#federalagents — Public Fediverse posts

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS (Free Downloadable) SOLIDARITY SIGNS:

https://www.ilrc.org/community-resources/know-your-rights/solidarity-signs

Let ICE know that you’re aware of your rights!

The ILRC has prepared free, downloadable signs to help you let your local communities know that you stand

#ICE #NoICE #FederalAgents #StandUp #Rights #Local #Community #KnowYourRights #Solidarity #Signs #Immigration #Detention #Deportation

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS (Free Downloadable) SOLIDARITY SIGNS:

https://www.ilrc.org/community-resources/know-your-rights/solidarity-signs

Let ICE know that you’re aware of your rights!

The ILRC has prepared free, downloadable signs to help you let your local communities know that you stand

#ICE #NoICE #FederalAgents #StandUp #Rights #Local #Community #KnowYourRights #Solidarity #Signs #Immigration #Detention #Deportation

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS (Free Downloadable) SOLIDARITY SIGNS:

https://www.ilrc.org/community-resources/know-your-rights/solidarity-signs

Let ICE know that you’re aware of your rights!

The ILRC has prepared free, downloadable signs to help you let your local communities know that you stand

#ICE #NoICE #FederalAgents #StandUp #Rights #Local #Community #KnowYourRights #Solidarity #Signs #Immigration #Detention #Deportation

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS (Free Downloadable) SOLIDARITY SIGNS:

https://www.ilrc.org/community-resources/know-your-rights/solidarity-signs

Let ICE know that you’re aware of your rights!

The ILRC has prepared free, downloadable signs to help you let your local communities know that you stand

#ICE #NoICE #FederalAgents #StandUp #Rights #Local #Community #KnowYourRights #Solidarity #Signs #Immigration #Detention #Deportation

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS (Free Downloadable) SOLIDARITY SIGNS:

https://www.ilrc.org/community-resources/know-your-rights/solidarity-signs

Let ICE know that you’re aware of your rights!

The ILRC has prepared free, downloadable signs to help you let your local communities know that you stand

#ICE #NoICE #FederalAgents #StandUp #Rights #Local #Community #KnowYourRights #Solidarity #Signs #Immigration #Detention #Deportation

Revealed: Trump’s War on ICE Protesters Is Collapsing in Court

https://www.rawamerica.com/p/revealed-trumps-war-on-ice-protesters

• The billionaires own the government

• Trump’s sons are quietly building a defense tech empire funded by your tax dollars

• True history of the Capitol attack

#TrumpAdministration #America #Truth #UnitedWeStand #OneNation #UnderGod #AmericanJustice #CivilLiberties #SocialTruth #ICECourt #FederalAgents #FederalCourt #Government #Billionaires #TrumpsWar #CapitalRiots #CyberPolice #AIPoliceForce

Revealed: Trump’s War on ICE Protesters Is Collapsing in Court

https://www.rawamerica.com/p/revealed-trumps-war-on-ice-protesters

• The billionaires own the government

• Trump’s sons are quietly building a defense tech empire funded by your tax dollars

• True history of the Capitol attack

#TrumpAdministration #America #Truth #UnitedWeStand #OneNation #UnderGod #AmericanJustice #CivilLiberties #SocialTruth #ICECourt #FederalAgents #FederalCourt #Government #Billionaires #TrumpsWar #CapitalRiots #CyberPolice #AIPoliceForce

https://www.tkhunt.com/2446949/ Laura Ingraham: This is a blanket case of aiding and abetting #(Media #BorderSecurity #BREAKINGNEWS #DeportationPolicy #FederalAgents #FoxNewsChannel #ICEVehicleStops #IllegalImmigration #ImmigrationEnforcement #LauraIngraham #LawEnforcement #PoliticalDebate #TheIngrahamAngleYoutube #TrumpAdministration #USA #ローラ

David Streever wrote an email critizing ICE to their department head. Months later Federal agents w/ Homeland Security tracked him down with a stark warning that he potentially violated the law.

This Prompted a lawsuit to be filed. The email was protected under free speech & the agency violated his First Amendment rights.

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/06/nx-s1-5883784/dhs-ice-critic-lawsuit-free-speech - NPR

#FreedomOfSpeeh #FirstAmendment #Rights #ICE #HomelandSecurity #FederalAgents #Harassment #Lawsuit #ProtectedRights #Freedom

ACLU Sues ICE for Failing to Turn Over Records on Threats to Photographers Who Film Federal Agents https://petapixel.com/2026/06/12/aclu-sues-ice-for-failing-to-turn-over-records-on-threats-to-photographers-who-film-federal-agents/ #macarthurjusticecenter #protestphotography #photojournalists #federalagents #pressfreedom #iceprotest #News #aclu #Law #ice

ACLU Sues ICE for Failing to Turn Over Records on Threats to Photographers Who Film Federal Agents https://petapixel.com/2026/06/12/aclu-sues-ice-for-failing-to-turn-over-records-on-threats-to-photographers-who-film-federal-agents/ #macarthurjusticecenter #protestphotography #photojournalists #federalagents #pressfreedom #iceprotest #News #aclu #Law #ice

Federal Agents Embroiled in Controversial Immigration Enforcement Operations

Federal agents are using aggressive tactics in US cities for immigration arrests. This affects undocumented immigrants and their families. Learn what happens next.

#ImmigrationEnforcement, #FederalAgents, #ICE, #CBP, #USCities

https://newsletter.tf/federal-agents-aggressive-immigration-arrests-us-cities/

Federal agents are using more aggressive tactics in US cities for immigration arrests, leading to more arrests and concerns about safety.

#ImmigrationEnforcement, #FederalAgents, #ICE, #CBP, #USCities
https://newsletter.tf/federal-agents-aggressive-immigration-arrests-us-cities/

—>> SCOOP ⦁ #France24 <<—

ICE, Lies, & Videotape:

How the Press is covering the #Minneapolis Crackdown

⏱️13:12 #SCOOP #Minneapolis #ReneeGood #AlexPretti
#Pol #Politics #GeoPolitics #WorldNews #News #ICE #FederalAgents
#AusPol #CdnPoli #EUpol #NZpol #UKpol #USpol
https://youtu.be/qbUyEAJEqT0

—>> SCOOP ⦁ #France24 <<—

ICE, Lies, & Videotape:

How the Press is covering the #Minneapolis Crackdown

⏱️13:12 #SCOOP #Minneapolis #ReneeGood #AlexPretti
#Pol #Politics #GeoPolitics #WorldNews #News #ICE #FederalAgents
#AusPol #CdnPoli #EUpol #NZpol #UKpol #USpol
https://youtu.be/qbUyEAJEqT0

—>> PBS NewsHour ⦁ Clip <<—

U.S. Citizens detained by #ImmigrationAgents

⏱️08:58 #PBS #NewsHour #PBSNewsHour
#AmericanCitizen #ReneeGood #AlexPretti
#TRump #FederalAgents #ICE #CBP #DHS
#Pol #Politics #GeoPolitics #WorldNews #News
#AusPol #CdnPoli #EUpol #NZpol #UKpol #USpol
https://youtu.be/lMgCy9ElOsE

—>> PBS NewsHour ⦁ Clip <<—

U.S. Citizens detained by #ImmigrationAgents

⏱️08:58 #PBS #NewsHour #PBSNewsHour
#AmericanCitizen #ReneeGood #AlexPretti
#TRump #FederalAgents #ICE #CBP #DHS
#Pol #Politics #GeoPolitics #WorldNews #News
#AusPol #CdnPoli #EUpol #NZpol #UKpol #USpol
https://youtu.be/lMgCy9ElOsE

Lawyers of #Chicago woman shot by #FederalAgents say documents show how #DHS #lies about investigations

#BorderPatrol commander Greg #Bovino praised a federal agent who shot a Chicago woman during an #immigration crackdown last year, acc/to evidence released Wednesday by attorneys who accused the #Trump admin of mishandling the investigation & spreading lies about the #shooting.

