If we allow a network of secretive, cruel, detention facilities for one set of powerless people today, tomorrow it will inevitably turn those same systems against anyone who challenges their power.
There will never be enough cruelty to satisfy these sadistic psychos.....
The camps and detention centers are coming to a town near you. There is a detention center being built 100 miles away from where I live. It is going to be in a town of 11,000 that is in a county of only 51,000.
All they need is an airport. The crowds of protestors will be much smaller. Not so many prying eyes either.
And then there is Joe Lonsdale of Palantir fame calling for public executions:
This f*cking guy was an intern for Thiel and Musk. All roads lead back to them and Putin. The mission is to destroy America and create their Technocracy to rule over this part of the world---from Greenland and Canada and down through all the Americas. See you in the streets.
Alis,great post and needs to repeated everyday.Joe Lonsdale and Palantir,are Wall Street sweethearts,CNBC sweethearts. Comcast recently contributed a significant amt of money for the destruction of the East Wing and buildout of the TechnoNazis ballroom,they are complicit in their support of Trump. A few months ago,when Trump visited the NY Stock Exchange,Jim Kramer made gestures like he was going to kiss him. Don't include any of these pigs as defenders of democracy.
That which irks me is that the vast majority of the people, including liberals, and especially the corporate media seem not to have a clue, maybe it is wishful thinking, that Trump has no intention of, and will not vacate, the White House , unless on a Guerney,. Steve Bannon spilled the beans, they are working on a mechanism. I know one simply declare Martial law, and complete the self coup which is already in motion.
Look what he is done, destroyed the East Wing, remodeled the Lincoln Bedroom to suit his tastes, the hall of presidents, full on bling in the Oval Office. He has told us, that he is not going anywhere, and his advisors and sycophants will be there to help him if it means deploying this GESTAPO, and military
It has to happen, because if the regime gives way to a Democratic administration, then there will be one hell uv a lot of folk, up for prison time, like all of his cabinet and advisors...
William,great post.You are right,people do not have a glue,so sad that we are not treating this much more seriously.Not enough Democratic participation. Just continue to refer to them as the " Nazi Infrastructure"and all of them as " Nazis" .
I'll bet 2-1 odds that the construction to OUR house is going to be gaudy, shoddy, and over budget. And likely not finished in Jan 2029, due to repairs that need to be made.
This is a stain on this era of America. I don't blame tRump, per se. He is the monster he admits to being. I blame, the Congress, the courts, and the American voters.
You may be right,but I think going after the cos that provided the money for the this, are fair game.We have to long been muted and have not fought with every tool available.We are so overdue for a real fight. It begins with the Technofacists.
Trump has no soul,no empathy,he is not human. Adolf Hitler had more empathy than Trump will ever have.
The only thing we know for sure,is that at his funeral,there will people,many people that will peeing on his coffin.
I don't relish the idea of public executions, but that does have a way of concentrating the mind! I suppose "these are the times that try mens' souls....." We have a heck of a lot of "sunshine patriots" among us, let's see if there are 100,000,000 true-blue patriots who live in this country and don't appreciate it being co-opted, stolen, and morphed into a hellscape.
The Japanese used to torture POWs in those cages. They were executed for war crimes. Don't believe in the death penalty. How about life in those cages for certain people like Kristi? Thank you, Rs for turning me into a sadist.
When I was a kid, before I was sent to Vietnam, because my assignment was highly sensitive, I was required to attend Survival, Evasion, Resistance, & Escape school (SERE for short). Basically, they taught us how to evade capture while starving, then put us in prison anyway so we could enjoy every known torture used by enemies that did not cause permanent tissue damage.
At night, we were put in 2x2 plywood cubes like the Alligator Alcatraz cages to sleep in the fetal position, while every 30 minutes or so our captors would bang loudly on the boxes to wake us up. If we did not call out our name, they assumed we were sleeping, opened the door, and hit us with a fire hose to wake us up in 50+ degree temps. It is impossible to sleep with your teeth chattering so loudly.
During the day, we went from interrogation to interrogation, each with its special torture - including the famous waterboard. Much of the time, we were bound & blindfolded. By the end, we were famished, bruised, beaten, and exhausted. If we had blabbed during interrogation, we joined the ranks of Major Pete Hegseth, and lost our security clearance for life. FOOTNOTE: On the bus returning to San Diego, my admiral-selectee CO stupidly stood up in the front of the bus and asked what we could take away from our experience at SERE School. The entire bus chorused: "Not to be taken alive, sir!"
I share this tale to point out that all US prisons involve some abuse and torture - even rape (of both genders). Such abuses regularly appear in MSM articles. Miller and Homan's network of immigrant gulags are nearly completed nationwide. Do you think they will just be torn down after the deportations are completed? Are you that naive?
