I wish Kristi Noem the same level of comfort that she enforces upon others.
And the best he could find was a bunch of middle-aged guys that looked like they were cosplaying as soldiers who have never gone through so much as aa day of basic training?
They already weren't?
Now you tell me...... Now I'm going to sit here all day and wonder who I sent all those dick pics to......
"Kind of lame"?
We didn't have our service members proudly marching in lockstep. It was a bunch of old people that could barely keep formation, "marching" (and I use that term loosely) as if they just walked out of the bar and into their first day of basic training after being drafted.
Our "show of military strength" was a couple of old tanks creaking down the road, sounding like they were Ford Model Ts from the 1920s.
There was no music or marching band or anything for the parade to make its way through. There was no crowd to cheer them on; it was just dead silence. My daughter's high school graduation had better attendance and a more enthusiastic crowd.
Not that this should be a surprise to anyone at this point, but we looked like a laughing stock on the world stage. If that parade showed off the best that the US military had to offer, our military will never be taken seriously again. Seriously. A bunch of old people and a couple of tanks that were older than they were. That's what Trump gave. I've seen those carnivals that pop up from time to time in mall parking lots that had all the rigged games and unsafe rides, and they were still both cheaper than Trump's parade and more entertaining.
I expected Trump's parade to be a dud, but even he outdid himself with how bad that so-called parade was. Take out all the people that were forced to attend for whatever reason, and the people who attended could probably fit in a phone booth.
And this is logic that I have never, ever, ever understood.
If the only potential evidence that you have is that baggie of drugs that they could flush down the toilet, then you don't have the evidence to support a full-on, no-knock raid of the guy's house in the first place. You don't need a dozen federal agents armed for war showing up in armored vans to arrest some dude selling a bit of weed to high school kids. If him flushing some drugs down the toilet would torpedo your case, you didn't have a case to begin with. At the very least, certainly not a case that justifies bringing in the entire COD Squad to arrest him.
If you do have the evidence that the suspect is some high-end cartel member or something and the only safe way to arrest him is a raid, then the baggies of drugs that get flushed down the toilet are superfluous; even if he successfully flushes everything in the house down the toilet, the rest of the evidence that you used to justify the warrant in the first place should be enough to secure a conviction anyway.
This is the problem with police raids, no-knock warrants, etc. where the occupants of the home can be charged with crimes for shooting at the police. They have absolutely no idea if the people busting down the door at 3AM are actual police, enemies such as rival gang members, or local criminals. But they basically have to make a choice between, as the saying goes, being judged by 12 or carried by six.
All this leads to is unnecessary shootings and deaths, but the cops don't care because they get to dress up like they're playing a live action game of COD, arming themselves to the teeth, and driving military vehicles down the road while they gleefully anticipate how many brown people they get to shoot today, when the target is most often some low-level street dealer. And that's assuming they even have the right person or address. They got the wrong guy or the wrong house? Too bad, so sad, sucks to be you because they're immune. They still get to kill you, claim that it was in the heat of the moment, and the worst that will happen is that they're put on paid leave, while you can still be charged with murder of a police officer if you happen to kill one of them in the process.
This is the next logical step in the process. It wasn't going to take long before people started figuring out that as long as you dress up like the cops, you can easily get the jump on people who may be hesitant to fight or shoot back out of fear of criminal charges, knowing that by the time anyone realizes what's going on (assuming they survive that long), it's too late to matter.
I know that it'll never, ever, ever happen in Trump's dictatorship, but this is why police raids, no-knock warrants, civil forfeiture, etc. all need to be done away with. Police or no, if someone physically enters your home without permission, citizens should absolutely have the right to defend themselves. The police should not be allowed to enter a home until after they have repeatedly identified themselves from outside the home and given the suspect a chance to come out. I don't care what kind of warrant they have. So what if they barricade themselves inside the house? Wait. They'll run out of food eventually. And probably sooner rather than later.
Honestly, I wish these cases would just be filed with the Supreme Court. That's where they're going to end up anyway. Every ruling before that is literally pointless since any ruling against Trump just leads to Trump judge-shopping until he finds one willing to put the stay on hold and let Trump do what he wants while the case plays out.
Especially when it comes to election cases, where they've historically postponed any ruling until the last possible second, then say that "The GOP may be wrong, but it's too close to an election to change the rules now so the GOP rules stand."
Sadly, I would not be surprised to find the polls to be relatively accurate. I know plenty of Democrats who are low-key perfectly OK with Trump's immigration policies. Especially since, as far as they care, it's just affecting "those" brown people. The ones across the country. It's not impacting their brown friends. Yet. It's not impacting their community. Yet. So they're OK with it. Democrats are far from being immune to racism.
Actually, they do understand it. They just don't care, because they simultaneously profit off of it. CBS openly admitted it.
A few things to note.
Once again, the mass media are calling these "violent protests", and tacitly giving cover for Trump despite no evidence that the protests have scaled to the point where the National Guard is even necessary. This will do little but embolden Trump to expand the use of these tactics to other cities, especially if he's going to have majority support from the voting base.
2/3 of the voters are either "not sure" or are actively supporting ICE and the Trump administration. He is literally marching in authoritarianism to thunderous applause. Worse, only 58% of Democrats approve of the protests. Which means 42% are either indifferent or are actively supporting ICE.
The more Trump marches in authoritarianism, the more people on both sides of the aisle seem to be stepping aside and saying "Right this way, sir."
This goes to show just how far AI speech-to-text recognition has become. It's absolutely amazing. All the assistant on Huckabee's phone heard was "GLARGGGGARGLLLARGGGARGLEGARRRGL" for about 20 or so seconds, and it immediately knew what Huckabee was trying to say while gobbling down Trump's balls.