On Second Thought

Secret ICE Policy Should ‘Terrify’ Americans: Senator

By Michael Woyton

Congress members who are still on the fence about whether or not they should approve funding for ICE and Homeland Security maybe should pay attention to what is acutally going on in the United States.

There are reports of ICE in Minnesota detaining four children, including a 5-year-old boy who was used as bait to try to gain entry into a home. What was it Ice-Ice Barbie Noem said about her agency only going after violent criminals? A 5-year-old? Really?

An elderly U.S. citizen in St. Paul had his home’s door broken down and was forcibly removed wearing only shorts, crocs and a baby blanket by ICE officers.

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Then there is the jaw-dropping story from The Associated Press about an internal ICE memo it received from whistleblower authorizing ICE officers to forcibly enter people’s homes “without a judge’s warrant.”

According to AP’s reporting, “the memo authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based solely on a more narrow administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final order of removal, a move that advocates say collides with Fourth Amendment protections and upends years of advice given to immigrant communities.”

Contents of the May 12 memo, while not widely shared within the agency, is being used to train new ICE officers “who are being deployed in cities and towns to implement the president’s immigration crackdown.”

The AP said new ICE hires are being told to “follow the memo’s guidance instead of written training materials that actually contradict the memo.”

The memo was sent to senators by the nonprofit legal organization Whistleblower Aid which requested that Congress investigate its claims, the Washington Post reported.

David Kligerman, Whistleblower Aid’s senior vice president and special counsel, told the Post “the instructions in the memo appeared to violate the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

He said the framers of the Constitution were “most concerned, of all the rights [in the Bill of Rights], about folks being able to be safe in their homes from arbitrary government invasion.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, who was given the memo by two whistleblowers, said Americans should be terrified by this newly revealed ICE policy, according to NBC News.

“It is a legally and morally abhorrent policy that exemplifies the kinds of dangerous, disgraceful abuses America is seeing in real time,” he said. “In our democracy, with vanishingly rare exceptions, the government is barred from breaking into your home without a judge giving a green light.”

This convicted felon of a president does not believe in the rule of law and certainly has no regard for the Constitution.

He has passed his disdain for America down to his secret lawless police force.

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Speaking of the still-unreleased Epstein files:

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Lead art: Screen grab from FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul via YouTube.

The Madness of King Felon

By Michael Woyton

If you are a fan of political dramas, either on the big screen or the small, and if art was mirroring life, then at this point in the story there would be hushed conversations in passing by members of the cabinet or higher-ups in the majority parties in Congress.

They would be whispering about the 25th amendment or filing a resolution of impeachment.

Pretty sure that ain’t happening.

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This particular cabinet is filled with sycophants who are, quite frankly, amazed that no one’s been fired one year in.

As far as the GOPmagas in Congress, they are too concerned with ignoring anything that the public might consider to be important — Epstein files, anyone? — and ignoring anything that the mad king might say because the media might ask them to comment on it.

Let’s face it, we have a real situation here with the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist on the brink of if not fully embracing lunacy.

The president has for a while now talked of taking over Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark.

He has mused about offering its approximately 56,000 residents $100,000 each to give up free universal health care, among other things. That would come to $5.6 billion, but sure, SNAP benefits had to be cut for Americans.

In the past he has suggested a military takeover, which would mean one NATO member country invading another NATO member country.

That would definitely be a bad thing, including the United States withdrawing from NATO and the European Union countries cashing in their vast holdings of foreign investments in the U.S., just to name two of the most horrifying outcomes, according to experts.

Yes, the president has said that the U.S. needs Greenland for national security purposes. He has said that only the U.S. can protect Greenland.

Irony alert: Greenland as part of Denmark is already under the protection of the combined forces of the U.S. and the rest of NATO. So we’re going to invade Greenland to protect Greenland from America?

However, what nobody saw coming just a couple of days before the one year anniversary of his second inauguration was that he feels he is justified in taking over Greenland — possible through military action — because he was not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Irony alert 2.0: He didn’t get a peace prize so he is going to invade another country.