Immigrants were nothing more than an excuse to build a fascist Gestapo and Gulag infrastructure that you too could enjoy? Under Trump's new National Security Strategy, publicly opposing fascism makes you a terrorist. In fact, opposing any MAGA policy will get you a free 1-way ticket to a gulag.
" Do you think they will just be torn down after the deportations are completed? Are you that naive?"
Afraid most of us are indeed, that naive. It would seem this madness, this insanity, this FASCISM is all ramping up - as tRump's health & popularity are clearly in steep decline. Both Thom's post today and your reply, are sobering. I thank you for your service, and for telling us this story. You are spot on - after they've kidnapped & deported all they can, they will come after those us who have to courage to speak out, protest and create dissenting content.
Thank you again for alerting us all to this threat, as it is very real.
Tom thank you for your service. To few understand from personal survival the reality of the hellscape that is being setup, and is currently in operation just waiting to scale up.
I had the same escape and evasion training -- also jungle warfare school.
We were "advisors," MAC-V. Military Assistance Command- Vietnam. I was sometimes TDY to ARVN, Korean and my favorite, the CIDG -- Civillian Irreguar Defence Group. Could't tell the players with or without a scorecard.
We were in two "search and destroy" operations -- Junction City and Cedar Falls, Tay Ninh province. TDY on others. We'd turn the prisoners over to the Vietnamese.
I cannot indicate "like" because of the totally sadistic content - We have to eliminate the Lame Duck Felon and his cronies ASAP by all means we can dream up and apply......
I went through that school too, back in 1974. I remember the cages, wearing nothing but skivvies, eating rice and a little water, being hosed down with firehoses and the constant blaring of meaningless propaganda from loudspeakers all of the time. Sleep was not an option. The escape part was a joke. Being a no nothing 18 year old, I got caught early.
To think that we who served our country and endured this and more in our careers, are witnessing, and for some, participating, in this torture of human beings just because they fit the current profile and maybe, crossed a border somewhere without papers. Then there are those immigrants who were given asylum or a temporary status for humanitarian reasons and have the rug jerked out from under them just because Trump and company has taken a dislike to them for whatever reason.
It won't be much longer before Miller starts putting dissidents in these camps as well. Do we need to dust off our uniforms and resurrect our training to start fighting back?
I am too old to participate in a shooting war. Charley Kirk and Donald Trump have both demonstrated that we are already in a shooting war that might get nipped in the bud if Congress (both sides) can discover their spine and find their moral compasses. But at the same time, I have to respect that if Fascism is what the younger generations want, they have a right to learn about life the hard way. I also have to remember that I have a lot more education and experience than most younger generations, so I have an edge on critical reasoning.
Nevertheless, I cannot rationalize how people can support a Christian Nationalist, Bible salesman president who is on his 3rd wife, lost numerous lawsuits for filandery, and who bragged about grabbing women by their privates. How can they justify Trump as a businessman who went bankrupt 6 times, and skipped out on debts more often than that, and who is tearing down our economy while Mike Johnson continues gaslighting MAGAs that they are rich and the economy has never been better.
I might be a bit long in the tooth and moving a little slower these days but I still have my uniforms, both woodland camo and Desert camo, rifles and military grade pistol. I can still shoot pretty well, despite my eyes dimming slightly. And I still remember most of my training. If I have to defend myself against MAGA marauders someday soon, I'm as ready as I can be. I have even day dreamed a little about taking out some of these overly aggressive ICE and CBP agents with a long range rifle, just because I like to defend those who can't defend themselves. Things are pretty bad if I'm dreaming up scenarios of taking out some of these SS troops.
I'm not a veteran, and I'm too old and banged up to be much use. I am spending some serious time thinking about what I'll do if they come for my wife and I. I have a 9mm and a few boxes of shells.
Yep, it's a changing world out there and not for the good. Be safe over there. We might be out in your neck of the woods someday soon. My second son and his family just moved to north west Arkansas this fall so we'll be visiting them in a year or so.
You probably went through SERE at Fairchild AFB, WA. I graduated in 1966, a month before being sent to VN on a 13 day notice.
I actually had fun in prison. First I slit my patches and seams and put in cigarette papers,then poured Bull Durham into the lining in my field jacket, finally took off the heel of my boots and inserted matches. Boy was I popular, everyone wanted one of my "spitties"
They shoved me the box, i expanded myself, and they adjusted the sides, I turned around inside the box, and when they opened my feet flew out and smacked them, like a coiled spring. That cost me of course.
In the survival trek, I volunteered as cook at the partisan camp, extra rations of green pea soup, and dispensed with the compass, followed the stars and dead reckoning, they never caught me until the end
We made our own jerky, wooden spoons, . But after a couple of weeks, I was famished.
I would have eaten a boot.
You are correct about immigrants being the excuse to build concentration camps for enemies of the state.
Said enemies are discussed in the National Security Strategy and they are us
It is all out in the open because they are fully confident that they have power and will never have to relinquish it. The self coup is almost complete.
