This is just a lie,” wrote Democratic strategist Matt McDermott in a social media post. “There has been extensive reporting on ICE doing random door-to-door neighborhood patrols looking for anyone who is not white.”
    NPR reporter Sergio Martínez-Beltrán countered Noem’s claims by describing an incident he saw first-hand.
    “A few days ago, I witnessed how immigration agents stopped at a parking lot and asked drivers charging their electric cars for proof of citizenship or legal status,” he explained.
    Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said that Noem’s claims were false not just in the context of Minneapolis, but of other US cities as well.
    “In Los Angeles, for example, DHS officers outright admitted to doing ‘roving patrols,’ which are NOT targeted,” he explained.
    Another first-hand account was given by Dan Mihalopoulos, an investigative reporter at Chicago-based public radio station WBEZ.
    “Last month, I saw Border Patrol roll up to random Asians in the parking lot of a Costco in Illinois asking if they are citizens,” he said. “They backed off a woman who spoke English without an accent. But a Chinese shopper had to show his green card to agents.”
    Democrats on the US House Homeland Security Committee accused Noem of supporting racial profiling by law enforcement.
    “If you’re Black or brown, Kristi Noem thinks it’s fine to stop you, cuff you, and demand proof you’re American,” they wrote. “Republicans support racial profiling. They want it in your neighborhood.”

  2. https://thehill.com/

    Podcaster Joe Rogan voiced sympathy with Americans who have expressed anger and frustration at the way President Trump’s administration has conducted immigration enforcement during his first year in office.

    “You don’t want militarized people in the streets just roaming around, snatching up people — many of which turn out to be U.S. citizens that just don’t have their papers on them,” Rogan said on Tuesday’s episode of his podcast, likely referring to the president’s deployment of National Guard soldiers to aid in the crackdown.

    He added, “Are we really gonna be the Gestapo, ‘Where’s your papers?’ Is that what we’ve come to?”

  3. about those OTHER papers, a note from Craig last night:

    The DOJ faces a critical deadline Friday as a judge demands an explanation for why only 1% of the Epstein file have been released, threatens to take over from the Department of Justice.

    Join us at 11am ET to break it down on Cam, Mic or Keyboard.. ELEVEN TO NOON

    Rep. Ro Khanna explains ➡️


  5. We’re learning more about what it takes to become an ICE officer, Greenland’s diplomatic delegation needed a smoke break after meeting with Vance and Rubio, and the parties at Mar-a-Lago keep getting weirder.

  6. in the “gag me with a spoon” sense news yesterday

    https://www.msn.com/

    Grinning Trump grabs Nobel Peace Prize he did not win

    A gleeful Donald Trump has been pictured grasping a second-hand Nobel Peace Prize gifted to the president after months of moaning about not winning one.
    The 79-year-old happily received the award from its actual recipient, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, during a handover at the White House on Thursday.
    “I presented the president of the United States the medal, the Nobel Peace Prize,” Machado said after the gesture.
    Machado had Trumpified her award, mounting it in a gold frame to match the Oval Office decor and added an inscription which flattered the president’s ego.
    “To President Donald J. Trump. In gratitude for your extraordinary leadership in promoting peace through strength, advancing diplomacy, and defending liberty and prosperity,” it read.
    Calling the offloaded medal “a personal symbol of gratitude on behalf of the Venezuelan people” after the U.S. military seized President Nicolás Maduro during a late-night raid on Jan. 3.
    “The courage of America, and its President Donald J. Trump, will never be forgotten by the Venezuelan people.”
    Conservative Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize in October for her struggle to rescue Venezuela from its fate as “a brutal, authoritarian state”.
    Days after her win, she publicly stated that she was happy to give the prize to Trump.
    After their meeting, Trump posted on Truth Social that Machado is a “wonderful woman” and said she “presented me with her Nobel Peace Prize for the work I have done. Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect. Thank you María!”
    However the handover of the award is merely symbolic. A Nobel Institute spokesperson previously told the Daily Beast: “A Nobel Prize can neither be revoked nor transferred to others. Once the announcement of the laureate(s) has been made, the decision stands for all time. As for the prize money, the laureate(s) are free to dispose of it as they see fit.”
    The Daily Beast has contacted the White House to confirm if Trump plans to keep Machado’s award.
    Machado spent around two and a half hours at the White House, including having a private lunch with Trump. She was photographed leaving the White House with a gift bag featuring the president’s signature.
    […]
    Speaking on Anderson Cooper 360, Maggie Haberman of The New York Times said Trump was “very happy” with the meeting with Machado where she presented him with her prize.
    “It was cordial,” Haberman said, but noted “it doesn’t change much.”
    Haberman said Machado is “not incredibly highly thought of” by people around Trump.
    “I don‘t think giving him the peace prize is going to change that,” she said. “It does, however, mean that he might not criticize her, and that could end up having some effect in the longer term about possible elections and what it could look like.”

  7. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/15/aclu-lawsuit-ice-minnesota-trump

    The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, accusing federal immigration authorities in Minnesota of racial profiling and unlawful arrests amid widespread Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.

    In a 72-page lawsuit filed on Thursday on behalf of three community members who are all US citizens, the ACLU accused federal immigration agents of violating citizens’ constitutional rights, arguing that Somali and Latino communities in the state have been disproportionately targeted.