#MarimarMartinez #law #CivilRights #UseOfForce #fascism #tyranny #ICE #CBP #Sturmabteilung
https://apnews.com/article/immigration-chicago-shooting-crackdown-border-f05c446c37bf0cd7e7e2ad1dcfa104b1

Lawyers of #Chicago woman shot by #FederalAgents say documents show how #DHS #lies about investigations

#BorderPatrol commander Greg #Bovino praised a federal agent who shot a Chicago woman during an #immigration crackdown last year, acc/to evidence released Wednesday by attorneys who accused the #Trump admin of mishandling the investigation & spreading lies about the #shooting.

#MarimarMartinez #law #CivilRights #UseOfForce #fascism #tyranny #ICE #CBP #Sturmabteilung
https://apnews.com/article/immigration-chicago-shooting-crackdown-border-f05c446c37bf0cd7e7e2ad1dcfa104b1

The day after the second general strike in Minneapolis, the labor unions of Portland, Oregon, marched in solidarity. It was the warmest day that Portland had seen in a while, with sun peeking out from the clouds here and there. Many people had brought their entire families; not just older children, but toddlers in strollers and wagons, too. Some brought their dogs. The chants were typical: “ICE out of Portland” and “No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here.” But the children were so visible that City Councilor Mitch Green felt a slight twinge of awkwardness. “There’s some other folks saying, you know, ‘Fuck ICE,’ but, like, there’s children in front of me. I don’t want to say the F-word, you know?”

But that was very soon the least of his concerns, as tear gas engulfed the protest at approximately 4:30PM. He and other witnesses recalled hearing six loud bangs; a video posted on social media recorded eight, as well as countless smaller pops. At least eight arcs of smoke flew far over people’s heads, as though aimed at the back of the crowd.

ICE is watching. Here’s what you need to know – YouTube

ICE is watching. Here’s what you need to know

MPR News
61.7K subscribers 2,484 views
Streamed live on Feb 3, 2026 Facial recognition. Social media monitoring. Digital tracking. Federal agents now have a growing arsenal of tools and they’re using them.

Tuesday at 8 p.m., MPR News host Catharine Richert and her guests dig into how these technologies actually work, what’s legal, what’s not and why it matters for everyone’s privacy.

Join us live here or on the radio. Find the latest reporting here: https://www.mprnews.org/live-updates

Transcript – Editor’s Note: Available online at YouTube.

Follow along using the transcript. MPR News 61.7K subscribers Videos About @mprnews

Continue/Read Original Article Here: ICE is watching. Here’s what you need to know – YouTube

ICE is watching. Here’s what you need to know – YouTube

ICE is watching. Here’s what you need to know

MPR News
61.7K subscribers 2,484 views
Streamed live on Feb 3, 2026 Facial recognition. Social media monitoring. Digital tracking. Federal agents now have a growing arsenal of tools and they’re using them.

Tuesday at 8 p.m., MPR News host Catharine Richert and her guests dig into how these technologies actually work, what’s legal, what’s not and why it matters for everyone’s privacy.

Join us live here or on the radio. Find the latest reporting here: https://www.mprnews.org/live-updates

Transcript – Editor’s Note: Available online at YouTube.

Follow along using the transcript. MPR News 61.7K subscribers Videos About @mprnews

Continue/Read Original Article Here: ICE is watching. Here’s what you need to know – YouTube

ICE is watching. Here’s what you need to know – YouTube

ICE is watching. Here’s what you need to know

MPR News
61.7K subscribers 2,484 views
Streamed live on Feb 3, 2026 Facial recognition. Social media monitoring. Digital tracking. Federal agents now have a growing arsenal of tools and they’re using them.

Tuesday at 8 p.m., MPR News host Catharine Richert and her guests dig into how these technologies actually work, what’s legal, what’s not and why it matters for everyone’s privacy.

Join us live here or on the radio. Find the latest reporting here: https://www.mprnews.org/live-updates

Transcript – Editor’s Note: Available online at YouTube.

Follow along using the transcript. MPR News 61.7K subscribers Videos About @mprnews

Continue/Read Original Article Here: ICE is watching. Here’s what you need to know – YouTube

ICE is watching. Here’s what you need to know – YouTube

ICE is watching. Here’s what you need to know

MPR News
61.7K subscribers 2,484 views
Streamed live on Feb 3, 2026 Facial recognition. Social media monitoring. Digital tracking. Federal agents now have a growing arsenal of tools and they’re using them.

Tuesday at 8 p.m., MPR News host Catharine Richert and her guests dig into how these technologies actually work, what’s legal, what’s not and why it matters for everyone’s privacy.

Join us live here or on the radio. Find the latest reporting here: https://www.mprnews.org/live-updates

Transcript – Editor’s Note: Available online at YouTube.

Follow along using the transcript. MPR News 61.7K subscribers Videos About @mprnews

Continue/Read Original Article Here: ICE is watching. Here’s what you need to know – YouTube

Why Local and State Police Rarely Investigate Federal Agents – ProPublica

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Criminal Justice

“You’re Not Going to Investigate a Federal Officer”

It doesn’t happen often, but local law enforcement can arrest and charge federal agents. Legal experts say there’s a moral obligation to at least try to hold federal immigration officers accountable when they violate the Constitution and the law.

by Andy Mannix, Melissa Sanchez and Nicole Foy

February 5, 2026, 6:00 am

Minutes after a federal agent shot and killed a Mexican immigrant in a Chicago suburb last September, a group of police officers stood on the sidewalk trying to figure out the answer to a question of protocol: Who would investigate the shooting?

“Wouldn’t it be state’s, at a minimum?” one Franklin Park officer asked, according to body camera footage.

Chief Mike Witz shook his head. “No, because it’s a federal shooting,” he said. “You’re not going to investigate a federal officer.”

His officers didn’t investigate. In their report, they didn’t even note the names of the two Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the scene of Silverio Villegas González’s death. Instead, they deferred to the FBI.

Local law enforcement officials also did not investigate when a Border Patrol agent shot and wounded a U.S. citizen in her car in Chicago less than a month later. Or when an ICE agent in Phoenix shot a Honduran man during a traffic stop later that month.

In fact, local police did not open investigations into six of the 12 shootings by on-duty federal agents that have led to the deaths or injuries of citizens and immigrants since September, a ProPublica analysis found. In three other shooting cases, state or local police said they have opened inquiries, which they called a routine practice in those jurisdictions. And in Minnesota, where ICE and Border Patrol shot and killed two U.S. citizens and injured a Venezuelan man last month, state police have tried to conduct independent investigations only to be thwarted by the Trump administration, which has gone so far as to block officers from a scene, even when they had a judicial warrant.

In almost every instance, President Donald Trump’s administration blamed the injured and dead for the shooting within hours of the incident, raising questions about whether federal officials can fairly and objectively investigate their own. Legal experts and advocates for immigrants say this apparent lack of accountability demands that local authorities step up and exercise their power to investigate and prosecute federal agents who break state laws — from battery to murder.

“Local police and the state have gotten a free pass,” said Craig Futterman, a law professor at the University of Chicago and the co-founder and director of its Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project. “Residents have every right and should be demanding that, ‘Hey, state authorities, police, local police: Protect us. Arrest people who kill us, who batter us, who point guns at us and threaten and assault us without legal cause to do so.’”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXw9k7JWufI

Body camera footage shows then-Franklin Park Police Chief Mike Witz responding to his officers’ questions about whether they would investigate the shooting of a Mexican immigrant by federal agents. Obtained by ProPublica

It’s usually the opposite scenario: federal authorities coming in to investigate a troubled police department. But local authorities have investigated and charged federal agents in the past. It’s just rare and complicated. The federal supremacy clause in the U.S. Constitution bars local interference with federal law enforcement officers when they act reasonably and within the scope of their duties.