While at it, you still clinging to the CIA done it, with the boat murders.?
By 1971, a special Navy SERE program had been developed mostly for pilots that was more brutal than what most troops and sailors experienced. Torture was updated based on what POW escapees had shared. Our training took place in 3 diverse locations in Southern California. My understanding is that my SERE program was terminated in 1976. I had the pleasure several years later of defrocking some of my psychology colleagues who designed the Resistance phase for ethics violations.
When I went thru Navy's SERE in 1971, everybody got a taste of the waterboard, electric probes, beatings, various torture chambers & devices, and deprivation of food and water. I cannot recall anybody doing exercises to exhaustion in our program. That torture was called NAVAIR OCS run by Marines in Pensacola (LOL). Being dumped upside down in an oil drum full of water, seeing how long we could tolerate being hung off the floor by our wrists, that I also do recall.
I am perplexed as to how this is happening right here in the United States. This seems like something that happens is a third-world or authoritarian country. I am not trying to be naive or rhetorical, but someone is running these places and they would have to really be sociopathic to really not be impacted by these conditions. Consider myself stunned.
Paul,this is the new " Nazi" regime backed by the "Nazi Infrastructure" composed of the White Christian Nationalists,the Catholic Church,Most Synogogues,the Supreme Court,the Federal Reserve ( they take their orders from Trump) and TechnoNazis like Cook,Musk,Zuckerberg,Thiel,Andressen,and so many others. How do we publicize this " Nazi Infrastructure " for what it is,is going to be very difficult,now that the media is either muted or part of the : Nazis" .
Barbie Kristi Noam is the one in charge of all immigration policy, along with Jerk Steven Miller. Miller I think is the bigger threat. He has no conscience or humanity in any part of his body, along with the thing that married him.
As Alis said - There will never be enough cruelty to satisfy these sadistic psychos.....
This is the state of mind of the new (non) Christian MAGAts - which I prefer to call MAGGOTS - Bottom garbage can feeders trying to tell us this is normal.
Adding more radical sadness is the vast amount of donation requests I receive from "RESCUE" organizations trying to save animals from more horrific on purpose abuse and finally death than is outlined in any of the following paragraphs. Pictures included. Most of the abuse is in the MAGGOT red states. That's what these people are - complete sadistic abusers of anything living - and for a buck. Much of the abuse is financially motivated at home and abroad.
What haunts me here isn’t only the brutality of these sites, but how easily so many people seem to accept … even endorse them.
I keep wondering whether part of what makes this work politically is psychological. When fear, shame, or a sense of diminished worth go unexamined, it can feel easier to project them outward. Immigrants, refugees, Somali Americans, political opponents — once a group is marked as “less than,” people are spared the more complex work of facing the parts of themselves that feel powerless or unwanted.
In that sense, the cruelty aimed outward often mirrors an unexamined contempt turned away from the self.
That’s why the euphemisms matter so much. Calling places like this “Alligator Alcatraz” doesn’t just soften the language; it makes dehumanization feel normal, even deserved. And once we allow one group of people to be treated as disposable, the moral firewall protecting everyone else starts to fail.
Amnesty is right to call this a constitutional crisis. But it’s also a psychological one. A democracy can’t survive when fear is managed by cheering the degradation of others.
History shows where this leads — not because people suddenly become monsters, but because systems teach ordinary people to look away.
Perhaps we should remember the waterboarding during Bush II. And, while we're recalling that deplorable era of GOP rule, we could also recall Bush's angry comment, when told that an action he was suggesting was unconstitutional: He was recorded responding that "The Constitution's just a god damn piece of paper." And, of course, that also was the beginning of the GOP's open pursuit of a "Unitary Executive"status for the presidency, i.e. presidential immunity. Then, they got control of the Supreme Court which granted the wish. And, here we are . . . ineffective opposition at every turn.
We have allowed these facilities since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 under George W Bush. Reporters and politicians were not allowed into ICE facilities apart from the rare instance of a planned visit which allowed ICE to sanitize the limited areas reporters were allowed to see. If you There have been thousands upon thousands of complaints of the most horrendous of human rights abuses including forced sterilization of women, yet when we moved to abolish ICE in 2018 you and the Democratic Party said that was too extreme and they just needed to be "reformed." So once again political expediency and the apologists for an moral and rudderless party put us all in a compromising position. We were saying this 10 years ago but establishment figures like you would not listen. And many Democrats lionized ICE and voted to honor them for their service. https://barryjkaufmando.substack.com/p/youre-next-the-blowback-for-the-spiritual
Apparently hundreds of the detainees supposedly at Allegator Alcatraz are missing. The Miami Herald reports about two-thirds of the 1,800 immigrants who were held there in July have gone missing from ICE's online database. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article312042943.html
Krome is a seperate facility. South Florida has at least two key detention centers housing immigrants under private contracts with ICE: the Krome Detention Center (Miami) and the Broward Transitional Center (BTC) (Pompano Beach), both run by contractors like The GEO Group, alongside the government-run Krome facility itself, with reports highlighting multiple facilities operating under private or contracted management in the region.
