This piece lands squarely within the architecture I’ve been mapping: Trump doesn’t need cosplay militias anymore, he’s institutionalized the violence.
ICE isn’t just out of control. It’s been re-scripted as a state-sanctioned enforcement wing for a regime that no longer pretends to respect law, precedent, or restraint.
The paramilitary fantasy has been absorbed into federal infrastructure, and the result is a culture of impunity that rivals any transitional autocracy.
In The Collapse of Moral Authority and The Praetorian Age, I’ve traced how cruelty became currency and unpredictability became policy.
This ICE moment is a textbook case:
• Unqualified hires
• Masked agents
• Court-defying commanders
• A legal vacuum filled with brute force
This isn’t just about immigration. It’s about whether state violence can be professionalized..
And yes, it’s not too early to start preparing. The architecture of cruelty won’t dismantle itself.
For Whom the Outrages Toll. Let us not forget the Epstein Files, first. I mean we know a pedophile when we see one dodge, duck, shuck, and jive. For some reason we need the files. I rather think we do not, and we already know what is there. The outrages toll for you as a distraction. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/too-much-two-buckets-to-sanity?r=3m1bs
As soon as I heard of "The Department of Homeland Security", I started calling it "Das Reichsprotektorate"—actually, I called it "DER Reichsprotektorate", thus showing that three years of German language class never stuck despite my Dad's family being Germans! The whole thing stunk at the time, and that the Neoliberal Dems scrambled to vote for it was an early warning sign you couldn't count on the Democratic Party....
The fact that the ICE monster goons do not show their faces and hide behind gaiter masks tells me that they know what they are doing is illegal and immoral. Hell, the Nazi SS and Gestapo didn't bother to cover their faces. Let's also not forget that ICE agents use unmarked vehicles to further coverup their actions. It's about time that Dems started vigorously speaking out and kudos to those mentioned in the piece for doing so. More need to follow their lead.
When protesters didn’t even step on a comically wide, painted blue line in Portland, ICE thugs dragged them across and beat them. Brutality captured on multiple cameras, ICE doesn’t GAF. That’s what we face.
We can't wait for accountability. Starting now we can shun these people. Ignore their existence when they aren't on the job. Refuse service at bars and restaurants and shops. Tell a restaurant manager that you won't return if they are served. Get up and leave when they walk in. Don't let your kids play with their kids. Don't let their spouses into any society but their own.
in the movie Zone of Interest, the murderers at a concentration camp live in a bubble consisting only of themselves. Make that their life.
During trump-dump's first term, I started saying that CBP was irretrievably corrupt and needed completely rebuilding, from top to bottom.
Now it's trump-dump's second term, and with b(itch)ondi, hogshit, and no-more brains in charge, my focus has narrowed to ICE. The entire agency, from agent up through hogshit is not just corrupt, it is a gang of violent, bigoted, psychopathic thugs. All should be convicted of kidnapping and assault, and/or conspiracy to commit said acts.
I think using the detention center in Alligator Alley for their sentences would be true justice.
They have become the Sturmabteilung, aka, the Brownshirts. Sturmabteilung translates as Stormtroopers. (Even as the Star Wars franchise generated somewhere in the neighborhood of $11 billion in box office and home video revenue, it seems that Americans completely missed the point of these movies.)
Later, internal power struggles led to the Sturmabteilung being replaced by the SS, the notorious Schutzstaffel.
ICE under Trump is not about immigration enforcement. It is clearly about growing a Gestapo force to intimidate state officials and voters - just like Hitler's Gestapo, and the USSR's KGB.
Soon after the Berlin Wall in Germany came down, a friend in Dresden took me on a tour of Putin's KGB headquarters near the Elbe. Before Putin left/fled for Russia, the people of Dresden could not talk on the phone without a KGB agent listening in on the conversation. That meant people had to sometimes wait half an hour or more until a staff member was available to listen in. After the KGB left Dresden, it took several years to disentangle the city's phone system because all the wires went to KGB HQ.
