The MSM calls her ICE Barbie, but Kristi Noem, and the sprawling empire she rules as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security is on the front lines of Trump 2.0 era conflict and corruption.
I’ve been covering the action at DHS as part of my effort to parse who’s drugged, who’s delusional, and who’s disnformed in the Trump 2.0 era and also when dissecting what Matt Stoller calls “The Amway Oligarchy.
And while I hate to go back to the well so soon when there are so many other topics to cover, these fools just can’t keep they names out of the papers. So let’s dive into their latest antics.
Is Ice Barbie Really Going Out With Him?
We’ll start with American Oversight’s attempt to figure out just what exactly ICE Barbie Kristi Noem’s alleged boyfriend Corey Lewandowski is doing exactly:
On Wednesday, American Oversight sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for failing to release records that could answer numerous questions about Corey Lewandowski’s shadowy role at the agency, including his status as a Special Government Employee (SGE). Despite being described as DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s “de facto chief of staff,” Lewandowski has evaded basic transparency and oversight requirements while reportedly exercising sweeping influence over policy, contracts, and personnel decisions.
The secrecy around Lewandowski’s role in the Trump administration — including his apparent misuse of the SGE designation that is intended for individuals who provide temporary, limited service to the government — reflects the administration’s broader hostility toward transparency. Recent reports suggest concern about his murky role is growing among at least some inside the White House.
Our lawsuit follows months of stonewalling by DHS, which has failed to respond to multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests seeking Lewandowski’s communications, calendars, and other records. DHS’s refusal to release records about his activities obscures whether he has exceeded the legal time limits on his appointment, avoided using government email to conduct official business, and directed agency business that may benefit his private associates.
“It is telling that this White House — which has shown an aversion to the rule of law — has reportedly grown weary of Mr. Lewandowski’s attempts to game the system at DHS,” said Chioma Chukwu, Executive Director of American Oversight.…Reports indicate that Lewandowski has acted as Secretary Noem’s “gatekeeper,” routed meetings through himself, directed personnel decisions, and even exercised veto power over contracts exceeding $100,000 — all while eschewing use of his government email and phone number to conduct official business and avoiding badge swipes that would document his time in government buildings. Despite these responsibilities, DHS claims he has worked only 69 days this year (228 days have elapsed since Secretary Noem was confirmed; Lewandowski began working there shortly after), well under the 130-day cap for SGEs — a count that insiders describe as a “gross undercount.”
Lewandowski has also failed to file a public financial disclosure report, raising concerns about whether he is complying with ethics rules that prohibit SGEs from engaging in outside work that conflicts with official duties. DHS’s secrecy has left unanswered questions about whether Lewandowski maintains private clients with interests before the agency.
The course of true love rarely runs smooth, even for ICE Barbi and Corey Lew. But, never fear, they’re smoothing things out by letting Corey run rampant through multiple-agencies despite his mysterious role.
ICE Barbie’s Boyfriend Corey Purges the Agency
Here’s the kicker
Not only has the Trump admin kicked ICE field office directors in five major cities out of their jobs, this is all part of a plan within DHS to bring BORDER PATROL officials into ICE leadership, an unprecedented move, sources say.https://t.co/LKGejNUZc7
— Anna Giaritelli (@Anna_Giaritelli) October 27, 2025
The Daily Beast has the scoop on this stuff which builds on previously reported incidents of Noem’s rumored boyfriend, Corey Lewandowski firing officials like the head of FEMA despite having no official role at DHS.
Kristi Noem’s enforcer and rumored lover Corey Lewandowski is driving a purge inside Immigration and Customs Enforcement—tightening the DHS chief’s grip to accelerate a nationwide deportation blitz.
Five ICE field bosses were yanked from Denver, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego and Philadelphia on Friday and sent to headquarters after complaints about lagging removal numbers.Inside the Department of Homeland Security, Lewandowski—whose relationship with Noem has been described as D.C.’s “worst-kept secret”—has helped compile a broader list of at least a dozen field leaders to be moved or replaced, with senior Border Patrol officials stepping into ICE posts, according to Fox News Digital.
The outlet detailed an unprecedented power shift that sources called “tense” and “combative,” and has pitched two factions against each other.
Border czar Tom Homan, 64, and acting ICE Director Todd Lyons argue for targeted arrests of those with criminal convictions and final orders to leave.…Fox reported that the Border Patrol influx marks an “unprecedented” power shift inside DHS, aligning ICE’s field tempo with Bovino’s hard-charging “blitz” model, which would be a shift in the government’s pledge to remove “the worst of the worst” in favour of pure numbers.