“In a message to Norway’s prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre on Sunday night,” NPR reported, “Trump criticized the European country for not giving him the prize.”

His message said, “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”

Never mind the fact that the country of Norway doesn’t dole out Nobels.

His feelings were hurt and because of that he no longer has “an obligation to think purely of Peace.”

Yep, the man who controls thousands of nuclear weapons and the most powerful military force in the world is insane.

And if you think he cares about what happens to any of us, just look what he is allowing to go on in Minnesota with his armed, masked, private militia that operates with impunity.

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Lead art: Photo from the internet of an overpass in Hartford, Connecticut.

A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Words, Right?

By Michael Woyton

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Lead art: Screen grab from ‘”The Handmaid’s Tale”/Hulu.

Felon President Favors ICE’s Domestic Terror

By Michael Woyton

It seems the United States does indeed have a domestic terrorism problem.

However, the problem is that the domestic terrorists are being paid by the U.S. under the auspices of ICE and the Department of Homeland Security.

The ICE military force has been given free rein once dropped into American cities to create discomfort and panic by indiscriminately detaining people, going door to door without warrants and, yes, raising the stakes by shooting residents, including 37-year-old Renee Good of Minneapolis.

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What is the determining factor for an individual ICE agent to take someone’s life?

The person must be considered a “threat” to the agent.

And that “threat” could be as simple as a determination of “disrespect” toward the agent.

The convicted felon and adjudicated rapist who sits in the Oval Office said that Sunday to reporters on Air Force One.

“When asked whether the use of deadly force was necessary, Trump replied: ‘It was highly disrespectful of law enforcement, the woman and her friend were highly disrespectful. You saw that’,” The New Republic reported.

“So, in Trump’s America, being disrespectful toward law enforcement is enough to get you killed,” TNR’s Edith Olmsted wrote.

It seems that ICE, having felt the blood lust that Good’s murder brought about, has upped the ante.

There have been reports of agents smashing the car windows of a special education teacher pulling into her school’s parking lot, deploying chemical irritants at people filming agents and entering businesses without warrants, such as Target, to arrest employees who are U.S. citizens — to name a few incidents.

Minnesota State Representative Michael Howard said in a statement that, since Good’s death, “instead of toning down the rhetoric or calling back the 2,000 federal agents deploying into Minnesota’s streets, the Trump administration has double down on their efforts to terrorize our community and heighten tensions.”

Good’s fatal shooting has put a spotlight on the so-far 13 instances of immigration officers firing at or into vehicles occupied by civilians since July, Time magazine reported.

The shootings resulted in eight people being shot, with two killed, including Good. An investigation by the Wall Street Journal found that at least five of those shot were U.S. citizens.

There is one thing of which I am certain: The truth about the killing of Renee Good will not come from this administration.

Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent ID’d as Good’s shooter, was allowed to stroll away from the scene, something that doesn’t usually happen when law enforcement is involved in shooting a civilian.

Now — a week later — it is being reported that Ross “suffered internal bleeding when he was hit” by Good’s car.

Early on, the FBI decided it will not work with state or local law enforcement in investigating the shooting.

Top administration officials, including the president and DHS Secretary Kristi “Ice Ice Barbie” Noem, have already exonerated Ross.

And don’t worry, the likes of Stephen “Temu Goebbels” Miller, Trump’s adviser, said on video that ICE officers “need no fear charges from state officials while doing their job due to ‘federal immunity’” and that anyone stopping them or obstructing them is committing a felony.

Talk about your get out of jail card. Talk about stoking the flames.

This is a lawless administration for sure, and it is likely only to get worse.

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Speaking of the Epstein files:

Where are they?

Oh right, Bondi and her Department of “Justice” are too busy prosecuting Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for some made up bull.

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Lead art: Screen grab from the Associated Press via YouTube.

Gaslighter-in-Chief Weaponizes FBI to Protect Masked Thugs

By Michael Woyton

When the president almost immediately comes out with complete exoneration of one of theirs killing a woman on the streets of an American city, and then blaming the victim for her death, you cannot be surprised when — the next day — the FBI says it and only it will be investigating the shooting.