But given the aggressive tactics employed by immigration agents under the Trump administration, Futterman and other legal experts said local police and prosecutors are morally obligated to at least try to hold federal law enforcement officers accountable.

“We’re in an environment right now where ICE officers are blatantly and egregiously violating the Constitution and the law,” said Joanna Schwartz, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The federal government has made it very clear that they are not going to do anything to provide any sort of accountability backstop to its officers. Unfortunately, because Congress is not taking any steps to rein ICE officers in, there really is no option other than states protecting their constituents’ rights.” 

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Why Local and State Police Rarely Investigate Federal Agents — ProPublica

Protecting Our #Right to Sue #FederalAgents Who Violate the #Constitution

Federal agencies like #Immigration and #Customs Enforcement ( #ICE ) and Customs and #Border Protection ( #CBP ) have descended into utter lawlessness, most recently in #Minnesota. The violence is shocking. So are the intrusions on #digitalRights. For example, we have a #FirstAmendment right to record on-duty #police , including ICE and CBP, but federal #agents areviolating this right.
#rights

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/02/protecting-our-right-sue-federal-agents-who-violate-constitution

Protecting Our #Right to Sue #FederalAgents Who Violate the #Constitution

Federal agencies like #Immigration and #Customs Enforcement ( #ICE ) and Customs and #Border Protection ( #CBP ) have descended into utter lawlessness, most recently in #Minnesota. The violence is shocking. So are the intrusions on #digitalRights. For example, we have a #FirstAmendment right to record on-duty #police , including ICE and CBP, but federal #agents areviolating this right.
#rights

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/02/protecting-our-right-sue-federal-agents-who-violate-constitution

—>> #PlanetAmerica ⦁ Monday <<— #Minnesota Shootings: Will the #FederalAgents be Charged with Murder? #ABCNewsIndepth #MaryMoriarty #AlexPretti #ReneeGood #Pol #Politics #GeoPolitics #WorldNews #News #Venezuela #AusPol #CdnPoli #EUpol #NZpol #UKpol #USpol #Greenland #Iran youtu.be/J-EBr-2nfXo

Minnesota Shootings: Will the ...

—>> #PlanetAmerica ⦁ Monday <<— #Minnesota Shootings: Will the #FederalAgents be Charged with Murder? #ABCNewsIndepth #MaryMoriarty #AlexPretti #ReneeGood #Pol #Politics #GeoPolitics #WorldNews #News #Venezuela #AusPol #CdnPoli #EUpol #NZpol #UKpol #USpol #Greenland #Iran youtu.be/J-EBr-2nfXo

Minnesota Shootings: Will the ...

—>> #PlanetAmerica ⦁ Monday <<—

#Minnesota Shootings:

Will the #FederalAgents be Charged with Murder?

#ABCNewsIndepth #MaryMoriarty #AlexPretti #ReneeGood
#Pol #Politics #GeoPolitics #WorldNews #News #Venezuela
#AusPol #CdnPoli #EUpol #NZpol #UKpol #USpol #Greenland #Iran
https://youtu.be/J-EBr-2nfXo

—>> #PlanetAmerica ⦁ Monday <<—

#Minnesota Shootings:

Will the #FederalAgents be Charged with Murder?

#ABCNewsIndepth #MaryMoriarty #AlexPretti #ReneeGood
#Pol #Politics #GeoPolitics #WorldNews #News #Venezuela
#AusPol #CdnPoli #EUpol #NZpol #UKpol #USpol #Greenland #Iran
https://youtu.be/J-EBr-2nfXo

CBP Agents Jesus Ochoa, Raymundo Gutierrez ID’d in Alex Pretti Shooting — ProPublica

Investigative Journalism in the Public Interest

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Two CBP Agents Identified in Alex Pretti Shooting

The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.

by J. David McSwane

February 1, 2026, 4:10 pm

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.

The records viewed by ProPublica list Ochoa, 43, and Gutierrez, 35, as the shooters during the deadly encounter last weekend that left Pretti dead and ignited massive protests and calls for criminal investigations.

Both men were assigned to Operation Metro Surge, an immigration enforcement dragnet launched in December that sent scores of armed and masked agents across the city.

CBP, which employs both men, has so far refused to release their names and has disclosed few other facts about the deadly incident, which came days after a different immigration agent shot and killed another Minneapolis protester, a 37-year-old mother of three named Renee Good.

Pretti’s killing, and the subsequent secrecy surrounding the agents involved, comes as the country confronts the consequences of President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown. The sweeps in cities across the country have been marked by scenes of violence, against immigrants and U.S. citizens, by agents allowed to hide their identities with masks — an almost unheard of practice in law enforcement. As a result, the public has been kept from one of the chief ways it has to hold officers involved in such altercations accountable: their identity.

Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have called for a transparent investigation into the killing of Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse working at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital.

“We must have a transparent, independent investigation into the Minnesota shooting, and those responsible—no matter their title—must be held accountable,” Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah wrote on X on Monday.

The agency sent a notice to some members of Congress on Tuesday acknowledging that two agents fired Glock pistols during the altercation that left Pretti dead. That notice does not include the agents’ names. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP, said the agents had been placed on leave after the Jan. 24 shooting. And after a week of protests and calls from lawmakers for a review, the Justice Department said Friday that its Civil Rights Division is investigating the shooting. A DOJ spokesperson did not answer questions, including whether DHS has shared materials, such as body-camera footage, with its investigators.

Ochoa is a Border Patrol agent who joined CBP in 2018. Gutierrez joined in 2014 and works for CBP’s Office of Field Operations. He is assigned to a special response team, which conducts high-risk operations like those of police SWAT units. Records show both men are from South Texas.

In the aftermath of the shooting, Gregory Bovino, who has orchestrated high-intensity immigration sweeps and arrests in a string of Democratic-led cities since early 2025, was removed from his role as Border Patrol commander at large and reassigned to his former post in El Centro, California.

A spokesperson for DHS declined to answer questions about the two agents and referred ProPublica to the FBI. The FBI declined to comment. ProPublica made several attempts to call Ochoa and Gutierrez but neither answered.

Ochoa, who goes by Jesse, graduated from the University of Texas-Pan American with a degree in criminal justice, according to his ex-wife, Angelica Ochoa. A longtime resident of the Rio Grande Valley, Ochoa had for years dreamed of working for the Border Patrol and finally landed a job there, she said. By the time the couple split in 2021, he had become a gun enthusiast with about 25 rifles, pistols and shotguns, Angelica Ochoa said.

DHS’ disclosure to Congress was drawn from an internal review of the agents’ body-camera footage, which has not been released to the public. State investigators, meanwhile, have accused their federal counterparts of blocking them from investigating the shooting.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: CBP Agents Jesus Ochoa, Raymundo Gutierrez ID’d in Alex Pretti Shooting — ProPublica

Letters from an American – January 31, 2026 – Heather Cox Richardson

https://substack.com/session-attribution-frame

Letters from an American, January 31, 2026

By Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 31, 2026

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller posted on social media this morning:

“Plenty of countries in history have experimented with importing a foreign labor class. The West is the first and only civilization to import a foreign labor class that is granted full political rights, including welfare & the right to vote. All visas are a bridge to citizenship. In America, for generations now, the policy has been that anyone who would economically benefit from moving to the US can do so, exercise the franchise in the US and their children, the moment they are born, will be full American citizens with all the rights and benefits therein.”

