Tracking the Activities of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

(Note: I originally wrote the posts below in the Trump 2.0 Tracker thread. That thread is becoming unwieldy, and I also thought this issue warranted a separate thread, so I’m moving those posts here. I’m actually writing this on 1/24/2026.)

August 14, 2025

Trump critics warn that Trump will likely use ICE, the national guard or U.S. military like an authoritarian ruler. Sounds extreme, right? I want to track any stories that support or go against this notion. (I want to include the reports on the way Trump handled the L.A. riots and how he recently announced taking over the D.C. police.)

Here’s a recent article today that is relevant: Border Agents Show Up in Force at Newsom Rally from the NYT.

As the governor was preparing to speak inside the Japanese American National Museum in the Little Tokyo neighborhood of Los Angeles, the agents assembled outside, many of them masked and armed, and some wearing tactical helmets and carrying rifles.

Mayor Karen Bass expressed outrage at this, saying there was no justification for this. Here how the Dept. of Homeland Security responded

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a post on social media that Ms. Bass “must be misinformed.”

“Our law enforcement operations are about enforcing the law — not about Gavin Newsom,” Ms. McLaughlin said.

Trump has decried the weaponization of federal agencies, but this is one of many examples that show he doesn’t care about this. At the very least he doesn’t care about a federal agency behaving in a political manner.

Another example,

A video shared on social media by Mr. Newsom’s press office shows the agents gathering outside the museum. In the video, Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol chief who is leading the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Southern California, says, “We’re here making Los Angeles a safer place, since we don’t have politicians who can do that. We do that ourselves.”

If Bovino did say this, this is pretty blatant politicization of what they’re doing.

A New Type of American Voter

I’m not sure if you guys have heard of the Bulwark, but it’s a news site made up of Never Trumpers (a few key people worked for The Weekly Standard and started the site after the former shut down.) Three of the pundits there, Tim Miller, Sarah Longwell, and Jonathan V. Last (JVL), recently had a discussion about the impact the Epstein story is having on Trump. I haven’t been paying attention to the Epstein story, ever, but Longwell’s explanation as to why she think this could really affect Trump’s support interested me.

To get a better understanding of it, I’m going to try and sum it up here.

Continue reading “A New Type of American Voter”

The New York Times 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century

I was debating whether to start a separate thread or include this in the thread about Film Comment’s best films of the 2010s, but a separate thread seems appropriate, even though there is a lot of overlap. In this thread, I’m going to discuss the list ten films per post, starting with the 100th film. Here’s the link to the article: The New York Times 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century (Note: I had trouble making this a gifted article, but if you want that, let me know, and I’ll try again.)

Some random thoughts before I begin:

Continue reading “The New York Times 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century”

A Plan to Culture Jam Trump

(Note: I wrote this in 2018, and I think it’s still relevant today in 2025.)

In this thread, I want to discuss and develop a blueprint for beating Trump based on the essay, How to Culture Jam a Populist in Four Easy Steps by Andres Miguel Rondon. Rondon is a Venezuelan who opposed and tried to defeat Hugo Chavez, the populist dictator. In the op-ed, he gives advice to Americans who oppose Trump, drawing on lessons he’s learned from opposing Chavez. In my opinion, Rondon’s analysis is spot on, and if Trump opponents fail to understand his points, they could keep Trump in power.

Here’s a summary, based on my understanding of Rondon’s position. Continue reading “A Plan to Culture Jam Trump”

What Should Be Done?

Several political commentators have expressed surprise not at the slide to authoritarianism, but the speed and variety of ways this has occurred. The amount of these actions has been overwhelming and paralyzing. What actions, by the Trump administration, should patriotic Americans oppose? What should patriotic Americans, do? Answering this is not easy, but I will say that identifying and focusing on one theme or policy is preferable to addressing many. But which one? In this thread, I’m going to mention a idea or narrative that should be considered.

Continue reading “What Should Be Done?”

Edward Hopper Thread

I recently watched a PBS documentary on Hopper–Edward Hopper: a Love Story (an odd subtitle, if it references Hopper’s relationship with his wife, Josephine Verstille Hopper, as the subtitle doesn’t seem like a great fit), and I wanted to jot some thoughts that came to mind while looking at Hopper’s work.

The Films of Azazel Jacobs

I’ve heard about Azazel Jacobs, an independent filmmaker, a while ago, but I never got around to watching his films (They were not readily available as far I know.)–which are in the vein of Cassavetes, Mike Leigh and more recently mumblecore filmmakers like Andrew Bujalski.

I recently watched four of his films, and I really liked them (with the possible exception of one of the films). Interestingly, three out of the four films were so slow and boring, I struggled to stick with them. Yet, all three of these films, about a third of the way, came alive for me, in a way that surprised me. How could a film that seemed so boring all of sudden become interesting? The funny thing is that the film that didn’t start slow (Terri) ended up being the least interesting and in my view least successful of the four films. (I wondered I was the problem, more than the films. Maybe I watched too much YouTube videos recently, making me impatient. But I got into Terri fairly quickly so I don’t think I was the problem.)

I’m going to use this thread to discuss Jacobs’s films.