In the wake of the fatal shooting Wednesday of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis woman, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said Thursday morning that it was informed that the FBI had decided not to work with state law enforcement and that “the investigation would now be led solely by the FBI,” according to The Minnesota Star Tribune.

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Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, in response to the FBI’s announcement, asked, “What are you afraid of an independent investigation for?,” according to the Star Tribune.

He cautioned the FBI to not “do this stupid thing,” adding that going forward exclusively would be “an inherently untrustworthy investigation.”

No shit.

What the FBI said it was going to do means the BCA will “no longer have access to the case materials, scene evidence or investigative interviews necessary to complete a thorough and independent investigation.”

I will add that it means the orange tyrant in the Oval Office and his maga sycophants will be able to shape the narrative and continue blaming Renee Nicole Good for her own death, saying she “weaponized” her SUV against federal officers and “viciously ran over” an ICE officer.

We all saw the videos, but Pres. Donald J. Felon and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi “Puppy Killer” Noem decided to concoct a story in order to protect the ICE officer, who is as-yet unnamed, and themselves.

The felon and Ice-Ice Barbie have unleashed a marauding gang of masked, ill-trained, armed thugs on American cities.

We can assume the masked thugs are completely ill-trained or vastly stupid or absolutely uncaring or all of the above.

Do the thugs feel that they are infallible, that they do not under any circumstances can be held accountable? Or were they told they are infallible and that this administration will take care of them if shit happens?

Of course, they should feel this way when the person in charge of Homeland Security will immediately concoct a story exonerating anyone working for her.

Video and witnesses be damned.

Enter the FBI now taking over the investigation to the exclusion of any other state or local investigative agency.

Sounds like, in addition to massive grift, the administration of the 34-times convicted felon and adjudicated rapist is now trafficking in coverups. Epstein included.

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With Minneapolis on edge after the horrific shooting, one would think that ICE would pull back, giving the community — and tempers — time to settle down.

No such chance.

Just hours after Good was shot and killed, ICE agents went to Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis and, according to witnesses, teargassed staff and students, the Associated Press reported.

Agents may have taken some staff members into custody.

All this led school officials to cancel classes for Thursday and Friday, “citing ‘safety concerns’.”

The AP spoke to a witness who was walking his dog near the school when there were sirens and sounds like a car crash. The witness said there were dozens of skirmishes between agents and students and staff members.

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Here’s video of an ICE thug kicking memorial candles placed to honor Renee Good.

There is no valid reason for ICE or any law enforcement to act this way — unless they don’t care or are trying to provoke a response so things escalate.

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ICE must go. That should be the motto for any Democratic candidate for the midterms.

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From Wolverton

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Lead art: Illustration by @misterjesseduquette on Instagram.

Felon’s ‘Plan’ for Venezuela Not Popular: Reuters

By Michael Woyton

Only one third of Americans are OK with the United States’ military action in Venezuela which saw the toppling of President Nicolás Maduro’s regime.

According to a poll conducted over the past weekend by Reuters and Ipsos, almost three quarters of Americans are worried the U.S. will become too involved in the South American country.

Not surprisingly, 65 percent of Republicans back the military operation, as opposed to 11 percent of Democrats and 23 percent of independents.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll also found that a little less than half — 43 percent — of Republicans agreed with the statement that the “United States should have a policy of dominating affairs in the Western Hemisphere.”

Dig into the poll numbers here. They also show the president’s approval rating ticking up to 42 percent from 39 percent in December, but that is before people will eventually realize that he doesn’t really have a plan to deal with the aftermath of Maduro.

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Speaking of the Epstein files, which still haven’t been fully released:

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Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as always, has her finger on Dear Leader’s blood-thinned pulse. She said his road to Greenland “leads to Putin”:

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Is this Dear Leader’s plan?

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Lead art: Screen grab from MS NOW via YouTube.

