I thought all we were getting for sacrificing science was a paint job for the border wall, but no! We’re getting more prisons! Overall, crime is down significantly, but we’re expanding the prison system.
There is a small town about 45 minutes south of me named Appleton, that used to be home to a medium security prison that was shut down about 15 years ago. Now the plan is to reopen the facility under ICE control. It’s got 1600 beds, but I’m sure they can easily double that.
I see no advantage to this construction project, except that it means there will be a nearby locus for protests. Also, who knows, as a liberal university professor I could end up staying there sometime! I sure hope they make it clean, comfortable, and luxurious.
Still, there are pockets where crime is soaring. I suggest we concentrate law enforcement around those pockets, the chief of which seems to be 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C.
That plan like so much else the Trump regime is doing needs to be stopped.
You jest about being jailed but Ido hope youhave some plans and contingency and back up plans and back ups for those back ups because, yeah, that joke is looking lkess funny & moe disturbingly plausible every day
ICE is worse than any tick.
Protest sign, author unknown to me.
It could be a lot worse.
The christofascist GOP could well end up shooting people in the streets. That is one reason they keep calling up the National Guard and regular US military soldiers to occupy our cities and do nothing but stand around.
It has already started.
In Los Angeles, the police were shooting people with so called less lethal ammunition. Those rubber bullets aren’t really rubber bullets. They are a steel core with a thin layer of rubber on them. 3% of people hit by a rubber bullet will die. I saw people taken away in ambulances on videos.
The cruelty is the whole point.
They would be really happy to have an excuse to start firing into crowds of people.
It might not be you.
It might be me. I’ll be out on the streets on Monday for my 6th demonstration.
Those army soldiers they keep calling up, keep ending up with nothing to do.
In Washington DC, they started out standing around their armored personnel carriers, MRAP (Mine Resistant-Ambush Protected) vehicles, and Humvees.
Now they are picking up trash in the parks and working on landscape projects.
This is a real misuse and insult to the soldiers who are trained personnel and also have their own lives since the National Guard is a reserve force.
It was the same in Los Angeles.
They called up 2,000 people and most of them at 1600 never left their bases. They mostly protected Federal building which weren’t even under attack.
Trump really has a literal army of servants to do his whims.
They are reserving the comfy prison cells for the child rapists and their handlers, not you lowly professors. You have not done enough unethical, corrupt and/or illegal things to warrant Trump’s good graces.
On the bright side, your cell will be FULL of spiders!
On the dark side, all of this government money is going to private contractors. You need to retire and open a cozy bed-and-breakfast prison.
Aw. Cry more. Criminals belong in prison. If you enter a home without permission, you’re a criminal. If you enter a business without permission, you’re a criminal. If you enter a country without permission, you’re a criminal. Criminals belong behind bars. Oh, I’m sure you’d love to do away with the criminal justice system, Pea Head, but fortunately you’re not in charge, fortunately. Every president should do this. Obama did to the tune of over 3 million illegal immigrants – more than any other president. I don’t think Trump is competent enough to come anywhere close to that, though.
Here is an example of what a rubber bullet can do to a human.
I just saw this story tonight.
The city of Los Angeles has ended up paying out a lot for people injured by their police beating up and shooting protesters.
They also arrest a huge number of people, very few of which ever get convicted for anything.
Their cases almost always collapse in court.
Gluck is someone famous I guess.
“The director, producer and actor — who has worked for decades on films including “Transformers” and “Remember the Titans”…”
@4 raven
Stated accurately, in this case. Maybe you had it confused with when tasers and rubber bullets were commonly referred to as so-called “non-lethal”.
@9 Dewey S
People are ripping your goody-two-shoes authoritarian worldview apart. I’ll let them do that, but it’s worth reiterating that Obama did deport just under 3 million undocumented Americans. If y’all are serious about defending the rights of immigrants, you need to be consistent when your sports team is in charge, too. Don’t fall asleep when Obama 3.0 becomes president.
@ ^ Trump enabling disingenuous troll : when Obama 3.0 becomes POTUS? Oh you silly, wilfully ignorant, ideologically blinkered guillible Trumptrash tool!