    Naming the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its secretary, Kristi Noem, as defendants, along with several other Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers, the lawsuit points to what it describes as a “startling pattern of abuse spearheaded by the Department of Homeland Security … that is fundamentally altering civic life in the Twin Cities and the state of Minnesota”.

    “Masked federal agents in the thousands are violently stopping and arresting countless Minnesotans based on nothing more than their race and perceived ethnicity irrespective of their citizenship or immigration status, or their personal circumstances. At the center of DHS’s campaign are Somali and Latino people, who are being targeted for stops and arrests based on racial profiling motivated by prejudice,” the lawsuit said.

    It added: “DHS’s crude dragnet ensnares non-citizens, including individuals with immigration status, without warrants or any lawful basis for arrest. And its discriminatory practices also sweep in numerous US citizens in the process, shackling them and scanning their faces while ignoring documentation of US citizenship.”
    [continues]

  8. These are the arrests you’re not seeing

    Minnesota Reformer
    These are the arrests you’re not seeing

    …an untold number of immigrants, like the man in the bus shelter, have been arrested without the whistles and cameras — plucked out of their lives in an instant.

    “Moments like this ultimately and quietly change how safe people, including myself, feel in their own neighborhoods,” said Garrett Gundy, whose home security camera captured the arrest.

    …with the surge in federal officers arriving in the Twin Cities, ICE arrests have become quicker as agents avoid drawing a crowd.

    *Coming soon, to a neighborhood near you

    The “worst of the worst” that DHS was talking about in these raids are the ICE goons.

    What’s happening to their personal property? I saw one video where a goon actually took the wallet, not the ID.


  10. It is Friday, which means we are live from ELEVEN TO NOON ET today.    We’ll be breaking down the Minnesota standoff, another DOJ deadline for the Epstein files, and some big news for our little channel. Join the chat or listen live here:
    https://trailmix.cc/home/chatroom/

    What America is Clicking January 16, 2026

    1. Immigration: Trump threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy troops in Minnesota amid escalating ICE protests.
      The Guardian
    2. Diplomacy: Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado presents Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize medal during a White House meeting.
      CTV News
    3. Justice: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell clashes with prosecutors over a criminal probe into HQ renovations.
      The Washington Post
    4. Media: The FBI raids the home of a Washington Post reporter in a “highly unusual and aggressive” move.
      The Guardian
    5. Arctic: European troops arrive in Greenland to show support as talks with the U.S. highlight fundamental disagreements.
      AP News
    6. Middle East: The U.S. lowers the security alert at its Qatar air base as fears of an immediate conflict with Iran ease.
      The Guardian
    7. Health: The Trump administration reverses sudden cuts to $2 billion in mental health and addiction treatment grants after public outcry.
      CBS News
    8. World: South Korea sentences former President Yoon Suk Yeol to five years in prison for charges related to his martial law decree.
      CTV News
    9. Climate: New reports confirm 2025 was the third hottest year on record, pushing Earth past critical warming marks.
      CBS 8
    10. Animals: A 550lb black bear that was evicted from a California crawl space tries to move back in but is thwarted by an electric mat.
      The Guardian

    – Silas

    P.S. We have some news from our YouTube site: Trail Mix Live just crossed 5,000 subscribers!
    It turns out unfancy opinions have a bigger audience than we thought. If you just wandered in from the algorithm, thank you for pulling up a chair. Stay a while.

  11. Globes, Rings, and Planes. Machado gave him the Nobel. Kimmel offered him an Emmy. Would someone care to donate an Oscar? How many toys does it take to get Donny Doofus to leave?

  13. Is Tim Walz between a rock and a hard place with the NG?

    If Walz calls them up to protect civilians from ICE, and Orange Adolf calls up regular military (Insurrection Act) to do what…?

    Doesn’t calling up the NG first make Adolf look even more like Russia, er, like the aggressor?

    There will be no midterms based on Adolf’s latest threat. He doesn’t want to go to jail. Those EPSTEIN files must really be something. (Those boxes of files in his bathroom at MAL, were some of them about Adolf and the bestie he would eventually have unalived?)

  14. MN is being assaulted by the federal govt, it’s civil war

    that “fraud scandal” was a part of a coordinated attack

  16. I agree with uou Anon. Sorry to see the first judge ruled against MN injunction request (for now), but that’s how the national guard cases also started, and he eventually lost at the Supreme Court.

  17. ‘He who dies with the most toys (or awards, earned it not) wins.’
    The caveat: still dead, no matter how many expensive or shiny things you earn or steal.

    It’s the same thing that scares the techbros billionaires. They are disconnected from the natural world. They think they are better than it. They think they can subdue it. “What fools these mortals be.”

  19. Didn’t Putin steal a super bowl ring, or something like that?

    pocketed Bob Kraft’s and walked away with it iirc

    Bullies just like stealing other people’s shit

  23. It seems the only thing they learn is how to get re-elected.
    But Collins from Maine is in the running.
    And Mancy Mace.

    (Yeah, some typos you just leave ‘em)

    There are just too many candidates for Dumbest American Human….the post would be very long. Schumer would be on it. And Hawley, Markwayne, and Cotton.

    The list goes ever on and on…..

    And everyone has forgotten about Palin since she got old and wrinkly.