Pres. Felon Tries to Rewrite History

By Michael Woyton

Today is the fifth anniversary of the deadly riot that took place on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

Thousands of people who believed the constant lies of the then-occupant of the White House stormed the Capitol and tried to prevent Congress from certifying the legal election of Joe Biden.

Today is also the day that the orange insurrectionist decided to rewrite history on the official White House website by saying, “President Trump took decisive action to pardon January 6 defendants who were unfairly targeted, overcharged, and used as political examples. They were not protected by the leaders who failed them. They were punished to cover incompetence.”

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And he goes on and on and on.

It is sickening to read the lies this pathetic excuse for a human being chooses to keep spouting.

He continues to call the people who chose to assault police officers on Jan. 6 “patriotic Americans” and continues to call the events of the day in which there were calls for hanging his own vice president “peaceful.”

He continues to call the 2020 election “stolen,” though there were multiple chances in multiple courts for his supporters to bring evidence to prove what he was saying had validity. No “evidence” was ever presented.

He continues to blame then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for not calling in the National Guard on that day — something only the sitting president had the authority to do and chose not to do.

I urge you to read it yourself and see what lengths this congenital liar goes to in order to make himself feel better.

We all saw it live on television and streaming platforms. It is beyond shameful to so completely make up what actually happened on Jan 6.

The lying liar lies. Enough is enough.

See what this demented madman posted here. Have a barf bag ready.

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Speaking of Venezuela, where are the rest of the Epstein files?

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And frankly, Pete Kegseth can go f*** himself.

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Lead art: Screen grab from CNN via YouTube.

Send in the Oligarchs

By Michael Woyton

Who knew about the invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro before it happened?

Well, the Washington Post and New York Times apparently knew and withheld publishing any information out of concerns for national security, according to media reports.

Who else knew?

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Not Congress, because the administration chose to ignore both the Constitution that specifically gives Congress the right to declare war and the federal law that states the Gang of Eight bipartisan, senior congressional members must get notice in advance of sensitive covert actions.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio went on the TV machine Sunday and said the action in Venezuela didn’t require congressional because it was a “law enforcement operation,” not an invasion of a foreign country.

I think Rubio needs to buy a dictionary and find out what “invasion” means.

Would it be a surprise that the orange Mar-a-Lago makeup man let some of his wealthy besties know about the invasion before it happened?

On Sunday night, the grifter-in-chief was asked if he spoke to American oil companies in advance of the Venezuela invasion, and he replied that he spoke with them “before and after” the military operation, according to The Hill.

“And they want to go in, and they’re going to do a great job for the people of Venezuela, and they’re going to represent us well,” he was quoted as saying.

That, my friends, is what this little exercise is all about: oil and oligarchs.

Another thing to keep in mind: This president doesn’t do anything that won’t benefit him in some way.

If it means sending our military into a foreign country to occupy territory so that American oil companies can suck all the oil out of the ground, that is OK. There’s a lot of beachfront in Venezuela, too.

Trump will be getting his piece of the action.

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Speaking of the Epstein files.

Saturday, while Americans and the world were finding out about Maduro/Venezuela, was the deadline for Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice to give Congress a written explanation for any redactions or still-withheld documents concerning the investigation into Jeffery Epstein.

Guess what? The DOJ didn’t meet the deadline.

The DOJ didn’t fully comply with the Dec. 19 deadline for the complete release of Epstein documents either.

Man oh man, do you think that Trump and his sycophants decided that invading a sovereign nation and kidnapping its president would be enough to kick Epstein off of the news cycle?

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I would have voted for Mamdani for this reason alone.

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Lead art: Screen grab from ABC News (Australia) via YouTube.

‘Peace President’ Felon Bombs Venezuela, Kidnaps President

By Michael Woyton

What’s the difference between a foreign head of state convicted and sentenced of drug trafficking and a foreign head of state accused of drug trafficking?

Well, the answer is, one gets a pardon and the other gets kidnapped.

The FIFA peace-prize-winning president, who couldn’t even manage to find his way back to the White House from golf resort paid vacation, told the world today that the United States made one of the greatest raids/invasions since World War II.

