What can happen if lower case R resistance becomes upper case R Resistance? ICE agents may have turned tail and run in Rochester, but this is a dangerous precedent.

 

Excerpt from 'Gestapo!' Immigration agents swarmed and tires slashed in explosive standoff:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who moved to make an arrest in an upscale neighborhood of Rochester, New York, were blindsided as a crowd of angry protesters descended on them and vandalized their vehicles, according to WXXI.

"The group shouted 'shame' and 'Gestapo,' and applauded as agents in the ICE-led action drove a Border Patrol SUV away on four flat tires, which had been slashed," said the report. "One of the roofers was taken into custody, but agents left others apparently unchecked on the rooftop of the Westminster Road rental house."

The crowd in Park Avenue accosting ICE and CBP agents was said to be around 200 people.

Here’s another article:

This article has videos:

This is the first incident where citizens behaved something like the Resistance did during World War II. During the war the actions of the Resistance were planned and this was spontaneous. Resistance cells were small groups of men and women who conducted guerrilla warfare and published underground newspapers. 

The Resistance also spied on the Nazi and conveyed vital information to the Allies. 

Consider this from the DDay Center article: The Role of the French Resistance in Intelligence for the Allies: Strategies, Impact, and Legacy

The intelligence work of the French Resistance gave Allied forces critical details about German defenses, troop movements, and military plans. These men and women risked everything, collecting info on German positions along the Atlantic Wall, Wehrmacht deployments, and communication networks.

Their efforts helped Allied commanders make smarter decisions, saving lives and, honestly, probably shortening the war.

The story of French Resistance intelligence is full of ordinary people who became extraordinary spies when things got dangerous. University professors published underground newspapers, and farmers reported German troop movements.

These resistance fighters built networks that stretched all over occupied France. They worked with British and American intelligence, creating a tangled web of information sharing that played a crucial role in Allied victory.

Resistance spying was depcited in the Pulitizer Prize winning novel and NetFlix miniseries “All the Light We Cannot See” (reference). In the dramatic story a blind girl radioed coded messages about the Nazis to the Allies.

In real life well known entertainer, jazz singer Josephine Baker who was known as “The real Goddess,” became a spy for the French Resistance. Baker used her celebrity to gain access to high-ranking Axis officials. (Reference)

Lepa Svetozara Radić was a 17 year old Serbian Resistance fighter executed by the Nazis for shooting at German troops. This is from Wikipedia: 

“As her captors tied the noose around her neck, they offered her a reprieve from the gallows if she would reveal her comrades' and leaders' identities. She responded that she was not a traitor and that her comrades would reveal themselves when they avenged her death.”

The Nazis made villagers pay with their lives when the Resistance had successes against them. Residents would be rounded up and be shot or hung in the town square. If one Nazi was killed by the Resistance, many more would be murdered in retribution. Bodies would sometimes be hung on utility poles and noone was allowed to cut them down.

This was all done to send a message to others who dared go against them, whether through sabotage or actual violence. 

For example: “When the Nazis Massacred Greek Civilians to Send a Warning to Those Who Resisted. German soldiers killed an estimated 500 Cretans in Viannos and Ierapetra in retaliation for an attack by local partisans.” (Read article)

In the photo above I was struck by how “The Butcher of Crete” bears more than a passing resemblance to Tom Homan.

How soon will it be before a non-bloody version of retribution for resistance to immigration actions happens here?

While there is a visceral satistfaction to be had in the story about what the residents in Rochester did, such actions are unwise. If people are to use the World War II Resistance as a model, it is best to limit themselves to what the spies did and not do anything that will give an excuse for Trump to escalate towards either something that might as well be martial law whether of not he actually declares it. 

The non-violent, though illegal, sharing of information that may help people avoid imminent ICE raids would be similar to what Resistance and other allied spies (like Churchill’s three female spies) did. 

Check back later… it’s 5:00 AM here and I haven’t even read the news…..

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My comments in RawStory

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It's not quite as bad as in horror movies yet, but the pictures tell the story as Trump gives DC tourists photo-ops of nascent fascism in action.

 

The photo above was used to illustrate a letter in the opinion section of The Washington Post disputing the accuracy of reports that the federal takeover of DC resulted in fewer people eating out. No doubt it was used because it showed four (really at least five) of these Trump SS walking in front of a restaurant.

As horrified as we should be by this utterly obvious, unnecceasry, and downright absurd display of meant to intimidate performance art, I saw three positives in the photo. Can you guess what they are?

Here they are: 

• None of the Trump SS are wearing masks.

• One of the members of the Trump Schutzstaffel1 has his name on his uniform.

• This shows interagency cooperation.

We can only guess what the four people whose faces or heads are visible are thinking.