  25. And if it’s Friday, there must be a judge somewhere calling the Dumbass administration the spade that it is. WaPo

    Trump Cabinet Secretaries Conspired to Violate Constitution, Judge Says

    “The Cabinet secretaries and ostensibly, the president of the United States, are not honoring the First Amendment,” U.S. District Judge William Young declared.

    By Joanna Slater
    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.”

    Thursday evening, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said via email that “it’s bizarre that this judge is broadcasting his intent to engage in left-wing activism against the democratically-elected President of the United States.”

    Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, said in an email that “there is no room in the United States for the rest of the world’s terrorist sympathizers.” A spokesperson for Rubio did not respond to a request for comment.

    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 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.

    […]

    A Reagan-appointed judge (one of the many left-wing judges Reagan so famously appointed to the federal bench) says the obvious and explains that what we’re all seeing is what we’re all seeing. While I disagree with much of what the students who were arrested were saying (or at least what was reported about their positions), short of some limited exceptions, the First Amendment protects speech no matter the content or viewpoint and I hope SCROTUS grows one and sides with the First Amendment when this one winds its way up to them, but I’m not stupid and don’t expect them to.

  27. So that was just so much bullshit about keeping and bearing arms to protect yourselves against roving bands of masked government marauders.

  29. Hi everyone…. thanks for the well wishes!
    good news. Rick needed 2 stents which were put in late yesterday afternoon. He’s coming home sometime today.

    Craig… Putin stole one of Bob Kraft’s Patriots Super Bowl rings.

  32. And yet another loss in court for the Dumbass Administration. WaPo

    Judge blocks Trump administration from getting California’s voter rolls

    The Justice Department doesn’t have the authority to use civil rights and voting laws to obtain voter lists, a judge rules, in a decision that could influence cases in other states.

    By Patrick Marley

    A federal judge on Thursday rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to obtain California’s voter rolls, delivering a setback to President Donald Trump’s administration as it seeks to gather private information on millions of voters.

    The Justice Department last year took the unusual step of asking states to provide copies of their lists of voters, which include names, addresses, partial Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers and other information. Most states resisted, and the administration filed separate lawsuits against 23 states and Washington, D.C.

    The judge in the California case, David O. Carter, is the first to issue a ruling, and his decision could influence courts in other states. He found the administration had no authority to use federal civil rights and voting laws to gain the voter lists.

    The administration is attempting to “amass and retain an unprecedented amount of confidential voter data” covering 23 million people, according to Carter, who was appointed to the bench in the Central District of California by President Bill Clinton.

    “The centralization of this information by the federal government would have a chilling effect on voter registration which would inevitably lead to decreasing voter turnout as voters fear that their information is being used for some inappropriate or unlawful purpose,” Carter wrote. “This risk threatens the right to vote which is the cornerstone of American democracy,” the judge added.

    Carter spent much of his 33-page decision harking back to the long fight for voting rights and warning that democracy faces threats that can chip away at it “until there is nothing left.”

    The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment or say whether it planned to appeal. The department has said 10 states have provided their complete voter lists or agreed to do so, while others fend off the effort.

    “This decision serves as a vindication of what states have been arguing for months: There is no legal basis for the federal government’s sweeping demands for voters’ most sensitive information,” said Dax Goldstein, the election protection director at the States United Democracy Center.

    The decision came a day after a federal judge in Oregon said he had a “tentative” plan to rule against the administration in its request to get the voter rolls in that state. He said he would issue a binding ruling soon.

    Just an FYI – with only 12 comments to the article, only 2 of the 12 believe DumbassCo should be entitled to the voter rolls – low even for Trump. Maybe the RW apologists who comment at WaPo haven’t waked up yet.

  33. Poobah, well, carry the water for the Constitution supporters. I’ve got an appointment at 11:00 and won’t even be able to listen discretely.

    Renee, that’s great news. Glad Rick’s doing well.

    Stur… exactly (on both counts).

  34. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said the administration needs to be “very careful” to lower the potential for conflict with local communities during ICE law enforcement operations.
    “I have felt that since the fatal shooting [of Good] a week or so ago that we needed to be very, very careful, very cautious in how we proceed, not only in Minnesota but in other areas, to keep the conflict, the potential for conflict as it relates to ICE enforcement dialed back,” she said

    -the Hill

    like i said…

  35. Good to know, Renee. Relieved to know Rick is doing well. Mr. Ivy’s had his for a month now and going strong, back to cardio rehab twice a week. ❤️

  36. The word went out: Insane.

    Give it a name.

    Yes Lisa, let us be very very very really really careful as we confront the
    Federally-sponsored clinical insanity.

  39. certainly plausible she is just playing dumb with her assigned role being to make it seem like there are some reasonable Republicans left

  40. The folks in a nearby town have (bravely) been flying a Harris/Walz flag since 2024.

    Today, a new flag flies: DEFEND DEMOCRACY

    Will any of the tRUMPers in that little town get it?

  41. They all say they were threatened, and maybe they were, but Murkowski was up in a state with some lowlife-insider before that. Shaky Sue always goes from one side to the other.

    Ask yourselves, have any of them now claiming to be threatened (primaried -exposed for something- physically-) ever done anything in the interest of non-wealthy constituents?

    If the threats are physical, they are coming from inside the house. They should’ve done something after J6.