Bovino, 55, has become the template for Noem’s camp, leading immigration crackdowns from Los Angeles to Chicago’s “Midway Blitz.”
His hard-edged tactics are under a judge’s microscope in Chicago, where plaintiffs say he defied limits on tear gas use and he’s been ordered to appear in court.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, described it on X as a “HUGE moment”, adding: “ICE leadership is being purged tonight. The old guard, which prioritized targeted enforcement operations aimed at people with criminal records, is being replaced with Border Patrol and Greg Bovino’s ‘Midway Blitz’ style.”
Yes, that Tom Homan, last heard from when Trump’s DOJ killed an FBI investigation involving an alleged $50,000 cash payout from undercover agents.
We’ll come back to Mr. Homan before this post is over, but first, let’s follow ICE Barbie and her bey Cory Lewandowski to the Super Bowl.
ICE Barbie: Only Patriots Welcome at the Super Bowl, Sorry Bad Bunny
Kristi Noem tells Bad Bunny that ICE will be at the Super Bowl and the event should only be for Americans who “love this country” pic.twitter.com/zwr0MopCce
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) October 3, 2025
From The New York Times:
Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, gave the clearest indication yet that agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement would attend the Super Bowl in February, where the Latin superstar Bad Bunny is scheduled to headline the halftime show.
Asked on Friday by the right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson if there would be “ICE enforcement” at the Super Bowl, Noem replied, “There will be,” adding that federal immigration officers would be “all over” the event.
“I have the responsibility for making sure everybody goes to the Super Bowl, has the opportunity to enjoy it and to leave,” Noem said on “The Benny Show.” People should not attend the event, she went on, unless they are “law-abiding Americans who love this country.”
Bad Bunny, a Grammy-winning musician who is from Puerto Rico, rose to fame with hits such as “MIA,” “I Like It” and “Me Porto Bonito.” He recently finished a 31-show residency in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, saying he chose not to perform in the continental United States because he feared that his fans would become targets of ICE agents.
After the N.F.L. announced last week that he would appear at the Super Bowl, which will take place on Feb. 8 in Santa Clara, Calif., far-right commentators complained that Bad Bunny did not sing in English and that he had been openly critical of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Johnson wrote on social media that Bad Bunny was a “massive Trump hater.”
Alright, fun’s over, let’s get back to talking about Border Czar Tom Homan and his fight with ICE Barbie.
Can Tom Homan Pour Oil on ICE Barbie and Corey’s Troubled Waters?
For his part, Homan says there’s no trouble on Team Trump, DHS division.
Ingraham: Tom, there is a number of reports that there is growing friction between you and Kristi Noem… Is that report accurate, Tom?
Homan: pic.twitter.com/HRcxeDZLzI
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 28, 2025
The Daily Beast transcribed the exchange above:
“There are a number of reports that there is growing friction between you and Kristi Noem … Is that report in any way accurate Tom?” Laura Ingraham asked.
But Homan—who is embroiled in a bribery scandal—ducked the question entirely, launching instead into a long-winded defense of ICE’s record.
“Look, we are all being aggressive. I have said from day one we are going to concentrate on public safety threats and national security threats,” he said. “But if you are in the country illegally, you are not off the table. We will arrest you, too.”
Homan boasted, “We have a record number of arrests and deportations,” and promised, “As we get more agents on, you will see arrests increase twice, three times, you are going to see the numbers skyrocket.”
Looks like the enemies of Trump 2.0 and ICE Barbie will have to look elsewhere to find a crack in the team’s unity.
But any attention is bad news for “Honest” Tom Homan.
Turns out there’s more scorpions scurrying around under that particular rock. Let’s flip it over.
Tom Homan Has His Hand Out at Ice
Pro Publica has the deets:
The first time a Pennsylvania consultant named Charles Sowell connected with border czar Tom Homan was when Sowell reached out on LinkedIn in 2021, looking for advice about border contracting work. Homan had finished a stint as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, capping a three-decade career in federal government. He and Sowell built a rapport, based partly on their shared criticisms of then-President Joe Biden’s border policies.
By 2023, the men had gone into business together. Sowell was paying Homan as a consultant to his boutique firm, SE&M Solutions, which advised companies — in some cases for a fee of $20,000 a month — seeking contracts from the agencies where Homan had once worked. In 2024, Sowell became chair of the board of Homan’s foundation, Border911, which championed tougher border security.…After Trump won and formally announced Homan would be returning with him to the White House, Sowell kept Homan on his payroll until the end of the year. Once named as the border czar, Homan said he would recuse himself from contracting, saying he would have no “involvement, discussion, input, or decision of any future government contracts.”