I don't think Allegator Alcatraaz can be worse than some of our state facilities There's also the Everglades Correctional Institution, a separate, traditional Florida Department of Corrections prison located further west on State Road 41 (Tamiami Trail), near the Everglades, but it's a long-established state prison, not the newer migrant facility. There's also a work farm in Imokalee. Florida has various county-level inmate work programs, like the one in Lee County (near Immokalee) called Nan's Ranch, which contracts the labor.
Once upon a time, I also visited places like the old Glades Correctional Institution, which were "hard time" facilities reminiscent of the jail in the movie "Cool Hand Luke."
I also visited the old Dade County Stockade, also known as the Miami-Herald articleMiami-Dade Training and Treatment Center}, a maximum-security lockup for male detainees, later shuttered in 2016 after DOJ found constitutional violations but it briefly reopened as a COVID isolation ward in 2020, highlighting its old design with rodent issues before its final closing.
Daniel,do you ever think about moving? I use to vacation in Florida,but have decided that will not happen again. How did Florida Gov't devolve into this?
During the first weeks of 1933, the Nazi regime deployed the radio, press, and newsreels to stoke fears of a pending “Communist uprising,” then channeled popular anxieties into political measures that eradicated civil liberties and democracy. SA (Storm Troopers) and members of the Nazi elite paramilitary formation, the SS, took to the streets to brutalize or arrest political opponents and incarcerate them in hastily established detention centers and concentration camps.
When my right winger father was living he was getting my mail for me when I was on the road. He never liked amnesty international until he started reading their mail that they sent to me. I thought I tell this story because amnesty international is probably the best human rights organization in the world. If you’re in a prison somewhere for political reasons they are the ones more than likely to help you.
Very insightful article. Their use of creative euphemisms to mask illegal, immoral, and unconstitutional practices, is very much like the Nazis. I am reminded of this exchange in film about the Wannsee Conference, where the leader of SS Death Squads asks about the meaning of “evacuation”.
Lange: I have the real feeling that I "evacuated" 30,000 Jews already by shooting them, at Riga. [Eichmann gestures to the stenographer to stop recording] Is what I did "evacuation"? When they fell, were they "evacuated"? There are another 20,000, at least, awaiting similar "evacuation". I just think it is helpful to know what words mean, with all respect. [Kritzinger thumps the table in approval]
Eichmann: [to Heydrich, in a low voice] If I might, I think it's unnecessary to burden the record --
Heydrich: [abruptly] Yes. In my personal opinion, they are evacuated.
Bold reporters and legislators need to start demanding what the terminology actually means in public and be so forceful as to not let them off the hook. This takes courage, much more than ever. The same is true for people lower in the chain of command who do not want to be cooperating in the crimes of their superiors.
True! It does begin with the other and then the same mechanisms can be used to creep in toward the most privileged members of society. Hence the lasting power of that Niebuhr quote (I believe).
SSDI checks going down in January? Just received my statement of next year's benefit amount. $3 LESS each month for me. $1303 legally blind and in a wheelchair. This has not happened since I've been disabled (2006).
Is this unacceptable to anyone in this country? Or is there love in this country? If it ever really was here? And if it were here, how would we get the love back? That's the question to as:,Wheree did our love go?
There will never be enough cruelty to satisfy these sadistic psychos.....
The camps and detention centers are coming to a town near you. There is a detention center being built 100 miles away from where I live. It is going to be in a town of 11,000 that is in a county of only 51,000.
All they need is an airport. The crowds of protestors will be much smaller. Not so many prying eyes either.
And then there is Joe Lonsdale of Palantir fame calling for public executions:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/palantir-joe-lonsdale-public-hangings-b2880262.html%23:~:text%3DYour%2520support%2520makes%2520all%2520the,need%2520to%2520do%2520ugly%2520things.&opi=89978449&psig=AOvVaw3EugnLkIYgUrkQmJqU-Dyr&ust=1765469412967000
This f*cking guy was an intern for Thiel and Musk. All roads lead back to them and Putin. The mission is to destroy America and create their Technocracy to rule over this part of the world---from Greenland and Canada and down through all the Americas. See you in the streets.
Alis,great post and needs to repeated everyday.Joe Lonsdale and Palantir,are Wall Street sweethearts,CNBC sweethearts. Comcast recently contributed a significant amt of money for the destruction of the East Wing and buildout of the TechnoNazis ballroom,they are complicit in their support of Trump. A few months ago,when Trump visited the NY Stock Exchange,Jim Kramer made gestures like he was going to kiss him. Don't include any of these pigs as defenders of democracy.