After his call for a “labor class” excluded from citizenship and a voice in government, Miller went on to reject the idea that Haitians living and working legally in Ohio should be described as part of Ohio communities. Calling out Democratic former senator Sherrod Brown, who is running for the Senate again this year, for including them, Miller posted: “Democrats just flatly reject any concept of nationhood that has ever existed in human history.”

History is doing that rhyming thing again.

Editor’s Note: We are seeing just the edges of “white supremacy” from Miller and others. These posts try to hide the message, the white race in America is superior, and the rest are our “labor force,” but not citizens. We appear to see the edges of Nazi-ideology and the “superior race,” from Miller and others aligned with his views. –DrWeb

In 1858, Senator James Henry Hammond (D-SC), a wealthy enslaver, rose to explain to his northern colleagues why their objection to human enslavement was so badly misguided. “In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life,” he said. Such workers needed few brains and little skill; they just had to be strong, docile, and loyal to their betters, who would organize their labor and then collect the profits from it, concentrating that wealth into their own hands to move society forward efficiently.

Hammond called such workers “the mud-sill of society and political government.” Much like the beams driven into the ground to support a stately home above, the mudsill supported “that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement.” The South had pushed Black Americans into that mudsill role. “We use them for our purpose, and call them slaves,” he said. The North also had a mudsill class, he added: “the man who lives by daily labor…in short, your whole hireling class of manual laborers and ‘operatives,’ as you call them, are essentially slaves.”

But Hammond warned that the North was making a terrible mistake. “Our slaves do not vote,” he said. “We give them no political power. Yours do vote, and, being the majority, they are the depositories of all your political power. If they knew the tremendous secret, that the ballot-box is stronger than ‘an army with banners,’ and could combine, where would you be? Your society would be reconstructed, your government overthrown, your property divided…by the quiet process of the ballot-box.”

Hammond was very clear about what he believed the world should look like. Black Americans should always be subordinate to white men, of course, but white women, too, were subordinate. They were made “to breed,” as “toy[s] for recreation,” or to bring men “wealth and position,” he had explained to his son in 1852. Hammond’s promising early political career had been nearly derailed when he admitted that for two years he had sexually assaulted his four young nieces, the daughters of the powerful Wade Hampton II (although he insisted he was being wronged because he should get credit for showing any restraint at all when faced with four such “lovely creatures”).

If women and Black people were at the bottom of society, southern white men were an “aristocracy” by virtue of their descent from “the ancient cavaliers of Virginia…a race of men without fear and without reproach,” “alike incapable of servility and selfishness.” By definition, whatever such leaders did was what was good for society, and any man who had not achieved that status was excluded because of his own failings or criminal inclinations.

The southern system, Hammond told the Senate, was “the best in the world…such as no other people ever enjoyed upon the face of the earth,” and spreading it would benefit everyone.

The next year, rising politician Abraham Lincoln told an audience at the Wisconsin state fair in Milwaukee that he rejected Hammond’s mudsill theory. Lincoln explained that Hammond’s “mud-sill theory” divided the world into permanent castes, arguing that men with money drove the economy and workers were stuck permanently at the bottom.

For his part, Lincoln embraced a different theory: It was workers, not wealthy men, who drove the economy. While men of wealth had little incentive to experiment and throw themselves into their work, men on the make were innovative and hardworking. Such men could—and should—rise. This “free labor” theory articulated the true meaning of American democracy for northerners and for the non-slave-holding southerners, who, as Lincoln reminded his listeners, made up a majority in the South. “The prudent, penniless beginner in the world, labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land, for himself; then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him,” he explained.

In the election of 1860, southern Democrats tried to get voters to back their worldview by promising they were reflecting God’s will and by using virulent racism, warning that Black Americans must be kept in their place or they would destroy American society.

But, in a nation of immigrants and men who had worked their way up from day laborers to become prominent men, Lincoln stood firm on the Declaration of Independence. He warned that if people started to make exceptions to the idea that all men are created equal, they would not stop. They would “transform this Government into a government of some other form.” “If that declaration is not the truth,” Lincoln said, “let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out!” To cries of “No! No!” he responded: “[L]et us stand firmly by it then.”

Miller’s white nationalism is not the concept on which this nation was built. The United States of America was built on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the sweat and blood of almost 250 years of Americans, often those from marginalized communities, working to make those principles a reality.

The hierarchical system Miller embraces echoes the system championed by those like Hammond, who imagined themselves the nation’s true leaders who had the right to rule. They were not bound by the law, and they rejected the idea that those unwilling to recognize their superiority should have either economic or political power.

The horrors of the Epstein files show a group of powerful and wealthy men and women who sexually assaulted children and showed no concern either for their crimes or that they might have to answer to the law. The public still does not know the extent of the horrors or the human-trafficking business in which Epstein and others were engaged. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters yesterday that the Department of Justice was not releasing any item from the Epstein files that showed “death, physical abuse, or injury.”

“You [know] the biggest problem with being friends with you?” Dr. Peter Attia wrote in an email to Epstein in response to an email with the subject line “Got a fresh shipment.” Attia answered his own question: “The life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can’t tell a soul.”

Trump echoed Hammond in a different way tonight on Air Force One as he traveled to Florida. Asked by a reporter how he would handle being on both sides of his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, he suggested that taking the money of the American people into his own hands would enable him to use it for the public good. “I’m supposed to work out a settlement with myself,” he said. “We could make it a substantial amount, nobody would care because it’s gonna go to numerous, very good charities.”

Another story tonight indicated the degree to which the president sees himself as part of a wealthy caste that is above the law. Sam Kessler, Rebecca Ballhous, Eliot Brown, and Angus Berwick of the Wall Street Journal published a blockbuster report showing that four days before Trump’s 2025 inauguration, men working for an Abu Dhabi royal signed a secret deal with the Trump family to buy 49% of their brand-new cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial. The investors would pay half immediately, sending $187 million to entities held by the Trump family and at least $31 million to entities held by Steve Witkoff, a co-founder of World Liberty Financial whom Trump had named U.S. envoy to the Middle East weeks earlier.

The deal was backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is the brother of the president of the United Arab Emirates and oversees more than $1.3 trillion that includes the country’s largest wealth fund. Tahnoon has wanted access to U.S. AI technology, but the Biden administration blocked access out of concern it could end up in Chinese hands. The Trump administration, in striking contrast, has committed to allowing the United Arab Emirates to buy about half a million of the most advanced AI chips a year.

Federal agents acting for the Trump administration are trying to enforce the authority of those like Miller, tear-gassing, arresting, and killing American citizens. Thousands marched peacefully in Portland, Oregon, today but, as Alex Baumhardt of the Oregon Capital Chronicle recorded, “federal officers outside the ICE facility in Portland…indiscriminately threw loads of gas and flash bangs” at marchers, including children. Portland, Oregon, city councillor Mitch Green reported: “I just got tear gassed along with thousands of union members, many of whom had their families with them. Federal agents at the ICE facility tear gassed children. We must abolish ICE, DHS, and we must have prosecutions.”

Tim Dickinson of The Contrarian wrote: “Today I saw ICE gas little white kids in the streets of Portland with chemical weapons. Imagine what they’re doing to brown and black kids in the detention camps.”

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link. Featured image at the top is WP AI creation. — DrWeb

Continue/Read Original Article Here: January 31, 2026 – by Heather Cox Richardson

Letters from an American – January 31, 2026 – Heather Cox Richardson

https://substack.com/session-attribution-frame

Letters from an American, January 31, 2026

By Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 31, 2026

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller posted on social media this morning:

“Plenty of countries in history have experimented with importing a foreign labor class. The West is the first and only civilization to import a foreign labor class that is granted full political rights, including welfare & the right to vote. All visas are a bridge to citizenship. In America, for generations now, the policy has been that anyone who would economically benefit from moving to the US can do so, exercise the franchise in the US and their children, the moment they are born, will be full American citizens with all the rights and benefits therein.”