  43. Closest I ever got to Willie was I played a joint in Evergreen, Coloraydo where Willie had carved his name on the bar when he had lived up near there. I didn’t carve my name on the bar.

    That was also where I almost drove my 1970 Olds 98 off the cliff at Mr and Mrs McGraw’s house.

  45. just watched what appeared to be an ICE goon arrest a guy for crossing the street and being off-white

    yes, I recorded some of it, but I wasn’t quick enough so I will have to get better at that

  47. We celebrated 5,000 subscribers by discussing homicide rulings at the border and the strategic annexation of Greenland.

    Today in the Diner:     The DOJ stalls on Epstein, a federal judge slams ICE, and I share a personal story about Jimmy Carter and Willie Nelson crying together in Norway.

    TODAY”S RUNDOWN (Timestamps are clickable on YouTube page)
    00:00 Intro & 5,000 Subscribers
    02:35 ICE Tactics, Flashbangs & Legal Rulings
    07:15 Debunking the China Bounty Rumors
    12:10 DOJ Stalling on Epstein Files
    14:20 The Strategic Case for Greenland Statehood
    18:15 Jean Smart & Hollywood Speaking Out
    20:45 My Story: Jimmy Carter & Willie Nelson
    25:00 Katharine Hepburn’s Warning on Fascism

    Watch the full stream ➡️

  48. Q. Who will be the first to accuse him outright of being insane?
    And keep repeating it everywhere?

    A. The next president.

  49. New Texas poll finds Talarico leading Crockett by 9 points in Senate Democratic primary

    A new poll of Texas’ Senate primaries shows state Rep. James Talarico leading U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett by 9 percentage points among likely Democratic voters, marking a significant shift from a December survey that found Crockett leading by a similar margin.

    In a sample of 413 statewide voters conducted earlier this week, Talarico, D-Austin, led Crockett, D-Dallas, with 47% to 38%. Another 15% were undecided ahead of the March 3 primary.

    The poll, conducted by Emerson College, comes about a month after a Texas Southern University survey found Crockett leading by an 8-point margin. The TSU poll was conducted in the days after Crockett’s last-minute entry into the Democratic primary.

    In both polls, Talarico leads among Latino and white voters, while Crockett has overwhelming support among Black voters.

    The 17-point swing toward Talarico between the TSU and Emerson polls largely stemmed from his expanded lead with men, Latino voters and white voters, and from Crockett’s narrower lead with women and older Democratic voters.

    On the Republican side, the poll shows Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn locked in a close race that is likely to head to a runoff, with neither able to garner even 30% of the vote. If no candidate reaches 50% in the March election, the contest will be decided by a May runoff between the top two finishers.

    No Senate GOP candidate has come close to majority support in recent public polls.

    The result is largely unchanged from when Emerson polled the Senate GOP primary in August, before Hunt entered the race, and found Cornyn leading Paxton, 30% to 29%. In between those two surveys, Cornyn allies have poured over $40 million into advertising to bolster the senior senator’s image. Paxton, meanwhile, has barely spent.

    In head-to-head matchups measured by the poll, both Cornyn and Hunt lead Crockett by 5 percentage points and Talarico by 3 points.

    The Emerson poll also adds fuel to the longstanding argument, advanced by Cornyn and his allies, that Paxton would put Texas’ Senate seat in danger for Republicans — or, at the very least, force the party to spend money in Texas that would otherwise be used in traditional battleground states.

    Paxton is tied with either Democrat, 46% to 46%, in hypothetical matchups polled by Emerson.

    Elsewhere on the ballot, the survey found Texas Gov. Greg Abbott leading Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, 50% to 42%, in his bid for a fourth term.

  50. Texas A&M abruptly cancels ethics course over race, gender policy

    Texas A&M University canceled a graduate ethics course three days after the semester began, saying Professor Leonard Bright did not provide enough information to let administrators determine if the course meets new standards for discussing race and gender.

    Bright disputes that characterization.

    The decision is distinct from earlier course changes at Texas A&M as the class had already met once before administrators canceled it.

    In a schoolwide email explaining the decision Wednesday, Bush School Dean John Sherman said system policy required the cancellation because Bright declined repeated requests to provide information on his planned instruction. Without that, Sherman said, administrators could not comply with system policy that bars courses from advocating race or gender ideology or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity.

    Courses that venture into those topics require an exemption from top university officials.

    In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Bright said he made clear that issues of race, gender and sexuality would arise throughout the course, rather than on specific days that he could share in advance.

    “I told them it was going to come up every day,” Bright said. “During discussions, book reviews, case studies, throughout the course. There is no one day. That’s how this class works.”

    According to the syllabus, Bright’s Ethics and Public Policy (PSAA 642) would examine how race, gender, religion, sexual orientation and other social identities shape public policy and the ethical responsibilities of public servants.

  51. The only possible explanation for what our government is doing here and around the world is:

    Insanity.

    Give it a name.
    —Elmore Leonard

  53. Blue,

    My uncle was at AiResearch on Sepulveda. He never talked about it that much but he was a radio man in the African and Italian campaigns during WW II. I just updated a whole article on him that I put up on my current blog. He was a fascinating man and very much part of the whole “Greatest Generation” who just did their duty and came home.