That which irks me is that the vast majority of the people, including liberals, and especially the corporate media seem not to have a clue, maybe it is wishful thinking, that Trump has no intention of, and will not vacate, the White House , unless on a Guerney,. Steve Bannon spilled the beans, they are working on a mechanism. I know one simply declare Martial law, and complete the self coup which is already in motion.
Look what he is done, destroyed the East Wing, remodeled the Lincoln Bedroom to suit his tastes, the hall of presidents, full on bling in the Oval Office. He has told us, that he is not going anywhere, and his advisors and sycophants will be there to help him if it means deploying this GESTAPO, and military
It has to happen, because if the regime gives way to a Democratic administration, then there will be one hell uv a lot of folk, up for prison time, like all of his cabinet and advisors...
I'm not placing any bets that he'll leave.
William,great post.You are right,people do not have a glue,so sad that we are not treating this much more seriously.Not enough Democratic participation. Just continue to refer to them as the " Nazi Infrastructure"and all of them as " Nazis" .
See Andrew Ross Sorkin's interview of Alex Karp, who was/is Lonsdale's boss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUK-VYCh5go
Do not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
For those of us familiar with cutthroat, Trump needs to watch his back.
Daniel,did not see but I cannot imagine Alex Karp owning up to what the Palantir agenda is. Londsdale is just a purebred " NazI" .
I'll bet 2-1 odds that the construction to OUR house is going to be gaudy, shoddy, and over budget. And likely not finished in Jan 2029, due to repairs that need to be made.
This is a stain on this era of America. I don't blame tRump, per se. He is the monster he admits to being. I blame, the Congress, the courts, and the American voters.
You may be right,but I think going after the cos that provided the money for the this, are fair game.We have to long been muted and have not fought with every tool available.We are so overdue for a real fight. It begins with the Technofacists.
Trump has no soul,no empathy,he is not human. Adolf Hitler had more empathy than Trump will ever have.
The only thing we know for sure,is that at his funeral,there will people,many people that will peeing on his coffin.
Here is the map Alis , notice that it includes Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela ,
And it is for nothing that the White House has 51 Christmas Trees, one for each state and the 51st being Canada
https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:34227574
But it is all out in the open, detailed in the Nov 2025 National Security Strategy
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf..
Cowritten by Putin.
William,the technate in the Cornell Digital Library is interesting.Thank you.
The best laid plans of man and men often turn out to be their undoing.
I don't relish the idea of public executions, but that does have a way of concentrating the mind! I suppose "these are the times that try mens' souls....." We have a heck of a lot of "sunshine patriots" among us, let's see if there are 100,000,000 true-blue patriots who live in this country and don't appreciate it being co-opted, stolen, and morphed into a hellscape.
Bridge on the River Kwai box.
Also . . .
Recall the mobile units in WWII? Gas vans*.
And in the 2022 Kiev attack. Rolling crematoria
This madness is a hell of a price just to elect a race hater.
VOTE, as if your life depends on it. . . . May.
-----------------------------------------------
* Several names for the same thing.
• Sonderwagen (“special vehicle”)
• A deliberately vague term used in SS and police reports.
• Hid the true purpose of the vans.
=========================
• Spezialwagen (“special van”)
• Another euphemism, interchangeable with Sonderwagen.
• Suggested a technical or logistical function rather than murder.
============================================
• Entlausungswagen (“delousing van”)
• Propaganda term to disguise their use.
• “Delousing” implied hygiene, masking extermination.
======================================
• Vergasungswagen (“gassing van”)
• Internal SS term, more explicit.
• Used in technical correspondence
=========================
• Kastenwagen (“box van”)
• Colloquial description of the vehicle’s appearance.
• Sometimes used by drivers or guards.
The Japanese used to torture POWs in those cages. They were executed for war crimes. Don't believe in the death penalty. How about life in those cages for certain people like Kristi? Thank you, Rs for turning me into a sadist.
When I was a kid, before I was sent to Vietnam, because my assignment was highly sensitive, I was required to attend Survival, Evasion, Resistance, & Escape school (SERE for short). Basically, they taught us how to evade capture while starving, then put us in prison anyway so we could enjoy every known torture used by enemies that did not cause permanent tissue damage.
At night, we were put in 2x2 plywood cubes like the Alligator Alcatraz cages to sleep in the fetal position, while every 30 minutes or so our captors would bang loudly on the boxes to wake us up. If we did not call out our name, they assumed we were sleeping, opened the door, and hit us with a fire hose to wake us up in 50+ degree temps. It is impossible to sleep with your teeth chattering so loudly.