After his call for a “labor class” excluded from citizenship and a voice in government, Miller went on to reject the idea that Haitians living and working legally in Ohio should be described as part of Ohio communities. Calling out Democratic former senator Sherrod Brown, who is running for the Senate again this year, for including them, Miller posted: “Democrats just flatly reject any concept of nationhood that has ever existed in human history.”

History is doing that rhyming thing again.

Editor’s Note: We are seeing just the edges of “white supremacy” from Miller and others. These posts try to hide the message, the white race in America is superior, and the rest are our “labor force,” but not citizens. We appear to see the edges of Nazi-ideology and the “superior race,” from Miller and others aligned with his views. –DrWeb

In 1858, Senator James Henry Hammond (D-SC), a wealthy enslaver, rose to explain to his northern colleagues why their objection to human enslavement was so badly misguided. “In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life,” he said. Such workers needed few brains and little skill; they just had to be strong, docile, and loyal to their betters, who would organize their labor and then collect the profits from it, concentrating that wealth into their own hands to move society forward efficiently.

Hammond called such workers “the mud-sill of society and political government.” Much like the beams driven into the ground to support a stately home above, the mudsill supported “that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement.” The South had pushed Black Americans into that mudsill role. “We use them for our purpose, and call them slaves,” he said. The North also had a mudsill class, he added: “the man who lives by daily labor…in short, your whole hireling class of manual laborers and ‘operatives,’ as you call them, are essentially slaves.”

But Hammond warned that the North was making a terrible mistake. “Our slaves do not vote,” he said. “We give them no political power. Yours do vote, and, being the majority, they are the depositories of all your political power. If they knew the tremendous secret, that the ballot-box is stronger than ‘an army with banners,’ and could combine, where would you be? Your society would be reconstructed, your government overthrown, your property divided…by the quiet process of the ballot-box.”

Hammond was very clear about what he believed the world should look like. Black Americans should always be subordinate to white men, of course, but white women, too, were subordinate. They were made “to breed,” as “toy[s] for recreation,” or to bring men “wealth and position,” he had explained to his son in 1852. Hammond’s promising early political career had been nearly derailed when he admitted that for two years he had sexually assaulted his four young nieces, the daughters of the powerful Wade Hampton II (although he insisted he was being wronged because he should get credit for showing any restraint at all when faced with four such “lovely creatures”).

If women and Black people were at the bottom of society, southern white men were an “aristocracy” by virtue of their descent from “the ancient cavaliers of Virginia…a race of men without fear and without reproach,” “alike incapable of servility and selfishness.” By definition, whatever such leaders did was what was good for society, and any man who had not achieved that status was excluded because of his own failings or criminal inclinations.

The southern system, Hammond told the Senate, was “the best in the world…such as no other people ever enjoyed upon the face of the earth,” and spreading it would benefit everyone.

The next year, rising politician Abraham Lincoln told an audience at the Wisconsin state fair in Milwaukee that he rejected Hammond’s mudsill theory. Lincoln explained that Hammond’s “mud-sill theory” divided the world into permanent castes, arguing that men with money drove the economy and workers were stuck permanently at the bottom.

For his part, Lincoln embraced a different theory: It was workers, not wealthy men, who drove the economy. While men of wealth had little incentive to experiment and throw themselves into their work, men on the make were innovative and hardworking. Such men could—and should—rise. This “free labor” theory articulated the true meaning of American democracy for northerners and for the non-slave-holding southerners, who, as Lincoln reminded his listeners, made up a majority in the South. “The prudent, penniless beginner in the world, labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land, for himself; then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him,” he explained.

In the election of 1860, southern Democrats tried to get voters to back their worldview by promising they were reflecting God’s will and by using virulent racism, warning that Black Americans must be kept in their place or they would destroy American society.

But, in a nation of immigrants and men who had worked their way up from day laborers to become prominent men, Lincoln stood firm on the Declaration of Independence. He warned that if people started to make exceptions to the idea that all men are created equal, they would not stop. They would “transform this Government into a government of some other form.” “If that declaration is not the truth,” Lincoln said, “let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out!” To cries of “No! No!” he responded: “[L]et us stand firmly by it then.”

Miller’s white nationalism is not the concept on which this nation was built. The United States of America was built on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the sweat and blood of almost 250 years of Americans, often those from marginalized communities, working to make those principles a reality.

The hierarchical system Miller embraces echoes the system championed by those like Hammond, who imagined themselves the nation’s true leaders who had the right to rule. They were not bound by the law, and they rejected the idea that those unwilling to recognize their superiority should have either economic or political power.

The horrors of the Epstein files show a group of powerful and wealthy men and women who sexually assaulted children and showed no concern either for their crimes or that they might have to answer to the law. The public still does not know the extent of the horrors or the human-trafficking business in which Epstein and others were engaged. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters yesterday that the Department of Justice was not releasing any item from the Epstein files that showed “death, physical abuse, or injury.”

“You [know] the biggest problem with being friends with you?” Dr. Peter Attia wrote in an email to Epstein in response to an email with the subject line “Got a fresh shipment.” Attia answered his own question: “The life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can’t tell a soul.”

Trump echoed Hammond in a different way tonight on Air Force One as he traveled to Florida. Asked by a reporter how he would handle being on both sides of his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, he suggested that taking the money of the American people into his own hands would enable him to use it for the public good. “I’m supposed to work out a settlement with myself,” he said. “We could make it a substantial amount, nobody would care because it’s gonna go to numerous, very good charities.”

Another story tonight indicated the degree to which the president sees himself as part of a wealthy caste that is above the law. Sam Kessler, Rebecca Ballhous, Eliot Brown, and Angus Berwick of the Wall Street Journal published a blockbuster report showing that four days before Trump’s 2025 inauguration, men working for an Abu Dhabi royal signed a secret deal with the Trump family to buy 49% of their brand-new cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial. The investors would pay half immediately, sending $187 million to entities held by the Trump family and at least $31 million to entities held by Steve Witkoff, a co-founder of World Liberty Financial whom Trump had named U.S. envoy to the Middle East weeks earlier.

The deal was backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is the brother of the president of the United Arab Emirates and oversees more than $1.3 trillion that includes the country’s largest wealth fund. Tahnoon has wanted access to U.S. AI technology, but the Biden administration blocked access out of concern it could end up in Chinese hands. The Trump administration, in striking contrast, has committed to allowing the United Arab Emirates to buy about half a million of the most advanced AI chips a year.

Federal agents acting for the Trump administration are trying to enforce the authority of those like Miller, tear-gassing, arresting, and killing American citizens. Thousands marched peacefully in Portland, Oregon, today but, as Alex Baumhardt of the Oregon Capital Chronicle recorded, “federal officers outside the ICE facility in Portland…indiscriminately threw loads of gas and flash bangs” at marchers, including children. Portland, Oregon, city councillor Mitch Green reported: “I just got tear gassed along with thousands of union members, many of whom had their families with them. Federal agents at the ICE facility tear gassed children. We must abolish ICE, DHS, and we must have prosecutions.”

Tim Dickinson of The Contrarian wrote: “Today I saw ICE gas little white kids in the streets of Portland with chemical weapons. Imagine what they’re doing to brown and black kids in the detention camps.”

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link. Featured image at the top is WP AI creation. — DrWeb

Continue/Read Original Article Here: January 31, 2026 – by Heather Cox Richardson

Letters from an American – January 31, 2026 – Heather Cox Richardson

https://substack.com/session-attribution-frame

Letters from an American, January 31, 2026

By Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 31, 2026

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller posted on social media this morning:

“Plenty of countries in history have experimented with importing a foreign labor class. The West is the first and only civilization to import a foreign labor class that is granted full political rights, including welfare & the right to vote. All visas are a bridge to citizenship. In America, for generations now, the policy has been that anyone who would economically benefit from moving to the US can do so, exercise the franchise in the US and their children, the moment they are born, will be full American citizens with all the rights and benefits therein.”