The KGB spying on everyday citizen may sound outrageous, but if you are reading the news, you might have noticed that ICE recently spent a fortune to purchase a series of AI gadgets to spy not only on phone calls and social media, but also to monitor people on the street, even recording faces (irises too) using drone cameras and other spying devices - all without any warrants to invade voter privacy. https://jacobin.com/2025/10/ice-zignal-surveillance-social-media.
ICE has already established a lawless precedent of arresting people on the street without cause or warrants. How long before we get arrested as Antifa terrorists for saying something to somebody that ICE spies did not view as MAGA-appropriate?
it hit me: are ICE agents being paid during the shutdown? Apparently yes, along with Border Patrol, TSA air marshals, and other DHS law enforcement personnel. Where is the money coming from? The regime claims it is coming from the One Booty-filled Bill. But that appropriation hasn't actually PASSED (or any bill introduced) much less signed by trump.
One has to wonder where the "unavailable" extra SNAP reserve is actually going.
I think that the reason the Bay Area oligarchs talked Trump out of sending troops to the area was because of the bad optics given election day is right around the corner with a proposal to temporarily re-district to increase the number of Democrats in Congress in reaction to the Texas re-districting. After the election, I wouldn't be surprised to see an invasion. In fact, one of them even had suggested it; it appears that the timing isn't right at the moment.
This piece lands squarely within the architecture I’ve been mapping: Trump doesn’t need cosplay militias anymore, he’s institutionalized the violence.
ICE isn’t just out of control. It’s been re-scripted as a state-sanctioned enforcement wing for a regime that no longer pretends to respect law, precedent, or restraint.
The paramilitary fantasy has been absorbed into federal infrastructure, and the result is a culture of impunity that rivals any transitional autocracy.
In The Collapse of Moral Authority and The Praetorian Age, I’ve traced how cruelty became currency and unpredictability became policy.
This ICE moment is a textbook case:
• Unqualified hires
• Masked agents
• Court-defying commanders
• A legal vacuum filled with brute force
This isn’t just about immigration. It’s about whether state violence can be professionalized..
And yes, it’s not too early to start preparing. The architecture of cruelty won’t dismantle itself.
— Johan
For Whom the Outrages Toll. Let us not forget the Epstein Files, first. I mean we know a pedophile when we see one dodge, duck, shuck, and jive. For some reason we need the files. I rather think we do not, and we already know what is there. The outrages toll for you as a distraction. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/too-much-two-buckets-to-sanity?r=3m1bs
Bernie & others were right. DHS, etc, etc should NEVER have been created after 9/11.
As soon as I heard of "The Department of Homeland Security", I started calling it "Das Reichsprotektorate"—actually, I called it "DER Reichsprotektorate", thus showing that three years of German language class never stuck despite my Dad's family being Germans! The whole thing stunk at the time, and that the Neoliberal Dems scrambled to vote for it was an early warning sign you couldn't count on the Democratic Party....
The fact that the ICE monster goons do not show their faces and hide behind gaiter masks tells me that they know what they are doing is illegal and immoral. Hell, the Nazi SS and Gestapo didn't bother to cover their faces. Let's also not forget that ICE agents use unmarked vehicles to further coverup their actions. It's about time that Dems started vigorously speaking out and kudos to those mentioned in the piece for doing so. More need to follow their lead.
Finally, masks are no longer a rallying point for MAGA patriots!
I’m still trying to believe there will be a ‘next’ election and a return to normalcy in our government!
Donald Trump is eager to call his pal, Marshall Law.
GREAT, GREAT piece, Paul🙏🙏🙏
When protesters didn’t even step on a comically wide, painted blue line in Portland, ICE thugs dragged them across and beat them. Brutality captured on multiple cameras, ICE doesn’t GAF. That’s what we face.