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He haltingly read a speech that appeared to be filled with many riffs, including his armed invasion of American cities, the implication that “wars” closer to U.S. territory are better than wars further away and stating that other presidents didn’t have the courage to defend America.

The bottom line seems to be that this military action was a war in another country and that we are now going to be running Venezuela until there is a “proper and judicious transition” while rebuilding its oil industry. In other words, who knows how long U.S. troops will be there.

By the way, Venezuela is about 1.5 times the size of Texas.

Well, well, well. Was there any doubt that the “peace president,” who is also someone who made the Department of Defense into the Department of War would bring us to this day?

Where are our congressional representatives now and where will Congress be when — or if — they reconvene?

By the way, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Congress was not notified in advance of the military action, so there’s that.

Sadly, I fear Congress will for the most part remain toothless and spineless, continuing to allow a demented tyrant to further bring this country shame.

Trump, who is unpopular at best, is facing a lousy economy and fallout from the Epstein files and the Jack Smith investigations and decided a war on foreign soil was the best antidote.

He needs to be proven wrong — soon.

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Lead art: Screen grab from the Associated Press via YouTube.

Deep in December, It’s Not So Nice to Remember

By Michael Woyton

As we face the end of another year, it is usually wise to reflect on what we have experienced — unless it traumatizes you all over again.

I started making a list of some of the things that happened in 2025 and what I was able to talk about in this space.

Holy mackerel, what a depressing list I came up with before I just couldn’t stand thinking about it any more.

I mean, there’s DOGE and what it did — like randomly shut down agencies and pilfer the rest — and what it didn’t — like save any real tax dollars.

There was also seeing the promise by the president of ending the war in Ukraine and the promise by the president of lowering prices for consumers. Spoiler alert: neither happened.

We saw presidential pardon power running amok, beginning the day of his second inauguration with the pardons and commutations of the insurrectionists who attacked the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. To date, this president has used his pardon pen for more than 1,600 people, including drug lords, murderers and fraudsters.

What needs to be said about masked, unidentified thugs disappearing people off the streets and a Department of Homeland Security more than willing to look the other way as planes spirit these people to countries where they cannot speak the language, if they don’t end up in prisons where they are tortured.

This president, who pines for the power of a dictatorship — when he can stay awake — has started naming buildings after himself, while tearing down a third of the White House for a “ballroom” he says has been wanted for 150 years.

We also continue to see the ramifications of what has to be the stupidest Cabinet in the history of this country, many of whom rose through the ranks via appearances on Fox News. What’s at risk? The health, education, climate, energy and security of the nation, to name but a few.

While this president advocated for and signed a budget that is projected to increase the federal deficit by about $3.4 trillion and cause more than 10 million people to lose health insurance coverage, billionaires and the uber-wealthy will experience massive tax cuts.

Speaking of billionaires, according to Forbes, the president has leveraged his most recent job to line his pockets. As of September, his net worth is $7.3 billion, having added $3 billion over the last year. His family is taking advantage of daddy’s current position to cash in as well.

There is so much more that we could talk about here, but the reality is that we cannot forget how we got here.

A man who should never have survived the Access Hollywood tape or the ridiculing of a disabled reporter was for real elected to the presidency in 2016.

That same man who fomented an insurrection against the U.S. — thanks to his constant lying about election fraud — and went on to be accused of mishandling classified documents, election interference and business fraud was actually found liable of sexual abuse and was convicted by a jury of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments made to an adult film actress.

Then he was elected to a second term as president.

Though the reality of it all seems bleak — ya think? — there have been a few bright spots, such as the turnout for the No Kings rallies and the recent Democratic victories in the off-year and special elections.

But we still have a lot of work ahead of us.

Trump’s obvious decline mentally and physically, not to mention in job performance, is taking its toll on him.

A good question is, how much longer will he able to function?

A better question is, when, if ever, will enough Republicans realize they’ve been irrevocably tainted by the man in the orange makeup?

Here’s hoping the news in 2026 will get better.

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Don’t forget about the Epstein files.

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Lead art: Screen grab from the Washington Post via YouTube.