After his call for a “labor class” excluded from citizenship and a voice in government, Miller went on to reject the idea that Haitians living and working legally in Ohio should be described as part of Ohio communities. Calling out Democratic former senator Sherrod Brown, who is running for the Senate again this year, for including them, Miller posted: “Democrats just flatly reject any concept of nationhood that has ever existed in human history.”

History is doing that rhyming thing again.

Editor’s Note: We are seeing just the edges of “white supremacy” from Miller and others. These posts try to hide the message, the white race in America is superior, and the rest are our “labor force,” but not citizens. We appear to see the edges of Nazi-ideology and the “superior race,” from Miller and others aligned with his views. –DrWeb

In 1858, Senator James Henry Hammond (D-SC), a wealthy enslaver, rose to explain to his northern colleagues why their objection to human enslavement was so badly misguided. “In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life,” he said. Such workers needed few brains and little skill; they just had to be strong, docile, and loyal to their betters, who would organize their labor and then collect the profits from it, concentrating that wealth into their own hands to move society forward efficiently.

Hammond called such workers “the mud-sill of society and political government.” Much like the beams driven into the ground to support a stately home above, the mudsill supported “that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement.” The South had pushed Black Americans into that mudsill role. “We use them for our purpose, and call them slaves,” he said. The North also had a mudsill class, he added: “the man who lives by daily labor…in short, your whole hireling class of manual laborers and ‘operatives,’ as you call them, are essentially slaves.”

But Hammond warned that the North was making a terrible mistake. “Our slaves do not vote,” he said. “We give them no political power. Yours do vote, and, being the majority, they are the depositories of all your political power. If they knew the tremendous secret, that the ballot-box is stronger than ‘an army with banners,’ and could combine, where would you be? Your society would be reconstructed, your government overthrown, your property divided…by the quiet process of the ballot-box.”

Hammond was very clear about what he believed the world should look like. Black Americans should always be subordinate to white men, of course, but white women, too, were subordinate. They were made “to breed,” as “toy[s] for recreation,” or to bring men “wealth and position,” he had explained to his son in 1852. Hammond’s promising early political career had been nearly derailed when he admitted that for two years he had sexually assaulted his four young nieces, the daughters of the powerful Wade Hampton II (although he insisted he was being wronged because he should get credit for showing any restraint at all when faced with four such “lovely creatures”).

If women and Black people were at the bottom of society, southern white men were an “aristocracy” by virtue of their descent from “the ancient cavaliers of Virginia…a race of men without fear and without reproach,” “alike incapable of servility and selfishness.” By definition, whatever such leaders did was what was good for society, and any man who had not achieved that status was excluded because of his own failings or criminal inclinations.

The southern system, Hammond told the Senate, was “the best in the world…such as no other people ever enjoyed upon the face of the earth,” and spreading it would benefit everyone.

The next year, rising politician Abraham Lincoln told an audience at the Wisconsin state fair in Milwaukee that he rejected Hammond’s mudsill theory. Lincoln explained that Hammond’s “mud-sill theory” divided the world into permanent castes, arguing that men with money drove the economy and workers were stuck permanently at the bottom.

For his part, Lincoln embraced a different theory: It was workers, not wealthy men, who drove the economy. While men of wealth had little incentive to experiment and throw themselves into their work, men on the make were innovative and hardworking. Such men could—and should—rise. This “free labor” theory articulated the true meaning of American democracy for northerners and for the non-slave-holding southerners, who, as Lincoln reminded his listeners, made up a majority in the South. “The prudent, penniless beginner in the world, labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land, for himself; then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him,” he explained.

In the election of 1860, southern Democrats tried to get voters to back their worldview by promising they were reflecting God’s will and by using virulent racism, warning that Black Americans must be kept in their place or they would destroy American society.

But, in a nation of immigrants and men who had worked their way up from day laborers to become prominent men, Lincoln stood firm on the Declaration of Independence. He warned that if people started to make exceptions to the idea that all men are created equal, they would not stop. They would “transform this Government into a government of some other form.” “If that declaration is not the truth,” Lincoln said, “let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out!” To cries of “No! No!” he responded: “[L]et us stand firmly by it then.”

Miller’s white nationalism is not the concept on which this nation was built. The United States of America was built on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the sweat and blood of almost 250 years of Americans, often those from marginalized communities, working to make those principles a reality.

The hierarchical system Miller embraces echoes the system championed by those like Hammond, who imagined themselves the nation’s true leaders who had the right to rule. They were not bound by the law, and they rejected the idea that those unwilling to recognize their superiority should have either economic or political power.

The horrors of the Epstein files show a group of powerful and wealthy men and women who sexually assaulted children and showed no concern either for their crimes or that they might have to answer to the law. The public still does not know the extent of the horrors or the human-trafficking business in which Epstein and others were engaged. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters yesterday that the Department of Justice was not releasing any item from the Epstein files that showed “death, physical abuse, or injury.”

“You [know] the biggest problem with being friends with you?” Dr. Peter Attia wrote in an email to Epstein in response to an email with the subject line “Got a fresh shipment.” Attia answered his own question: “The life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can’t tell a soul.”

Trump echoed Hammond in a different way tonight on Air Force One as he traveled to Florida. Asked by a reporter how he would handle being on both sides of his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, he suggested that taking the money of the American people into his own hands would enable him to use it for the public good. “I’m supposed to work out a settlement with myself,” he said. “We could make it a substantial amount, nobody would care because it’s gonna go to numerous, very good charities.”

Another story tonight indicated the degree to which the president sees himself as part of a wealthy caste that is above the law. Sam Kessler, Rebecca Ballhous, Eliot Brown, and Angus Berwick of the Wall Street Journal published a blockbuster report showing that four days before Trump’s 2025 inauguration, men working for an Abu Dhabi royal signed a secret deal with the Trump family to buy 49% of their brand-new cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial. The investors would pay half immediately, sending $187 million to entities held by the Trump family and at least $31 million to entities held by Steve Witkoff, a co-founder of World Liberty Financial whom Trump had named U.S. envoy to the Middle East weeks earlier.

The deal was backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is the brother of the president of the United Arab Emirates and oversees more than $1.3 trillion that includes the country’s largest wealth fund. Tahnoon has wanted access to U.S. AI technology, but the Biden administration blocked access out of concern it could end up in Chinese hands. The Trump administration, in striking contrast, has committed to allowing the United Arab Emirates to buy about half a million of the most advanced AI chips a year.

Federal agents acting for the Trump administration are trying to enforce the authority of those like Miller, tear-gassing, arresting, and killing American citizens. Thousands marched peacefully in Portland, Oregon, today but, as Alex Baumhardt of the Oregon Capital Chronicle recorded, “federal officers outside the ICE facility in Portland…indiscriminately threw loads of gas and flash bangs” at marchers, including children. Portland, Oregon, city councillor Mitch Green reported: “I just got tear gassed along with thousands of union members, many of whom had their families with them. Federal agents at the ICE facility tear gassed children. We must abolish ICE, DHS, and we must have prosecutions.”

Tim Dickinson of The Contrarian wrote: “Today I saw ICE gas little white kids in the streets of Portland with chemical weapons. Imagine what they’re doing to brown and black kids in the detention camps.”