The three that we see all look serious or oblivious. It is hard to tell which. Are they really on the alert for criminal activity or people who look like they are illegal immigrants? I’d like to believe that at least one of them is thinking “what the fuck am I doing this for?” Either that or they may be worried about how they’ll react if someone throws a sandwich at them.

We don’t know why one is looking over his shoulder. Perhaps he passed someone eating a sandwich.

There’s a fifth Schutzstaffel who we can identify because of his body armor, but all we can tell is he has massive biceps and is wearing the requisite tight t-shirt. 

Apparently being buff and showing off upper body muscles by wearing tight short sleeved shirts is a Trumpian requirement. Hegseth, RFK Jr., Margorie Taylor Greene, and AI images of Trump sets the standard for this.

The article 'It’s an affront': DC tour guide rips Trump's troop surge as a tourist 'spectacle' in RawStory used a photo that should be disturbing to any caring human being. 

Click here to enlarge just the photo.

Unfortunately people, like the two in this photo, will continue to be intimidated by the Trump SS for no other reason than they have black or brown skin. 

Look at their faces:

Waiting under a bus shelter used to protect you from the elements like rain and snow. This one doesn't protect you from ICE and their partners. The police still have the audacity to wear the uniform of DC police (who are supposed to protect and serve everyone) 

Meanwhile, Trump's next target city is supposedly going to be Chicago!

Read: ‘Your political circus isn’t welcome here’: Trump eyes federal crackdowns in more cities.

US President Donald Trump said Friday that Chicago is the next city in his crosshairs for the kind of federal invasion and occupation currently underway in Washington, DC—a threat that sparked defiant pushback from officials in the Windy City and beyond.

"After we do this, we'll go to another location, and we'll make it safe also," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, referring to his federalization of Washington's Metropolitan Police Department and deployment of National Guard troops from the district and five Republican-controlled states.

"We're going to make our cities very, very safe. Chicago's a mess. You have an incompetent mayor. Grossly incompetent and we'll straighten that one out probably next," the president said, referring to progressive Brandon Johnson. "That will be our next one after this. And it won't even be tough."

Hopefully it won’t happen, but it’s possible that visitors to Millennium Park will end up getting interesting, and disquieting, photos of Trump’s SS lingering around the famous Cloud Gate sculpture, otherwise knows as “the bean.”

The Britannica explains why Chicago is called The Second City.

Chicago is called the “Second City” due to a combination of historical and cultural factors, primarily stemming from its rivalry with New York City and the name of a book by A.J. Liebling, who coined the term in the 1950s.

Now it looks like it is poised to become the second city Trump unleashes his SS on.

The photo on the top of the page is the famous shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller “Psycho” which you can watch here.

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While it may sound like the name of a German strudel Schutzstaffel was the name of the Nazi SS.

This is what the Fox News website thought were the most important stories this morning, and why it matters, By Hal M. Brown

 

 

The top of the Fox News website page when I began to write my Substack this morning featured the article: “From ‘homicide capital’ to safer streets? Memphis area sees policing push.”

This seemed to me to be an attempt to address the publicity about other cities being far more dangerous than D.C. and to normalize federal intervention in them to fight crime. The sending in FBI agents is a Trump alternative to sensibly dealing with root causes of crime and looking at ways to augment local law enforcement from within. Federal grants to local police departments would make more sense than sending addtional FBI agents. Cities like Memphis already have FBI and and DEA agents fighting crime in their usual purview. Of course doing things in a sensible way wouldn’t be as flashy and self-agrandizing for Trump. It also would cede control of fighting most crime to local authorities. This is something dictators do not do.

Here are next articles shown above fromleft to right:

Justice Barrett teases new memoir in abrupt conference exit

This article isn’t really news. It just says that Barrett “emerged as the most-talked-about justice on the high court this term, confounding and frustrating observers as they tried and failed to predict how she would vote, and that “she’s been hailed as the ‘most interesting justice on the bench,’ a ‘trailblazer’ and an iconoclast, among other descriptions.”

Congressman whose DC apartment complex was robbed blasts Democrats for criticizing Trump crime crackdown

This is obviously a pro-Trump D.C. law enforcement takeover article. It is a typical first person account of crime in D.C. applauding Trump’s militarization of policing. 

'The View' co-host Ana Navarro rips Melania Trump's Putin letter as 'so hypocritical you can't believe it'

The last one was actually critical of both Melania and Big Daddy.

She added, "How about the children all over the world who are not receiving U.S. aid because her husband's government decided we shouldn't be feeding starving children all over the world? How about all those kids?"

Navarro sarcastically applauded the first lady’s letter as a "good thing" for Ukrainian children but told her to "start a little closer to home."

"Maybe she should turn around and say the exact same thing to her husband, because there are children in America crying, suffering, going to bed in fear, returning to homes that are abandoned and empty, not knowing where their next meal is coming from because of what her husband is doing," Navarro said.