    Big Red One

  54. On today’s show we watched this clip from Keeper of the Flame (1942):

    “They called it Americanism, not fascism. A few private individuals bankrolled it, seeking power they couldn’t win democratically”

  55. Today, I’ve called my 3 members of Congress, plus John Thune. Please call at least one, congressional N&zi or weakling and remind them that they are responsible for this mayhem, and that a dictator does not need legislators; they are just placeholders if they don’t act now: 202-224-3121. I’m begging everyone reading this to call at least one congressperson today. It’s a way to protest without ever leaving home. Thanks!

  57. Random Googling:
    Arrogance and Hubris

    Curiositous—copied from the googler stuff.

    Hubris and arrogance are related traits involving excessive pride and self-importance, but hubris, from ancient Greek, implies a dangerous, world-defying overconfidence that ignores limits and invites downfall, while arrogance often focuses more on a disdainful, condescending attitude towards others, asserting superiority with rudeness. Hubris is an overestimation of one’s own abilities or importance leading to foolish actions, whereas arrogance is often characterized as looking down on or belittling others, shutting down dialogue.

  59. Corey – Sad, but true.

    Jamie – I’m pretty sure my great-uncle served in Italy. They may have crossed paths in California.

  60. https://www.businessinsider.com/godfather-of-doge-peter-thiel-elon-musk-government-funding-cuts-2025-2

    Sure, Project 2025 drafted the blueprint for Donald Trump’s war on government. Yes, Elon Musk is targeting federal workers with the same chopping-block zeal he brought to Twitter. But Thielism predates all that.

    Way back in 2009 — right after Barack Obama took office, back when serious thinkers were solemnly prophesying the end of both racism and the Republican Party — Thiel wrote an essay for the Cato Institute titled “The Education of a Libertarian.” In it, he laid out almost everything that Trump and his followers are putting into practice today. It’s all there: the wholesale gutting of government agencies, the attempt to erase diversity from the historical record, the ratcheting back of regulations and public aid, even the obsessive love affair with cryptocurrencies. Thiel’s essay “presaged the need to slash and burn all federal programs,” says Becca Lewis, a researcher at Stanford who studies the rise of what she calls “techno-authoritarianism” in Silicon Valley.

    In his essay, Thiel argued that the great task facing the world was “to find an escape from politics in all its forms.” For Thiel, that doesn’t just mean bad government — it means any government, even the democratic kind. He blamed what he viewed as the sorry state of things on two culprits — “the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries” and “the extension of the franchise to women.” The growing ranks of poor and female voters, he lamented, had made it virtually impossible for libertarians to prevail at the ballot box. The solution? Reject the “unthinking demos” and create a world “not bounded by historical nation-states.”

    *Billionaires are the welfare queens, not the poor whom are mostly that way because of systems set up to keep folks down. Thiel, for all of his money, is just another man who fears women; he’s a misogynist.

    One step toward this government of, by, and for corporate interests was what Thiel sought to create with PayPal: “a new world currency, free from all government control and dilution — the end of monetary sovereignty, as it were.” Take away government-backed money, and you take away government’s power of the purse. It’s easy to see in this sentiment why the Trump administration is touting the deregulation of cryptocurrencies. The connection is direct: David Sacks, now serving as Trump’s crypto czar, went to college with Thiel and was a cofounder of PayPal.

    Putting an end to democracy, in the Thielist view, also requires putting a stop to diversity. Back when Thiel and Sacks were at Stanford and the term for “woke” was “political correctness,” they cofounded The Stanford Review, a right-leaning student newspaper that took aim at multiculturalism. They even wrote an anti-diversity book called “The Diversity Myth.”

    His essay helped jump-start the creation of the “intellectual dark web,” a loose affiliation of techno-libertarian online forums, podcasts, nonprofits, and academic institutions, many of which Thiel helped to launch. (The man who coined the phrase “intellectual dark web,” in fact, was an investor working for Thiel.) That’s because if you think you’re smart and special, you want more than a big bank account. You want an intellectual-sounding rationale for why you deserve it.

    Thiel was the “alpha throughline” of the new movement, according to Gil Durán, a journalist who has reported on the tech industry for years. Thiel mentored the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, founded the military contractor Palantir, and handed out $100,000 checks to hundreds of “Thiel Fellows.” He funded the entries into politics of Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, as well as Vice President JD Vance. He was a major donor to Trump, and it was the sale of PayPal that launched the fortunes of Musk

    *Ding, ding, ding! Josh Hawley. Craig, You nailed it.

  62. Now that the pardon power is naught but a tool for grift and graft, it will have to be rescinded until we can be assured of honor in the presidency.

    Trump Sets Fraudster Free From Prison for a Second Time
    The president issued a raft of clemency grants this week, including pardoning a woman he had given relief to once before and a man whose daughter had donated millions to a Trump super PAC.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/us/politics/trump-fraudster-pardon.html?

  63. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-venezuela-oil-revenue-qatar-bank-b2901312.html

    President Donald Trump’s administration will keep the money generated from the sale of Venezuelan oil across multiple bank accounts, the largest of which is located in Qatar, according to a report.

    Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, hit out at the strategy and said: “There is no basis in law for a president to set up an offshore account that he controls so that he can sell assets seized by the American military. That is precisely a move that a corrupt politician would be attracted to.”