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link. Featured image at the top is WP AI creation. — DrWeb

Continue/Read Original Article Here: January 31, 2026 – by Heather Cox Richardson

Letters from an American – January 31, 2026 – Heather Cox Richardson

https://substack.com/session-attribution-frame

Letters from an American, January 31, 2026

By Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 31, 2026

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller posted on social media this morning:

“Plenty of countries in history have experimented with importing a foreign labor class. The West is the first and only civilization to import a foreign labor class that is granted full political rights, including welfare & the right to vote. All visas are a bridge to citizenship. In America, for generations now, the policy has been that anyone who would economically benefit from moving to the US can do so, exercise the franchise in the US and their children, the moment they are born, will be full American citizens with all the rights and benefits therein.”

After his call for a “labor class” excluded from citizenship and a voice in government, Miller went on to reject the idea that Haitians living and working legally in Ohio should be described as part of Ohio communities. Calling out Democratic former senator Sherrod Brown, who is running for the Senate again this year, for including them, Miller posted: “Democrats just flatly reject any concept of nationhood that has ever existed in human history.”

History is doing that rhyming thing again.

Editor’s Note: We are seeing just the edges of “white supremacy” from Miller and others. These posts try to hide the message, the white race in America is superior, and the rest are our “labor force,” but not citizens. We appear to see the edges of Nazi-ideology and the “superior race,” from Miller and others aligned with his views. –DrWeb

In 1858, Senator James Henry Hammond (D-SC), a wealthy enslaver, rose to explain to his northern colleagues why their objection to human enslavement was so badly misguided. “In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life,” he said. Such workers needed few brains and little skill; they just had to be strong, docile, and loyal to their betters, who would organize their labor and then collect the profits from it, concentrating that wealth into their own hands to move society forward efficiently.

Hammond called such workers “the mud-sill of society and political government.” Much like the beams driven into the ground to support a stately home above, the mudsill supported “that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement.” The South had pushed Black Americans into that mudsill role. “We use them for our purpose, and call them slaves,” he said. The North also had a mudsill class, he added: “the man who lives by daily labor…in short, your whole hireling class of manual laborers and ‘operatives,’ as you call them, are essentially slaves.”

But Hammond warned that the North was making a terrible mistake. “Our slaves do not vote,” he said. “We give them no political power. Yours do vote, and, being the majority, they are the depositories of all your political power. If they knew the tremendous secret, that the ballot-box is stronger than ‘an army with banners,’ and could combine, where would you be? Your society would be reconstructed, your government overthrown, your property divided…by the quiet process of the ballot-box.”

Hammond was very clear about what he believed the world should look like. Black Americans should always be subordinate to white men, of course, but white women, too, were subordinate. They were made “to breed,” as “toy[s] for recreation,” or to bring men “wealth and position,” he had explained to his son in 1852. Hammond’s promising early political career had been nearly derailed when he admitted that for two years he had sexually assaulted his four young nieces, the daughters of the powerful Wade Hampton II (although he insisted he was being wronged because he should get credit for showing any restraint at all when faced with four such “lovely creatures”).

If women and Black people were at the bottom of society, southern white men were an “aristocracy” by virtue of their descent from “the ancient cavaliers of Virginia…a race of men without fear and without reproach,” “alike incapable of servility and selfishness.” By definition, whatever such leaders did was what was good for society, and any man who had not achieved that status was excluded because of his own failings or criminal inclinations.

The southern system, Hammond told the Senate, was “the best in the world…such as no other people ever enjoyed upon the face of the earth,” and spreading it would benefit everyone.

The next year, rising politician Abraham Lincoln told an audience at the Wisconsin state fair in Milwaukee that he rejected Hammond’s mudsill theory. Lincoln explained that Hammond’s “mud-sill theory” divided the world into permanent castes, arguing that men with money drove the economy and workers were stuck permanently at the bottom.

For his part, Lincoln embraced a different theory: It was workers, not wealthy men, who drove the economy. While men of wealth had little incentive to experiment and throw themselves into their work, men on the make were innovative and hardworking. Such men could—and should—rise. This “free labor” theory articulated the true meaning of American democracy for northerners and for the non-slave-holding southerners, who, as Lincoln reminded his listeners, made up a majority in the South. “The prudent, penniless beginner in the world, labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land, for himself; then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him,” he explained.

In the election of 1860, southern Democrats tried to get voters to back their worldview by promising they were reflecting God’s will and by using virulent racism, warning that Black Americans must be kept in their place or they would destroy American society.

But, in a nation of immigrants and men who had worked their way up from day laborers to become prominent men, Lincoln stood firm on the Declaration of Independence. He warned that if people started to make exceptions to the idea that all men are created equal, they would not stop. They would “transform this Government into a government of some other form.” “If that declaration is not the truth,” Lincoln said, “let us get the Statute book, in which we find it and tear it out!” To cries of “No! No!” he responded: “[L]et us stand firmly by it then.”

Miller’s white nationalism is not the concept on which this nation was built. The United States of America was built on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the sweat and blood of almost 250 years of Americans, often those from marginalized communities, working to make those principles a reality.

The hierarchical system Miller embraces echoes the system championed by those like Hammond, who imagined themselves the nation’s true leaders who had the right to rule. They were not bound by the law, and they rejected the idea that those unwilling to recognize their superiority should have either economic or political power.

The horrors of the Epstein files show a group of powerful and wealthy men and women who sexually assaulted children and showed no concern either for their crimes or that they might have to answer to the law. The public still does not know the extent of the horrors or the human-trafficking business in which Epstein and others were engaged. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters yesterday that the Department of Justice was not releasing any item from the Epstein files that showed “death, physical abuse, or injury.”

“You [know] the biggest problem with being friends with you?” Dr. Peter Attia wrote in an email to Epstein in response to an email with the subject line “Got a fresh shipment.” Attia answered his own question: “The life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can’t tell a soul.”

Trump echoed Hammond in a different way tonight on Air Force One as he traveled to Florida. Asked by a reporter how he would handle being on both sides of his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, he suggested that taking the money of the American people into his own hands would enable him to use it for the public good. “I’m supposed to work out a settlement with myself,” he said. “We could make it a substantial amount, nobody would care because it’s gonna go to numerous, very good charities.”

Another story tonight indicated the degree to which the president sees himself as part of a wealthy caste that is above the law. Sam Kessler, Rebecca Ballhous, Eliot Brown, and Angus Berwick of the Wall Street Journal published a blockbuster report showing that four days before Trump’s 2025 inauguration, men working for an Abu Dhabi royal signed a secret deal with the Trump family to buy 49% of their brand-new cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial. The investors would pay half immediately, sending $187 million to entities held by the Trump family and at least $31 million to entities held by Steve Witkoff, a co-founder of World Liberty Financial whom Trump had named U.S. envoy to the Middle East weeks earlier.

The deal was backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is the brother of the president of the United Arab Emirates and oversees more than $1.3 trillion that includes the country’s largest wealth fund. Tahnoon has wanted access to U.S. AI technology, but the Biden administration blocked access out of concern it could end up in Chinese hands. The Trump administration, in striking contrast, has committed to allowing the United Arab Emirates to buy about half a million of the most advanced AI chips a year.

Federal agents acting for the Trump administration are trying to enforce the authority of those like Miller, tear-gassing, arresting, and killing American citizens. Thousands marched peacefully in Portland, Oregon, today but, as Alex Baumhardt of the Oregon Capital Chronicle recorded, “federal officers outside the ICE facility in Portland…indiscriminately threw loads of gas and flash bangs” at marchers, including children. Portland, Oregon, city councillor Mitch Green reported: “I just got tear gassed along with thousands of union members, many of whom had their families with them. Federal agents at the ICE facility tear gassed children. We must abolish ICE, DHS, and we must have prosecutions.”

Tim Dickinson of The Contrarian wrote: “Today I saw ICE gas little white kids in the streets of Portland with chemical weapons. Imagine what they’re doing to brown and black kids in the detention camps.”