But several industry executives who spoke with ProPublica said at least half a dozen companies vying for a slice of the $45 billion Congress has allocated for immigration detention work had hired Sowell because he had led them to believe his connections to Homan would help their chances of winning government work.…Homan’s private-sector work before he returned to government transformed his finances. In 2017, he declared assets totaling a maximum of just $250,000 on his ethics disclosures following a career in federal service, a figure that excludes certain government retirement accounts.
By 2025, his net worth had grown to between $3 million to $9 million, the disclosure documents show. (The forms list assets in ranges, and a portion of his net worth may come from money he had saved in government retirement accounts.)
Now that we know Tom Homan is one of those capitalists Nancy Pelosi loves to see serving the public, let’s use him as a bridge to our next topic: Democratic attempts to resist Trump 2.0 and ICE.
Border Czar Warns Illinois Democrats
Naked Capitalism has covered Trump’s federal invasion of Chicago and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s attempts to push back by threatening to convene some sort of “truth and reconciliation commission” when and if Trump’s term ends.
We haven’t covered Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s recent call for a “general strike,” so more on that below.
But first, Border Czar Tom Homan has some words of warning for the Illinois Governor and Chicago Mayor, presumably ICE Barbie agrees:
Homan blasted the officials for “attacking federal agents” while overlooking the increasing violence and volatile situations agents face on the ground. Homan’s comments were specifically directed at Gov. Pritzker, who has repeatedly opposed ICE enforcement efforts while, controversially, calling Chicago’s summer “amazing” despite a high number of shootings and murders.
“Here’s what should happen. The judge, Governor Pritzker, Mayor Johnson, put a Border Patrol uniform on for one shift. Come out there and stand there with the men and women of the Border Patrol and ICE, and see how you’re going to respond,” Homan said.
Homan highlighted the tangible threat agents are facing nationwide amid what he described as escalating anti-enforcement riots and attacks. Recent incidents underscore Homan’s concern:
In Chicago, rioters have been filmed calling for agents to be arrested or shot.
An ICE agent in suburban Chicago was seriously injured in September after a suspect allegedly dragged him with a vehicle during an attempted arrest.
In Dallas, two people were tragically killed during a September 24th shooting at an ICE office before the gunman took his own life.
Texas authorities have reported at least two other shootings targeting ICE and Border Patrol facilities since July 4th, resulting in 10 attempted murder charges.Homan concluded by reiterating his challenge to the critics, saying, “Put on that uniform, stand on that front line, and have stones thrown at you, and see if there’s justification for these men and women to protect themselves.”
Mayor Johnson Calls for General Strike
When last I covered the battle between Trump, ICE Barbie, and the Democrats of Chicago, I was pretty hard on the callow, feckless Dems and their failure to appreciate the reality of the conflict.
Now Mayor Johnson is trying to up the ante by talking out loud about a general strike at the most recent “No Kings” rally:
“If my ancestors, as slaves, can lead the greatest general strike in the history of this country, taking it to the ultra-rich and big corporations, we can do it too!” Johnson said, met with thunderous applause.
History shows there has never been a true, nationwide general strike in the U.S. outside of the “great strike wave of 1946” where five million American workers mobilized against Congress in an effort to demand leaders address economic instability and unacceptable working conditions. As a result, Congress created the Taft-Hartley Act, controversial legislation still in place to date, banning a broad range of union tactics, including political strikes.
Johnson has made his way to the front as a leader who isn’t afraid of intimidation tactics coming from Trump, including raids from ICE agents, and the mayor fighting back with calls for Trump to be behind bars and the “Hands Off Chicago” campaign.
Organizers of the two-mile march in the downtown area estimated close to 250,000 people participated, a major uptick from July’s rally with roughly 75,000 people. Johnson’s remarks and viewpoints have been supported by state leaders including Gov. JB Pritzker, who is also on Trump’s growing enemy list.
Speaking to the peaceful protestors, Pritzker said, “We will never surrender!”
“Peaceful, democratic resistance is always scary for authoritarians,” Pritzker said.
“We in Chicago are not afraid to stand up … Today we are resisting more than just Donald Trump’s attacks on democracy, and he knows it.”
I wonder if Mayor Johnson has put any additional thought into the general strike idea.
I’m 100% down, I’m just not sure that my refusing to make some blog posts or record music history podcasts will do much to slow the roll of the Empire.
Pritzker’s Accountability Commission Will Be Coming for ICE Barbie
We’ve covered Pritzker talking about this Accountability Commission but I wanted to dive into the details a little bit via the Governor’s press office.