During the day, we went from interrogation to interrogation, each with its special torture - including the famous waterboard. Much of the time, we were bound & blindfolded. By the end, we were famished, bruised, beaten, and exhausted. If we had blabbed during interrogation, we joined the ranks of Major Pete Hegseth, and lost our security clearance for life. FOOTNOTE: On the bus returning to San Diego, my admiral-selectee CO stupidly stood up in the front of the bus and asked what we could take away from our experience at SERE School. The entire bus chorused: "Not to be taken alive, sir!"
I share this tale to point out that all US prisons involve some abuse and torture - even rape (of both genders). Such abuses regularly appear in MSM articles. Miller and Homan's network of immigrant gulags are nearly completed nationwide. Do you think they will just be torn down after the deportations are completed? Are you that naive?
Immigrants were nothing more than an excuse to build a fascist Gestapo and Gulag infrastructure that you too could enjoy? Under Trump's new National Security Strategy, publicly opposing fascism makes you a terrorist. In fact, opposing any MAGA policy will get you a free 1-way ticket to a gulag.
" Do you think they will just be torn down after the deportations are completed? Are you that naive?"
Afraid most of us are indeed, that naive. It would seem this madness, this insanity, this FASCISM is all ramping up - as tRump's health & popularity are clearly in steep decline. Both Thom's post today and your reply, are sobering. I thank you for your service, and for telling us this story. You are spot on - after they've kidnapped & deported all they can, they will come after those us who have to courage to speak out, protest and create dissenting content.
Thank you again for alerting us all to this threat, as it is very real.
Tom thank you for your service. To few understand from personal survival the reality of the hellscape that is being setup, and is currently in operation just waiting to scale up.
I had the same escape and evasion training -- also jungle warfare school.
We were "advisors," MAC-V. Military Assistance Command- Vietnam. I was sometimes TDY to ARVN, Korean and my favorite, the CIDG -- Civillian Irreguar Defence Group. Could't tell the players with or without a scorecard.
We were in two "search and destroy" operations -- Junction City and Cedar Falls, Tay Ninh province. TDY on others. We'd turn the prisoners over to the Vietnamese.
I cannot indicate "like" because of the totally sadistic content - We have to eliminate the Lame Duck Felon and his cronies ASAP by all means we can dream up and apply......
I went through that school too, back in 1974. I remember the cages, wearing nothing but skivvies, eating rice and a little water, being hosed down with firehoses and the constant blaring of meaningless propaganda from loudspeakers all of the time. Sleep was not an option. The escape part was a joke. Being a no nothing 18 year old, I got caught early.
To think that we who served our country and endured this and more in our careers, are witnessing, and for some, participating, in this torture of human beings just because they fit the current profile and maybe, crossed a border somewhere without papers. Then there are those immigrants who were given asylum or a temporary status for humanitarian reasons and have the rug jerked out from under them just because Trump and company has taken a dislike to them for whatever reason.
It won't be much longer before Miller starts putting dissidents in these camps as well. Do we need to dust off our uniforms and resurrect our training to start fighting back?
I am too old to participate in a shooting war. Charley Kirk and Donald Trump have both demonstrated that we are already in a shooting war that might get nipped in the bud if Congress (both sides) can discover their spine and find their moral compasses. But at the same time, I have to respect that if Fascism is what the younger generations want, they have a right to learn about life the hard way. I also have to remember that I have a lot more education and experience than most younger generations, so I have an edge on critical reasoning.
Nevertheless, I cannot rationalize how people can support a Christian Nationalist, Bible salesman president who is on his 3rd wife, lost numerous lawsuits for filandery, and who bragged about grabbing women by their privates. How can they justify Trump as a businessman who went bankrupt 6 times, and skipped out on debts more often than that, and who is tearing down our economy while Mike Johnson continues gaslighting MAGAs that they are rich and the economy has never been better.
You might think about doing that.
I might be a bit long in the tooth and moving a little slower these days but I still have my uniforms, both woodland camo and Desert camo, rifles and military grade pistol. I can still shoot pretty well, despite my eyes dimming slightly. And I still remember most of my training. If I have to defend myself against MAGA marauders someday soon, I'm as ready as I can be. I have even day dreamed a little about taking out some of these overly aggressive ICE and CBP agents with a long range rifle, just because I like to defend those who can't defend themselves. Things are pretty bad if I'm dreaming up scenarios of taking out some of these SS troops.
I'm not a veteran, and I'm too old and banged up to be much use. I am spending some serious time thinking about what I'll do if they come for my wife and I. I have a 9mm and a few boxes of shells.
I never thought I'd have to think like that.
Yep, it's a changing world out there and not for the good. Be safe over there. We might be out in your neck of the woods someday soon. My second son and his family just moved to north west Arkansas this fall so we'll be visiting them in a year or so.
You probably went through SERE at Fairchild AFB, WA. I graduated in 1966, a month before being sent to VN on a 13 day notice.