  66. This comment stopped me cold today: Is the chaos actually a calculated trap for martial law?

    We don’t just broadcast; we listen. Watch the moment the community took over the show. 👇

  68. Orange Adolf has wanted to declare martial law since he unleashed ICE in California. I think the regime was surprised by the amount of non-violent blowback they got, so they have to keep amping it up to get a reaction that they can point to to justify martial law.

  69. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/14/trump-administration-white-supremacist-language

    White House post nods to racist, far-right subculture, extremism expert says
    Image with question ‘Which way, Greenland man?’ is a ‘key concept in neo-Nazi and white supremacist subculture’

    The White House posted a cartoon to X on Wednesday of two Greenlandic mush teams with three huskies each, pointing towards the choice of the white pillars and the South Lawn or a tempestuous scene by the Great Wall of China and Red Square in Russia.

    Paired with the image, the official White House account posted a single question: “Which way, Greenland man?”

    But according to Heidi Beirich, a co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism who closely monitors American neo-Nazis, this was a clear cut example of a nod towards racist, far-right literature.

    “This is a key concept in neo-Nazi and white supremacist subculture,” said Beirich. “Western man is code for white man, and one of the most popular racist books in these subcultures is Which Way Western Man, which has been featured in a [Department of Homeland Security] post celebrating manifest destiny.”

    The 1978 book is essential reading among the American far right and was written by the late white nationalist William Gayley Simpson, a member of the National Alliance – a foundational neo-Nazi organization established by William Luther Pierce, whose writing inspired several acts of terrorism, including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

    Recently, DHS recruitment posters have been likened to Third Reich propaganda, while Elon Musk – a onetime government worker during his reign as the head of the so-called “department of government efficiency” – has outright race-baited Somali Americans, who are the main target of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in the Twin Cities.

    “I’m not sure if this is trolling or distraction, but there certainly have been more of them,” said Beirich, referring to the onslaught of Maga posting. “More worrisome, especially when it comes to DHS recruitment messages, is that they perhaps are trying to attract far-right extremists to join ICE.”

  70. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ice-native-americans-arrested-minnesota-citizens-b2901556.html

    ICE is sweeping up Native Americans in Minnesota arrests, tribal leaders say: ‘Our citizenship is not negotiable’

    Native Americans are U.S. citizens, holding dual citizenship rights and responsibilities under both federal and tribal laws. But indigenous leaders fear federal officers surging into the greater Minneapolis area are unlawfully stopping, questioning and detaining Native Minnesotans on the basis of their skin color and names, or racially profiling Tribal members who officers believe are Latino immigrants.

    In a letter to Trump administration officials, the Oglala Sioux Tribe noted that the detention of tribal members is “unlawful and constitutes a direct violation of binding treaties, federal law, constitutional protections, and the United States’ trust responsibility.”

    “The Oglala Sioux Tribe’s memorandum makes clear that ‘tribal citizens are not aliens’ and are ‘categorically outside immigration jurisdiction,’” President Star Comes Out said in a statement. “Enrolled tribal members are citizens of the United States by statute and citizens of the Oglala Sioux Nation by treaty.”

  71. https://the-express.com/news/politics/160777/south-Dakota-tribe-ban-governor-Kristi-Noem-senate-confirmation-hearing-trump-160777

    Noem was banned from setting foot in tribal lands in South Dakota last year after she said that tribal leaders were catering to drug cartels on their reservations.

    A tribe in South Dakota has overturned a ban on the state’s Governor, Kristi Noem, entering its territories…

    “The Governor issued an apology to us for the misunderstanding, which was exacerbated by misinformation,” the tribe said.

    “Since our first meeting, the Governor has shown us that she is committed to protecting the people of South Dakota including the citizens of the nine Tribal Nations, who share mutual borders with the state.”

    *That was a political backing off. Now that she’s ICE Barbie, the indigenous are on the menu.

  73. https://newrepublic.com/post/205373/evidence-renee-good-still-alive-ice-blocked-medic

    Renee Good was still alive when ICE agents were blocking a physician from tending to her.

    New records from emergency responders obtained by The New York Times show that Good was not breathing but had an irregular pulse when local medics arrived at the scene, and had no pulse by the time they removed her from her car. This comes after an initial video captured by bystanders showed ICE agents screaming at a medic who offered help as Good lay dying in her car.

  74. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ice-approaching-people-minneapolis-demanding-proof-citizenship-rcna254247

    Immigration officers around Minneapolis are approaching people and demanding proof that they’re US citizens

    The officers and agents the Trump administration has unleashed in Minneapolis and nearby communities have turned to stopping U.S. citizens, apparently at random, demanding identification and grilling them about their citizenship, residents who have recorded these encounters on video say.

    “They came off pretty aggressive and asking for my ID. I refused because I had done nothing wrong,” Garcia said. He said that, as he started to blow a whistle draped around his neck, agents “got angry and grabbed him.”

    Video recorded by a friend shows officers pushing Garcia onto the side of a car and pointing a Taser at him. The video does not show what happened before the officers grabbed Garcia.

    Garcia told NBC News later that officers grabbed him when he was trying to blow his whistle and an officer accused him of committing assault by spitting at him.

    All I needed was your f—ing ID,” a masked officer said. Garcia responds to the officer using expletives. The officer responds, “You’re a f—ing b— and you are gonna learn the f—ing hard way.”