Governor JB Pritzker today signed Executive Order 2025-06 to establish the Illinois Accountability Commission (IAC), an independent board tasked with capturing and creating a public record of the conduct of federal law enforcement agents and recommending actions to hold the federal government accountable as they continue conducting military-style operations in Chicago, collar counties, and other areas throughout the state.
The Commission will determine how to safely and prudently collect testimony, hold hearings, and gather information from individuals, community members, subject matter experts, local officials, journalists, faith leaders, and organizations. These accounts will be used to shed more light on the misconduct of the Trump Administration’s federal agents and document a formal, public record that can be used to pursue justice and accountability.
“The federal government is pushing the boundaries of their authority to terrorize our communities while disregarding all legal and moral accountability in the process. We will not meet intimidation with fear — we will meet it with truth,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “We are going to show the public — here in Chicago, the State of Illinois, across the nation, and around the world — exactly what is going on. We will create a detailed record, and that record will reflect reality. Once this all ends, I believe there will be people of good faith who will review what the Commission has recorded and will demand answers and accountability.”
The Executive Order comes in response to the lack of any federal accountability for escalating federal enforcement actions marked by excessive force, masked agents in unmarked vehicles, military-style raids, the use of chemical irritants, and reports of violent conduct by federal agents across Chicagoland and throughout Illinois.
The Commission will consist of up to nine members appointed by the Governor, including a Chair and Vice Chair. The IAC will issue a report with findings and recommendations to the Governor and make the report publicly available. The work of the IAC will be supported by the Illinois Department of Human Rights (IDHR).
This is the kind of thing Democrats will need to do much more of if they are to be any kind of a brake on the ICE Barbie Trump 2.0 streamroller.
Naturally, Trump officials don’t like being threatened with legal consequences for their illegal actions.
Stephen Miller Responds, Presumably ICE Barbie Was Busy
Stephen Miller on Fox threatens to arrest JB Pritzker for “seditious conspiracy” and says, “to all ICE officers: you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. And anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop or obstruct you is committing a felony.”
Stephen Miller on Fox threatens to arrest JB Pritzker for “seditious conspiracy” and says, “to all ICE officers: you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. And anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop or obstruct you is committing a felony.”
[image or embed]
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) Oct 24, 2025 at 3:15 PM
And lest anyone think White House Deputy Chief of Staff (and unofficial evil mastermind of Trump 2.0) is a schmuck who’s missing out on the chance to get his beak wet, turns out he’s a savvy investor.
Stephen Miller Owns Big Heap Plenty Palantir Stock
Via Rolling Stone:
According to ethics disclosure reports released by the White House, Miller owns between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of stock in Palantir, Peter Thiel’s data and intelligence software company that has a several lucrative contracts with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to track data and conduct surveillance on undocumented immigrants. It’s a pretty clear conflict of interest from the man behind much of Donald Trump’s immigration policy, in an administration that is already rife with corruption.
A Project on Government Oversight (POGO) analysis of disclosures from several administration figures found that Miller and at least 11 other White House officials and staffers own stock in Palantir, including Gregory Barbaccia, Trump’s Chief Information Officer.
Miller’s stake is tucked away in a brokerage account for one of his three young children, all of which are under the age of six. The single degree of separation is still a potential violation of ethics laws.…According to an April report from Wired, ICE awarded Palantir another $30 million contract to create tracking software aimed at providing the agency with “near real-time visibility” into migrants engaging in “self deportation.” According to documents obtained by Wired, one of the core functions of the program — dubbed ImmigrationOS — would be to streamline and prioritize “selection and apprehension operations of illegal aliens.” The documents noted that one of the difficulties in creating the program was limited access to the biometric data of migrants.
I wonder if Miller will be threatening city officials in Portland, Oregon soon? After all they’re also getting more creative in their fights with ICE Barbie.
Portland’s Gonna Zone ICE Barbie Out of the Picture
From The New York Times:
Portland leaders are trying the strategy they know best: land use.
Oregon has one of the most complex sets of zoning and land use laws in the nation. Supporters of the policies say they encourage neighborhoods to be walkable and filled with independent businesses while also preserving vast open spaces and farmland. Critics say the rules have stymied housing construction and kept home prices high.
But in the city’s fight against the Trump administration, those land-use rules may prove to be a not-so-secret weapon, in large part because the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland may be uniquely vulnerable to the codes.
The General Services Administration, which manages real estate for the federal government, typically leases space for ICE from other government agencies or private prisons in industrial areas that are away from residential centers or popular commuter routes. The large ICE facility that has drawn protests in Illinois, for example, isn’t in Chicago, but rather the suburban village of Broadview.