I actually had fun in prison. First I slit my patches and seams and put in cigarette papers,then poured Bull Durham into the lining in my field jacket, finally took off the heel of my boots and inserted matches. Boy was I popular, everyone wanted one of my "spitties"
They shoved me the box, i expanded myself, and they adjusted the sides, I turned around inside the box, and when they opened my feet flew out and smacked them, like a coiled spring. That cost me of course.
In the survival trek, I volunteered as cook at the partisan camp, extra rations of green pea soup, and dispensed with the compass, followed the stars and dead reckoning, they never caught me until the end
We made our own jerky, wooden spoons, . But after a couple of weeks, I was famished.
I would have eaten a boot.
You are correct about immigrants being the excuse to build concentration camps for enemies of the state.
Said enemies are discussed in the National Security Strategy and they are us
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf
It is all out in the open because they are fully confident that they have power and will never have to relinquish it. The self coup is almost complete.
While at it, you still clinging to the CIA done it, with the boat murders.?
By 1971, a special Navy SERE program had been developed mostly for pilots that was more brutal than what most troops and sailors experienced. Torture was updated based on what POW escapees had shared. Our training took place in 3 diverse locations in Southern California. My understanding is that my SERE program was terminated in 1976. I had the pleasure several years later of defrocking some of my psychology colleagues who designed the Resistance phase for ethics violations.
Back in 1966, they stopped short of actual torture, (no water boarding) but torture was push ups. back then I could go all day.
When I went thru Navy's SERE in 1971, everybody got a taste of the waterboard, electric probes, beatings, various torture chambers & devices, and deprivation of food and water. I cannot recall anybody doing exercises to exhaustion in our program. That torture was called NAVAIR OCS run by Marines in Pensacola (LOL). Being dumped upside down in an oil drum full of water, seeing how long we could tolerate being hung off the floor by our wrists, that I also do recall.
I am perplexed as to how this is happening right here in the United States. This seems like something that happens is a third-world or authoritarian country. I am not trying to be naive or rhetorical, but someone is running these places and they would have to really be sociopathic to really not be impacted by these conditions. Consider myself stunned.
Paul,this is the new " Nazi" regime backed by the "Nazi Infrastructure" composed of the White Christian Nationalists,the Catholic Church,Most Synogogues,the Supreme Court,the Federal Reserve ( they take their orders from Trump) and TechnoNazis like Cook,Musk,Zuckerberg,Thiel,Andressen,and so many others. How do we publicize this " Nazi Infrastructure " for what it is,is going to be very difficult,now that the media is either muted or part of the : Nazis" .
Barbie Kristi Noam is the one in charge of all immigration policy, along with Jerk Steven Miller. Miller I think is the bigger threat. He has no conscience or humanity in any part of his body, along with the thing that married him.
Since we're being led by sociopaths, why are we surprised?
As Alis said - There will never be enough cruelty to satisfy these sadistic psychos.....
This is the state of mind of the new (non) Christian MAGAts - which I prefer to call MAGGOTS - Bottom garbage can feeders trying to tell us this is normal.
Adding more radical sadness is the vast amount of donation requests I receive from "RESCUE" organizations trying to save animals from more horrific on purpose abuse and finally death than is outlined in any of the following paragraphs. Pictures included. Most of the abuse is in the MAGGOT red states. That's what these people are - complete sadistic abusers of anything living - and for a buck. Much of the abuse is financially motivated at home and abroad.
I'm disgusted with my fellow Americans.
This one really resonated for me, Thom.
What haunts me here isn’t only the brutality of these sites, but how easily so many people seem to accept … even endorse them.
I keep wondering whether part of what makes this work politically is psychological. When fear, shame, or a sense of diminished worth go unexamined, it can feel easier to project them outward. Immigrants, refugees, Somali Americans, political opponents — once a group is marked as “less than,” people are spared the more complex work of facing the parts of themselves that feel powerless or unwanted.
In that sense, the cruelty aimed outward often mirrors an unexamined contempt turned away from the self.
That’s why the euphemisms matter so much. Calling places like this “Alligator Alcatraz” doesn’t just soften the language; it makes dehumanization feel normal, even deserved. And once we allow one group of people to be treated as disposable, the moral firewall protecting everyone else starts to fail.
Amnesty is right to call this a constitutional crisis. But it’s also a psychological one. A democracy can’t survive when fear is managed by cheering the degradation of others.
History shows where this leads — not because people suddenly become monsters, but because systems teach ordinary people to look away.
Perhaps we should remember the waterboarding during Bush II. And, while we're recalling that deplorable era of GOP rule, we could also recall Bush's angry comment, when told that an action he was suggesting was unconstitutional: He was recorded responding that "The Constitution's just a god damn piece of paper." And, of course, that also was the beginning of the GOP's open pursuit of a "Unitary Executive"status for the presidency, i.e. presidential immunity. Then, they got control of the Supreme Court which granted the wish. And, here we are . . . ineffective opposition at every turn.