    As officers search his pockets, one finds his firearm, saying, “He has a gun on him! Look at that.” Garcia interjects, saying, “a fully registered firearm ‘cause I’m a U.S. citizen.”

    Later in the arrest, as the two argue, an officer is heard saying, “You are a f—ing citizen, you shouldn’t have done that.” It’s unclear what the officer was referring to when he said that.

    Garcia said that as he was being driven to the Whipple Building in Minneapolis, officers told him in response to his question that he was picked up because he looked like someone who committed a crime. “When I asked what crime, I was told, ‘we’ll figure it out,’” he said.

    He also said officers told him, “I could have f—ing smoked you,” and that things “could have gone really south for you like those agents did to Renee Good.”

    *ICE goons really want to unload and have zero repercussions, ‘cuz JD said so…and tRUMP pardoned them got J6.

  75. TRAIL MIX RADAR: THE TEXAS SHIFT

    We are officially designating the Texas Democratic Senate Primary (Talarico vs. Crockett) as a Signal Race for 2026. It is a perfect test case of “Organization vs. Celebrity” and the shifting demographic tides.

    Here is the data drop regarding the new landscape:

    • The Surge: A new Emerson College/Nexstar poll shows State Rep. James Talarico taking the lead over Rep. Jasmine Crockett (47% to 38%). This represents a massive 17-point swing from December polling.

    • The Divide: The demographic split is sharp. Talarico has secured white (57%) and Hispanic (59%) voters, while Crockett maintains a commanding hold on Black voters (80%). The gender gap is telling: Men break hard for Talarico, while women are effectively tied.

    • The Showdown: We finally get a direct comparison next week. The first debate is confirmed for Saturday, Jan. 24 in Georgetown, hosted by the Texas AFL-CIO. It will be livestreamed by Nexstar Media stations (like KXAN).

  76. more lessons from the past (1967) in the aptly titled “Enemy of the World”

    featuring a time-traveling highlander way before that was cool

  79. MN readying NG to assist police…who put out a statement saying they support ICE. Who is protecting civilians????

  80. From today’s CNN “What Matters”

    : No, Trump can’t cancel the Midterms. He’s doing this instead
    Worried about losing unified Republican power in Washington and mystified at his lack of support among the public, President Donald Trump keeps talking about not holding the November midterm elections, when Republicans could lose control of the House, Senate or both.

    Trump doesn’t understand why his approval rating is underwater (and it is, on every issue, in a CNN Poll conducted by SSRS and released Friday).

    “I wish you could explain to me what the hell’s going on with the mind of the public,” he told House Republicans in a speech earlier this month.

    Later, he added: “Now, I won’t say, ‘Cancel the election. They should cancel the election,’ because the fake news will say, ‘He wants the elections canceled. He’s a dictator.’”

    But Trump did talk about canceling the election in an interview with Reuters this week. He said Republicans have been so successful that “when you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.”

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later said the president was “joking” and “being facetious” about canceling the election.

    If it’s a joke, it’s material he’s been working on for months. Told during an appearance with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last September that Ukraine won’t hold an election during a period of martial law during its war with Russia, Trump expressed some envy.

    “So you say during the war, you can’t have elections,” Trump said. “So let me just say, three and a half years from now – so you mean, if we happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections? Oh, that’s good.”

    People laughed. Sometimes they’re jokes, sometimes not. Trump routinely says things that seem like trolls until they don’t. Owning Greenland? Not a joke. However, he seems to have retreated from the oft-repeated idea of an unconstitutional third term.

    And for the record, unlike Ukraine, the US has held elections in the midst of multiple wars, when the British had invaded in 1812 and when it was at war with itself in 1864. It held elections during world wars when millions of Americans fought overseas in the 20th century as well.

    It makes sense that Trump would dread the November midterms

    Trump knows that presidents rarely pick up seats in a midterm. His administration has been moving at breakneck speed to change the government because, as his chief of staff famously said, they know that presidents expect to lose power after their first two years. A net loss of just a handful of seats would give control of the House to Democrats, for instance, requiring their buy-in for spending and giving them power to investigate his administration.

    Presidents do not have the power to delay or cancel elections

    The Constitution requires that a new Congress be sworn in on January 3, 2027. Election Day is set in law, so it is theoretically feasible for Congress to move it, but not to cancel the election. Elections are supposed to be administered by each state, so state governors and legislatures could, in theory, move their own elections to deal with a major disaster, but there’s no precedent for it. To get into the weeds of all of this, read a report from the Congressional Research Service.

    The president’s distrust of US elections is legendary

    Trump has also mused about using emergency powers to meddle with elections. He told the New York Times recently that he regrets not directing National Guards to seize voting machines after the 2020 election.

    Even the elections he has won, he has said were rigged. There’s still no evidence of any widespread voter fraud, even after all these years of the Trump era.

    People are talking about doomsday election scenarios

    Election officials say they are thinking very carefully about all of this. Asked about Trump’s musings at an event sponsored by The Atlantic this week, Arizona’s top election official, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, said this:

    Look, you can’t cancel the election… We’ve got a whole bunch of scenarios that we’re playing through to make sure that we’re prepared for the types of processes that might be necessary to preserve our democracy so that if somebody tries to cancel something, if somebody tries to take some stuff they’re not entitled to, we can go to the courts, get the orders, and hopefully have the backup of law enforcement to make sure that we can move forward through this.