That pull over the line strikes me as plain old state law assault. The problem, of course, is identifying who did the assaulting.
Fire them all, and give them a taste of Trump's DOGE treatment in the process.
No notice, no back pay, no benefits, no severance, no pension, and no respect (in this case, none is deserved).
Sweet dreams are made of this …
We can't wait for accountability. Starting now we can shun these people. Ignore their existence when they aren't on the job. Refuse service at bars and restaurants and shops. Tell a restaurant manager that you won't return if they are served. Get up and leave when they walk in. Don't let your kids play with their kids. Don't let their spouses into any society but their own.
in the movie Zone of Interest, the murderers at a concentration camp live in a bubble consisting only of themselves. Make that their life.
Masks, of course! And nice to see Trump’s militia foreswearing their brown shirts for American casual.
I agree that the Dems need to learn to plan ahead with everything and be prepared.
During trump-dump's first term, I started saying that CBP was irretrievably corrupt and needed completely rebuilding, from top to bottom.
Now it's trump-dump's second term, and with b(itch)ondi, hogshit, and no-more brains in charge, my focus has narrowed to ICE. The entire agency, from agent up through hogshit is not just corrupt, it is a gang of violent, bigoted, psychopathic thugs. All should be convicted of kidnapping and assault, and/or conspiracy to commit said acts.
I think using the detention center in Alligator Alley for their sentences would be true justice.
To rebuild requires a Democrat victory in 2028 … if elections even exist by then. Recovery from Trump will take generations.
ICE is a parallel to fascist Germany.
They have become the Sturmabteilung, aka, the Brownshirts. Sturmabteilung translates as Stormtroopers. (Even as the Star Wars franchise generated somewhere in the neighborhood of $11 billion in box office and home video revenue, it seems that Americans completely missed the point of these movies.)
Later, internal power struggles led to the Sturmabteilung being replaced by the SS, the notorious Schutzstaffel.
ICE under Trump is not about immigration enforcement. It is clearly about growing a Gestapo force to intimidate state officials and voters - just like Hitler's Gestapo, and the USSR's KGB.
Soon after the Berlin Wall in Germany came down, a friend in Dresden took me on a tour of Putin's KGB headquarters near the Elbe. Before Putin left/fled for Russia, the people of Dresden could not talk on the phone without a KGB agent listening in on the conversation. That meant people had to sometimes wait half an hour or more until a staff member was available to listen in. After the KGB left Dresden, it took several years to disentangle the city's phone system because all the wires went to KGB HQ.
The KGB spying on everyday citizen may sound outrageous, but if you are reading the news, you might have noticed that ICE recently spent a fortune to purchase a series of AI gadgets to spy not only on phone calls and social media, but also to monitor people on the street, even recording faces (irises too) using drone cameras and other spying devices - all without any warrants to invade voter privacy. https://jacobin.com/2025/10/ice-zignal-surveillance-social-media.
ICE has already established a lawless precedent of arresting people on the street without cause or warrants. How long before we get arrested as Antifa terrorists for saying something to somebody that ICE spies did not view as MAGA-appropriate?
it hit me: are ICE agents being paid during the shutdown? Apparently yes, along with Border Patrol, TSA air marshals, and other DHS law enforcement personnel. Where is the money coming from? The regime claims it is coming from the One Booty-filled Bill. But that appropriation hasn't actually PASSED (or any bill introduced) much less signed by trump.
One has to wonder where the "unavailable" extra SNAP reserve is actually going.
I think that the reason the Bay Area oligarchs talked Trump out of sending troops to the area was because of the bad optics given election day is right around the corner with a proposal to temporarily re-district to increase the number of Democrats in Congress in reaction to the Texas re-districting. After the election, I wouldn't be surprised to see an invasion. In fact, one of them even had suggested it; it appears that the timing isn't right at the moment.
It’s “Bullying 101”. Any wonder why with Trump, Vance and Miller at the helm?