No. There will NEVER be an Obama 3.0 now.
Because Trump is now effectively dictator for life and Fascism will now need to be removed by force as a previous thread here explained. Because your malevolent self-destructive toxic bullshit helped put Trump in permanent unchecked power when you attacked ONLY Kamala Harris and the Democratic party when it mattered despite being clearly warned of the consequences we are now witnessing. You total fuckwit.
As for not criticising Obama, LOLsob. Sheesh. People fucking did that all the time here and elsewhere. Obama is not worshipped as a cult figure and does get a huge amount of criticism when and where it is actually due here especially from the irrational, unreasonable, totally unrealistic, Turn-down-a-horse-because-ONLY-a-Unicorn-will-do mob..
^ That’s people here and elsewhere did and still do criticise Obama.
Oh & when Trump dies, Vance will become POTUS and the White Supremacist, Female Slaver, Genocidal Christiainist Scumbags will continue to rule the Fascist divided states of America with now unchecked power because of wht yo and others intehPurity -Disunity mob did last year.
You, beholder, helped put fascists in charge and they’ll stay there and cause incalaculable harm to us all – globally – until fuck knows when and fuck knows what the cost of removing them will be in lives and human suffering and environmental damage and more.
@9 Dewey S : See :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/08/27/some-people-think-the-innocent-are-still-criminal/#comment-2275740
Also no POTUS is above or should ever be above the law because the USA is supposed to be a Democracy NOT a dictatorship which is what you seem to want. A Trump dictatorship which is what you now have ofc.
Plus actually,no. No President should ignore due process and human rights, no POTUS should persecute people based on the colour of their skin and their undoicumented -or indeed other – migrant status and no PORUS should be a racist, rapist piece of shit.
Not crying here btw just extremely pisssed off at you and the willfully ignorant, delibrately thoughtless, sadistic fuckwits like you.
“Also no POTUS is above or should ever be above the law”
Well, maybe, maybe not. There is no ‘should’, and it’s a foreign country, right?
Fun with bots is not beyond me; I asked the Bubblebot:
—
Me: contrast the usa founding fathers’ ideas of norms and propriety and character and honour with Donald Trump
BB: Founding Fathers: Norms, Propriety, Character, Honour
Moral Education as Civic Foundation
Thomas Jefferson emphasized that moral integrity outweighed fame, wealth, or even scientific achievement. For the Founders, character was essential to sustaining a republic.
Virtue as Political Necessity
George Washington believed that good moral character was the “first essential” in a leader. Restraint, humility, and integrity were not optional—they were foundational.
Propriety and Honour as Public Currency
Honour was treated as a social contract. Leaders were expected to earn public trust through conduct, not spectacle.
Norms Rooted in Enlightenment Rationalism
The Founders valued reasoned discourse, institutional checks, and civic virtue. The Constitution was designed to contain ambition through balance and deliberation.
Donald Trump: Disruption, Persona, Power
Transactional Ethics and Self-Promotion
Trump’s public persona centers on dominance, loyalty, and branding. Civic duty and moral restraint are subordinated to personal gain and media presence.
Norm Violation as Strategy
Trump often flouts political decorum, using impropriety as a tool to energize supporters and bypass institutional norms.
Character as Spectacle
Strength is projected through bravado, not virtue. Surveys consistently show perceptions of arrogance and dishonesty.
Propriety Recast as Weakness
Traditional norms are reframed as liabilities. Trump praises authoritarian figures and favors unilateral action over consensus, inverting the Founders’ ideals.
Summary Contrast
The Founders idealized virtue, restraint, and civic honour as prerequisites for leadership.
Trump operationalizes disruption, spectacle, and transactional power as tools of influence.
Where the Founders built systems to contain ambition, Trump reorients those systems around it.
This is Tbags plan to boost the economy; there’s good money to be made in the Prison Industrial Complex!
@ Morales
Srsly dude, if we cared we could just ask the idiot machine ourselves.
I ask you to consider that your recent endless regurgitation of “ai” bullshit has rendered your comments even more useless than before.
@ ^ Silentbob : More useless than a comment complaining about teh percieved value of other commenters comments?
I doubt that.