Paul Cantrell
Pressure on Senators •is working•. Previously head-in-sand centrist Senators are actually coming out to vote against ICE funding. Their positions are still weak and insufficient, and more need to cave to pressure — but they are visibly buckling.
Again, we should not and must not wait on elected officials to save us — they will not — but we can and should deploy pressure on them as a strategic tool in moments when that can be useful.
Now is such a moment. KEEP IT UP.
1/
Paul Cantrell
My message to Senators:
❝The correct amount of funding for not just ICE but the •entire Department of Homeland Security• is zero. ZERO. You heard me: the entire agency. Under current leadership, it is off the rails. It is dangerous. It it a menace.
“More training” is a pathetic non-answer; that just means more money. These murderers are trained; they are just monsters. Don’t say “better oversight.” Don’t say “more reforms.” Pull the rug. Switch it off. • Shut • it • down • NOW •
If you have to shut down every airport in the country, then you shut down every damned airport in the country. If you have to shut down the federal government again, you shut it down. Your inaction is sleepwalking the country into civil war. SHUT. IT. DOWN.❞
2/
Paul Cantrell
I don’t actually expect centrist Senators to do this. I mean… come on. But these tools think politics means splitting the difference between opposing positions, so I’m just giving them an opposing position that actually packs a punch before they water it down. (“Don’t negotiate against yourself. Ask for what you want.”)
3/
Paul Cantrell
And to be clear, zeroing out the budget, scrapping the DHS, returning its law enforcement duties to local agencies, and prosecuting ICE officers — all of that! — is the •moderate• position here.
The extremist position is violence of a kind and scale I shudder to contemplate.
Pressure them. Rattle them out of their stupor.
/end
Jeff Miller (orange hatband)
@inthehands "Rescind the establishment of DHS" is appropriate, for a bad decision badly elaborated and badly used.
Paul Cantrell
Yes. And again, this is the moderate position.
Geoff Simmons
@inthehands I would add: anyone who was employed by ICE during either Trump administration is permanently disqualified from employment by the federal government. Any state or local government or private company in the US that employs a former ICE employee will have any federal funding reduced to zero.
We need to *punish* the fascists, by prosecuting the criminals, but also by inflicting harm on anyone who had anything to do with them. Let them be impoverished, and shunned.
Paul Cantrell
I fully understand every single detail of this, and I do not care. The point of these calls isn’t really to figure out for them how to navigate the logistics and the politics; that is literally their job. The point is to make every senator lie awake sleepless every single night wondering how they can possibly do more to stop ICE, even if they can’t. That’s the position we’re in here in Minneapolis, and I don’t want any elected official to feel one drop more comfort than we’re feeling right now.
Amy Meyers🏴🇨🇦🇺🇸🐸
@inthehands here’s the thing: ICE already is funded under the Big Beautiful Bill. The upcoming vote (already passed by the House, by the way) is for MORE funding. Killing that bill doesn’t defund ICE. It puts a small pinch on future budgets. I’m sure this government will find a workaround, if it deems the money necessary. It doesn’t seem to believe that Congress really possesses the power of the purse or that Executive Orders related to agencies operate within federal budgeting.
Amy Meyers🏴🇨🇦🇺🇸🐸
@samiamsam @inthehands it’s already been funded via the Big Beautiful Bill. This bill has already passed the House. The Senate is just adding money to what’s already been approved. The ship has long since sailed with full blessings and champagne toasts. They are fully funded. The House approved the cherry on top already. No one is impeaching or dismantling or defunding anything. Dem donors are happy. Do you see a Dem leader emerging to talk opposition? Not happening.
Paul Cantrell
samiamsam
i called my 2 Senators and 1 Representative and said the same thing.
Not one more dime for DHS ICE Border Patrol or Homeland Security
NOT ONE MORE DIME
The whole thing needs to be dismantled
Paul Cantrell
Keep the pressure up. One by one, people like him are buckling. And the ones who aren’t are feeling more and more uncomfortable about it.
Amy Meyers🏴🇨🇦🇺🇸🐸
I’m in Salem, Oregon. We went to Merkley’s town hall last week. Dodge, weave, duck. And he’s one of the few not beholden to AIPAC. He wants to talk kitchen table issues and platitudes and what will happen after the midterms. They are using chemical weapons on his constituents. They are arresting his families for seeking help at ERs. He will not discuss it. He will not be a leader. And he’s clearly not troubled in his conscience by any of it. I’ll keep calling, but…
Paul Cantrell
A surprisingly productive question for people of that ilk has been, “Why are you covering for a pedophile?” Good one to ask publicly if you have the chance.
Faraiwe
@samiamsam @inthehands my "senators" and representative" are irrecoverable magats.
Jeremy Kahn
your "extremist" position reminds me of this short story (from @garbados ?) that i have had open in a spare tab for *months*
https://blog.bovid.space/they-let-me-live
it is oddly hopeful about the aftermath of adopting the extremist position
Paul Cantrell
I am now seeing reports of Senators calling for the impeachment of Noem.
Good. Fine. Do that. Yay. Put a head on a pike.
My demand upthread doesn’t change. Having a different Trump appointee running ICE will not fix ICE. You can’t fix ICE. Scrap it. Abolish it. Shut it down. This deranged tyrant must not and cannot be allowed to have an unaccountable personal army.
Still, I’m delighted that Senators are scrambling to do something. Keep up the pressure. Keep them all scared.
Paul Cantrell
@reiddragon
Politicians never lead. The population leads; politicians follow. Sometimes it seems like maybe that’s not the case, but it is.
Reid 🖤
Jack the Frosted Count
@inthehands You can put as many good apples as there are apple trees into a bad barrel, but until you get a new barrel, they're not going to fix the problem.
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