An interesting thing happened as I was writing this Substack. The article about crime in D.C. changed postions on the main page:

Somebody running the Fox News website decided that a story about crime in Memphis and calling it “the homicide capital” went against the Trump narrative that the nation’s capital was the crime capital. Even though it doesn’t rank number one in homicides you can be sure that Trump wishes it did.

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Iceland is about to get a US ambassador with a Trumpian sadistic sense of humor.

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The best place to read this is on Substack here. You are invited to subscribe. It is free.

On the very bottom of the page on Substack is a new feature. It is my reaction to various news reports of the day updated though the day.

We know that Trump sense of humor leans heavily towards the sadistic. He thinks it’s amusing to tell police officers not to be too careful loading people into the backs of their cruisers so they don’t bump their heads or bragging that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue or grab a woman by her privates. There are numerous articles about Trump’s sense of humor. I won’t delve into it here. You can read them with a Google search here.

This guy pictured above you probably never heard of. He epitomizes the kind of sadistic, cruel, insensitive humor favored by Trump and mimicked by his toadies. He demonstrated this in what was meant to be a joke in something he tweeted last night.

Read “‘ICE — not Iceland!’ Fired IRS head jokes about Trump’s chilly reassignment” in RawStory here.

Here’s another article about this:

This is supposedly the joke, i.e., something meant to be funny.

Here’s what he posted on X:

So, are you holding your sides to keep them from splitting as you are rolling on the floor laughing uncontrollably at his saying that he got so fired up when he saw that the former Superman actor Dean Cain had announced he was joining ICE that he wanted to do the same, and called Trump to tell him that he wanted to do this. And then Trump misunderstood him and made him ambassador to Iceland instead. 

Oh my fucken God, that is so hysterically funny… he wanted to join the thugs at ICE who are terroizing thousands of law abiding citizens across the country.

The question as to why this guy was fired after only two months on the job running the IRS has not been answered. It’s possible he refused to order the agency to go after some of Trump’s enemies. Perhaps this act of intergity got him axed and, because in other ways he was a loyal Trumper and because Trump didn’t want anyone looking too closely at his removal he was given another job, albeit what isn’t considered a to be a plum ambassadorship. Perhaps he got since of running an agency which had it’s staff cut by 25% by DOGE.

Iceland is not a major player in world politics except for the Greenland “thing,” living in Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital, is not a hardship assignment. In fact, it seems to be a rather pleasant place to work for the next few years.

The government website about Iceland has not been updated. It shows that the US still has an interim ambassador. (Reference)

Reykjavík is consider to be vibrant and colorful city which is far from the icy wasteland which the name Iceland suggests. The city is filled with museums, cafes, and has a lively arts scene. Here’s a photo of their Pride celebration which began on Aug. 5th and ends tomorrow:

Read more about the city here. 

Assuming he is approved by the Senate this is where Billy Long will be working:

It occurred to me when I woke in the middle of last night that there was another piece of humor that I hadn’t heard. Someone else may have made this observation since it seems to obvious. 

Iceland wasn’t always called Iceland. You may have heard this orgin story:

Despite its chilly name, Iceland isn't covered in ice year-round. In fact, it has lush green landscapes, hot springs, and volcanoes. The name Iceland might make you think of a frozen wasteland, but the story behind it is quite different. According to legend, early Viking settlers named it Iceland to deter others from coming to this beautiful land. They wanted to keep its natural beauty and resources for themselves. This clever naming strategy worked, and Iceland remained a hidden gem for many years. Reference..

The word ice has two more or less opposite connotations when used in everyday language. One is good. For example: ice cream, iced coffee and tea, chocolate icing, and we even have rappers: Vanilla Ice, Ice Spice, Ice Cube, Ice Billion Berg, and rapper/actor Ice-T. (I didn’t know all of these, I had to look it up here). For some reason rappers resonate with the word ice. I’ll leave it to a linguist to explain why.

I didn’t know this before, but there’ s a German high speed rail service also called ICE-T.

Then there are bad uses for the word. For example ice storm. It is obvious why you don’t want to hear that in your weather forecast. There are also descriptions like an icy stare or icy reception. Being on the receiving end of each of these can be rather uncomfortable.

What I am leading up to is wondering whether considering the bad reputaion the word “ice” now has thanks to Trump’s, ICE is equated here and around the world with something worse than bad. He has an agency referred to as ICE being called by crtics like me the ICE Gestapo. The letters stand for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the agency was feared by smugglers and people trying to enter the country illegally. Now it is feared by anyone who may be profiled by them because of the color of their skin.

This led me to think of a not really all that amusing joke. It’s because of all of this that Iceland might want to change its name to Niceland.

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