We have allowed these facilities since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 under George W Bush. Reporters and politicians were not allowed into ICE facilities apart from the rare instance of a planned visit which allowed ICE to sanitize the limited areas reporters were allowed to see. If you There have been thousands upon thousands of complaints of the most horrendous of human rights abuses including forced sterilization of women, yet when we moved to abolish ICE in 2018 you and the Democratic Party said that was too extreme and they just needed to be "reformed." So once again political expediency and the apologists for an moral and rudderless party put us all in a compromising position. We were saying this 10 years ago but establishment figures like you would not listen. And many Democrats lionized ICE and voted to honor them for their service. https://barryjkaufmando.substack.com/p/youre-next-the-blowback-for-the-spiritual
Thom said it was too extreme? Can you tell me where that is?
Apparently hundreds of the detainees supposedly at Allegator Alcatraz are missing. The Miami Herald reports about two-thirds of the 1,800 immigrants who were held there in July have gone missing from ICE's online database. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article312042943.html
Krome is a seperate facility. South Florida has at least two key detention centers housing immigrants under private contracts with ICE: the Krome Detention Center (Miami) and the Broward Transitional Center (BTC) (Pompano Beach), both run by contractors like The GEO Group, alongside the government-run Krome facility itself, with reports highlighting multiple facilities operating under private or contracted management in the region.
I don't think Allegator Alcatraaz can be worse than some of our state facilities There's also the Everglades Correctional Institution, a separate, traditional Florida Department of Corrections prison located further west on State Road 41 (Tamiami Trail), near the Everglades, but it's a long-established state prison, not the newer migrant facility. There's also a work farm in Imokalee. Florida has various county-level inmate work programs, like the one in Lee County (near Immokalee) called Nan's Ranch, which contracts the labor.
Once upon a time, I also visited places like the old Glades Correctional Institution, which were "hard time" facilities reminiscent of the jail in the movie "Cool Hand Luke."
I also visited the old Dade County Stockade, also known as the Miami-Herald articleMiami-Dade Training and Treatment Center}, a maximum-security lockup for male detainees, later shuttered in 2016 after DOJ found constitutional violations but it briefly reopened as a COVID isolation ward in 2020, highlighting its old design with rodent issues before its final closing.
Here's our de facto state song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0TtIRpG-jE
Daniel,do you ever think about moving? I use to vacation in Florida,but have decided that will not happen again. How did Florida Gov't devolve into this?
Things are looking up -- we just elected a Democratic mayor! First in 30 years.
Wow,that was a great surprise. We have a long way to go,but that was great news.
Yes indeed! You beat me to it! the present will soon be past and paster!
During the first weeks of 1933, the Nazi regime deployed the radio, press, and newsreels to stoke fears of a pending “Communist uprising,” then channeled popular anxieties into political measures that eradicated civil liberties and democracy. SA (Storm Troopers) and members of the Nazi elite paramilitary formation, the SS, took to the streets to brutalize or arrest political opponents and incarcerate them in hastily established detention centers and concentration camps.
--Holocaust Encyclopedia
When my right winger father was living he was getting my mail for me when I was on the road. He never liked amnesty international until he started reading their mail that they sent to me. I thought I tell this story because amnesty international is probably the best human rights organization in the world. If you’re in a prison somewhere for political reasons they are the ones more than likely to help you.
Thom,
Very insightful article. Their use of creative euphemisms to mask illegal, immoral, and unconstitutional practices, is very much like the Nazis. I am reminded of this exchange in film about the Wannsee Conference, where the leader of SS Death Squads asks about the meaning of “evacuation”.
Lange: I have the real feeling that I "evacuated" 30,000 Jews already by shooting them, at Riga. [Eichmann gestures to the stenographer to stop recording] Is what I did "evacuation"? When they fell, were they "evacuated"? There are another 20,000, at least, awaiting similar "evacuation". I just think it is helpful to know what words mean, with all respect. [Kritzinger thumps the table in approval]
Eichmann: [to Heydrich, in a low voice] If I might, I think it's unnecessary to burden the record --
Heydrich: [abruptly] Yes. In my personal opinion, they are evacuated.
Bold reporters and legislators need to start demanding what the terminology actually means in public and be so forceful as to not let them off the hook. This takes courage, much more than ever. The same is true for people lower in the chain of command who do not want to be cooperating in the crimes of their superiors.
Thank you as always and watch your six.
Steve Dundas
True! It does begin with the other and then the same mechanisms can be used to creep in toward the most privileged members of society. Hence the lasting power of that Niebuhr quote (I believe).
SSDI checks going down in January? Just received my statement of next year's benefit amount. $3 LESS each month for me. $1303 legally blind and in a wheelchair. This has not happened since I've been disabled (2006).
Is this unacceptable to anyone in this country? Or is there love in this country? If it ever really was here? And if it were here, how would we get the love back? That's the question to as:,Wheree did our love go?