    “The fact that we’re running through these scenarios in the first place should tell you something about the health of our democracy,” Fontes added. To that end, he would not elaborate on what scenarios they’re preparing for. “I don’t want to give the bad guys any ideas,” Fontes said.

    What Trump is actually doing about the next election

    While Trump might fantasize about canceling the election, the reality is that the election system is already changing in some key ways. Some of them may be enormously consequential.

    The redistricting war Trump kicked off continues to rage Republicans have drawn themselves nine more friendly seats across the country, and Democrats have ended up with six, mostly in California. Republicans see additional opportunity in Florida, while Democrats plan a redistricting ballot initiative in Virginia in April. If the Supreme Court decides to further gut the Voting Rights Act, Republicans could in theory redraw maps in many other states. Read takeaways from October’s oral arguments. Expect a very different House in the near future

    The long-term result of more and more political gerrymandering without protections for racial minority-focused districts could be the smothering of minority-party delegations in multiple states, making the House map look increasingly more like the presidential map. Far fewer Democratic districts in Texas. Far fewer Republican districts in California — even though there are millions of both Republicans and Democrats in both states

    Trump wants vastly more control over how states conduct elections

    While much of the effort has been stopped, for now, by courts, Trump’s goal is to exert more executive control over elections that are supposed to be governed by Congress and states.

    A federal court on Thursday sided with California against the administration’s demand that the state turn over information on its 23 million voters.
    The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether mail-in ballots that are postmarked by, but arrive after Election Day can still be counted. The decision could have serious consequences for the country’s large scale adoption of mail-in voting in recent years. Trump is a loud skeptic of the practice even though he has personally voted by mail. His executive order would also scramble how states use voting machines, another response to phantom voter fraud that could actually drastically slow down the counting of ballots.

    Trump has chipped away at election oversight. Early on, his administration scaled back the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, CISA, which is meant to helps states guard their election systems from attack. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem canceled funding for an information sharing network that helped states detect and ward off coordinated hacking attacks, as CNN reported last year. His Justice Department has rewired the agency’s Civil Rights Division away from its original core mission of civil rights abuses, including those related to elections. One current focus of the division is to help states “clean” voter rolls, although a judge recently ruled that effort was a misapplication of the Civil Rights Act.

    Trump’s administration has already tried to change how people vote through executive action, and who they vote for through changing maps. There’s a lot of time for more gaming the system between now and November, and Trump clearly already has the midterms on the brain.

  86. https://www.newsweek.com/nazis-us-domain-redirects-homeland-security-website-11371077

    The website domain nazis.us has been purchased and set up to redirect to the Homeland Security website.

    Mark Davis, a Congressional Candidate running to represent the people of Hillsborough and Manatee Counties in Florida, is taking credit for setting up the web domain.

    In a post shared to Threads, Davis said he was simply holding up “a mirror” to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and the DHS and any issue they have with it would be because they “hate their reflection.”

    Davis also alluded to the fact that it would be impossible for the DHS to alter or shut down the web domain redirect, branding it “a middle finger they can’t erase.”

    Davis is also suspected of setting up the web domain gestapo.us so that it redirects to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency homepage.

  87. Wouldn’t you have to be kind of insane to accept someone else’s Nobel Prize as if it were then yours?

    That just seems super extra extremely weird.

  89. https://meidasnews.com/news/doj-moves-to-block-independent-monitor-in-maxwell-case-says-courts-cannot-force-epstein-file-disclosures

    “An amicus cannot initiate, create, extend, or enlarge issues,” the DOJ writes, citing longstanding federal precedent. Because no party to the case has raised compliance with the Act as a live issue, prosecutors argue there is nothing for amici to assist the court with.

    The government’s argument goes further: even if the court were inclined to entertain the request, it could not do so constitutionally.

    The DOJ asserts that Reps. Khanna and Massie lack Article III standing because they have not suffered a concrete, particularized injury. The Epstein Files Transparency Act, prosecutors note, does not create an individual right to obtain information, unlike the Freedom of Information Act. Nor does the Act authorize lawmakers—or anyone else—to sue the DOJ for alleged noncompliance.

    The letter also rejects the idea that congressional authorship of the statute confers standing. Citing Supreme Court precedent, the DOJ argues that individual legislators cannot litigate generalized institutional grievances absent a vote nullification or comparable injury—conditions plainly not present here.

    Even more fundamentally, prosecutors maintain that the Act provides no cause of action at all. Where Congress has not explicitly authorized judicial enforcement, federal courts are barred from inventing one. As the DOJ puts it, courts “cannot reach out to award remedies” where neither the Constitution nor a statute authorizes them.

    In short, the government’s filing makes clear that—absent new legislation explicitly authorizing court enforcement—the DOJ believes no court can force it to produce the Epstein files, regardless of public pressure or congressional intent.

  90. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knut_Hamsun

    Knut Hamsun (/ˈhɑːmsʊn/;[1] 4 August 1859 – 19 February 1952) was a Norwegian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920.

    In 1943, he sent Germany’s minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels his Nobel Prize medal as a gift.

    *Well, it wasn’t a peace prize, but it was a Nobel. I guess propaganda could be considered a kind of literature.

Comments are closed.

Join the Trail Mix

Get an alert when Craig goes live, and the link when our Open Thread heats up.