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link. Featured image at the top is WP AI creation. — DrWeb

Continue/Read Original Article Here: January 31, 2026 – by Heather Cox Richardson

#FederalJudge Temporarily Bars #DJT Stormtroopers From Detaining & #Deporting #Minnesota Refugees Legally Seeking #Permanent Residency

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/judge-temporarily-bars-trump-administration-from-detaining-minnesota-refugees-7e219a16?st=kTix9a&reflink=article_copyURL_share

#WSJ #Deportations #FederalAgents #Immigration #RuleOfLaw #CourtOrder #SharedStory #FreeLink

American citizens have been brutalized, pepper-sprayed, & killed on the streets of #Minneapolis. For many, one particular breakdown is a final, damning cause for despair: Minnesota’s apparent inability to investigate & potentially prosecute the #FederalAgents responsible. The #DHS on Saturday reportedly blocked #Minnesota officials from examining the scene of #AlexPretti’s #shooting. Access was refused even after #state officials got a #judicial search #warrant.

#law

American citizens have been brutalized, pepper-sprayed, & killed on the streets of #Minneapolis. For many, one particular breakdown is a final, damning cause for despair: Minnesota’s apparent inability to investigate & potentially prosecute the #FederalAgents responsible. The #DHS on Saturday reportedly blocked #Minnesota officials from examining the scene of #AlexPretti’s #shooting. Access was refused even after #state officials got a #judicial search #warrant.

#law

#US #state lawmakers push to allow lawsuits against #ICE agents

Several #Democratic led #states are pursuing laws to enable people to sue #FederalAgents deployed to their communities for #CivilRights abuses, a push that has gained steam amid protests over tactics used by ICE during #Trump's #immigration “crackdown” in #Minneapolis & elsewhere.

#law #RightToProtest #UseOfForce #PoliceBrutality #CBP #Sturmabteilung #authoritarianism #tyranny #StateSponsoredTerrorism
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-state-lawmakers-push-allow-lawsuits-against-ice-agents-2026-01-28/?utm_source=braze&utm_medium=notifications&utm_campaign=2025_engagement

#US #state lawmakers push to allow lawsuits against #ICE agents

Several #Democratic led #states are pursuing laws to enable people to sue #FederalAgents deployed to their communities for #CivilRights abuses, a push that has gained steam amid protests over tactics used by ICE during #Trump's #immigration “crackdown” in #Minneapolis & elsewhere.

#law #RightToProtest #UseOfForce #PoliceBrutality #CBP #Sturmabteilung #authoritarianism #tyranny #StateSponsoredTerrorism
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-state-lawmakers-push-allow-lawsuits-against-ice-agents-2026-01-28/?utm_source=braze&utm_medium=notifications&utm_campaign=2025_engagement

The handling of potentially #criminal actions by #FederalAgents has become a major issue in #Minneapolis after 2 protesters, both US citizens, were killed there this month by #DHS “officers”.

The #FBI said it would NOT investigate the first killing, of #ReneeGood, a 37-yr-old mother of 3. She was killed in her SUV on Jan 7 as she appeared to be steering away from federal agents during a tense confrontation.

#law #FAFO #federalism #Trump #AbuseOfPower #authoritarianism #autocracy #tyranny

The handling of potentially #criminal actions by #FederalAgents has become a major issue in #Minneapolis after 2 protesters, both US citizens, were killed there this month by #DHS “officers”.

The #FBI said it would NOT investigate the first killing, of #ReneeGood, a 37-yr-old mother of 3. She was killed in her SUV on Jan 7 as she appeared to be steering away from federal agents during a tense confrontation.

#law #FAFO #federalism #Trump #AbuseOfPower #authoritarianism #autocracy #tyranny

#GiftArticle

City Prosecutors Join Forces to Bring Charges Against #FederalAgents

9 progressive #prosecutors from cities around the country are launching a coalition to assist in prosecuting federal law enforcement officers who violate #state #laws, one of the prosecutors, Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, said Tues.

#law #FAFO #federalism #10thAmendment #FederalGovernment #Trump #MafiaState #authoritarianism #autocracy #despotism #dictatorship #fascism #tyranny #MadKing
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/27/us/prosecutors-charges-against-federal-agents.html?unlocked_article_code=1.H1A.wZbM.U_sYBDJs6yu9&smid=nytcore-ios-share

#GiftArticle

City Prosecutors Join Forces to Bring Charges Against #FederalAgents

9 progressive #prosecutors from cities around the country are launching a coalition to assist in prosecuting federal law enforcement officers who violate #state #laws, one of the prosecutors, Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, said Tues.

#law #FAFO #federalism #10thAmendment #FederalGovernment #Trump #MafiaState #authoritarianism #autocracy #despotism #dictatorship #fascism #tyranny #MadKing
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/27/us/prosecutors-charges-against-federal-agents.html?unlocked_article_code=1.H1A.wZbM.U_sYBDJs6yu9&smid=nytcore-ios-share

—>> The National ⦁ #CBCNews <<—

The fight to keep #ICE Tracking apps Online

Users say ICE Tracking apps & websites
are helping keep the Community Safe,
but the Trump Administration says
they’re putting #FederalAgents at Risk

#Pol #Politics #GeoPolitics #WorldNews #News
#AusPol #CdnPoli #EUpol #NZpol #UKpol #USpol
https://youtu.be/DrxQ6_br0kk

—>> The National ⦁ #CBCNews <<—

The fight to keep #ICE Tracking apps Online

Users say ICE Tracking apps & websites
are helping keep the Community Safe,
but the Trump Administration says
they’re putting #FederalAgents at Risk

#Pol #Politics #GeoPolitics #WorldNews #News
#AusPol #CdnPoli #EUpol #NZpol #UKpol #USpol
https://youtu.be/DrxQ6_br0kk

—>> #PodSaveAmerica 🅴 #PSA <<—

#Trump Caves to the National Outrage over #AlexPretti's Killing
Telling Governor #TimWalz that he'll Agree to Allow for an Impartial Investigation
& "look-into Reducing the Number of #FederalAgents in #Minnesota"

⏱️1:26:57
#ReneeGood #ICE #CBP #DHS
#Pol #Politics #GeoPolitics #WorldNews #News
#AusPol #CdnPoli #EUpol #NZpol #UKpol #USpol
https://youtu.be/1N8o7Sp4jDU

Since its opening, media reports and stories from people detained affirm the conditions, rights violations, and deliberate opacity the ACLU warned would follow the opening of this site. Recent reporting reveals alarming conditions at Fort Bliss. The site has already racked up 60 violations of federal detention standards within its first 50 days of operation.

Each pod holds 60–70 people who report chronic food shortages, with meals sufficient for only about 50 individuals. People are forced to ration food, skip meals, or take turns eating — and when food is available, it is often spoiled or partially frozen, causing widespread vomiting, diarrhea, and rapid weight loss. Basic hygiene supplies are scarce: pods receive only a handful of rolls of toilet paper, and people go days without soap, clean clothing, or access to functioning showers. Detainees describe tents and bathrooms flooded with foul water mixed with urine and feces, creating squalid and unsafe living conditions.

,,,

If this is the state of a brand-new, billion-dollar facility within its first 90 days, the outlook for the next wave of military-base detention centers is dire. As detention sites open every few weeks nationwide, the ACLU anticipates that Fort Dix in New Jersey will be the next military site the Trump administration will use for mass immigration detention. There have also been reports of ICE scouting a Coast Guard base in New York for immigration detention.

What we are witnessing at Fort Bliss is not an anomaly; it is a warning. The conditions at Fort Bliss reflect a broader pattern of ICE evading oversight and accountability. The facility is a failed experiment that exposes the dangers of rapidly expanding detention, minimal safeguards, limited transparency, and virtually no oversight.