Yet when federal officials looked to move Oregon’s ICE “subfield office” from a historic post office near downtown Portland 14 years ago, they chose to lease privately owned property just three miles away in the South Waterfront, a showcase for the state’s history of innovative urban design.
That has kept ICE under the intense scrutiny of both protesters and city planners. In mid-September, city leaders issued the owner of the ICE facility, the developer Stuart Lindquist, a land-use violation notice, telling him ICE had breached the terms of their original agreement for the property.
Time will tell if this proves a useful tactic.
Let’s zoom back out to the big picture before we wrap.
First, DHS is doing more than just messing with immigrants and, of course, there’s another Palantir connection to be exposed.
Palantir Co-Founder and His Hate for the Homeless
Some of the founders of Palantir, like Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, have been frequent subjects of Coffee Break discussions but so far Joe Lonsdale has escaped my drag net.
Time to change that.
Because our boy has been busy laying the groundwork for Trump 2.0.
From VICE in 2023:
This month, Kansas residents met at the statehouse to voice their thoughts on a bill that would ban “public camping,” one of many bills across the country in recent years designed to target people experiencing unsheltered homelessness by making it illegal to sleep outside.
Specifically, the bill would make it a Class C misdemeanor to sleep in public, and would bar municipalities from blocking enforcement of the law, allowing the state attorney general to sue cities and counties if they try to pass a less hostile ordinance. While most of the speakers had a connection to the state, one speaker, Judge Glock, who was the only speaker to endorse the bill according to one attendee, spoke on behalf of the Cicero Institute, an Austin, Texas-based think tank. Glock, also a member of the conservative Manhattan Institute who has written op-eds for The Wall Street Journal and National Review, serves as a senior fellow at Cicero.
It might not be clear at first blush why a think tank based in Austin, Texas is invested in a camping ban being pushed in Topeka, Kansas. In fact, the Cicero Institute has spent the last few years pushing its own model anti-camping legislation in cities across the country in an attempt to criminalize homelessness and to divert funding away from permanent, supportive housing, which it has posited as too slow and costly to deal with public encampments. Cicero-authored bills have been passed statewide in Texas and in Missouri, and statewide bills are being considered in five other states including and Oklahoma and Arizona.
Cicero was founded by Joe Lonsdale, a co-founder of Palantir, the surveillance tech company whose data analysis software is used by the Department of Defense, ICE, and several big city police departments. Lonsdale is also head of the venture capital firm 8VC, which has invested in dozens of companies, including Palantir, Hims, Oculus and The Boring Company. 8VC’s motto is “The world is broken, let’s fix it,” and Lonsdale has shared his thoughts on how he would fix the world in the past, including his idea to move people into private prisons and then use market-based incentives to reduce recidivism.
ICE Barbie Is Coming for the Homeless
The DHS-Palantir joint assault on the homeless is scary and awful, as Conor warned in the post “Who’s Profiting off of the Criminalization of Homelessness?”
Utah just approved a 1,300-person “mega camp” for homeless people — seven miles from town, no transportation, locked units, and even forced labor. They call it “work-conditioned housing.” We call it what it is: modern-day internment.
In this clip, Eric Tars from the National… pic.twitter.com/9Tq4wFEHhr
— Invisible People ➤ Imagine Everyone With a Home (@invisiblepeople) October 26, 2025
Raw Story transcribed some of the Invisible People podcast interview with Eric Tars of the National Homelessness Law Center:
Tars said Utah’s new facility could be a “pilot program” for that effort around the country.
“Their end goal is not just jail,” Tars said. “They want to put up more of these Alligator Alcatraz sprung structure type facilities,” referring to the ramshackle immigration detention facility constructed in a remote part of Florida’s Everglades earlier this year, where detainees have been cut off from access to their lawyers and are widely reported to suffer from inhumane treatment.
He noted that, under a proposal drafted by the chair of Utah’s Homeless Services Board, Randy Shumway, more than 300 of the beds in the facility are slated for involuntary commitment. Other homeless people will be sent there for substance abuse treatment “as an alternative to jail” and will “receive care in a supervised environment where entry and exit are not voluntary.” Shumway referred to the facility as an “accountability center.”
“An individual would be sanctioned to go there. It would not be voluntary,” Shumway said during a presentation, according to the Standard-Examiner. ”They would be there for a period of probably 90 days with the opportunity to detox in order to get mental and behavioral health care, to get substance use disorder support, to get physical health care, and to be surrounded by a community that’s helping them in healing.“
Lonsdale is a restless man with a lot of time, energy, and money to make trouble.
He’s also got big plans for his adopted home town of Austin, Texas.
ICE Barbie’s Technobros See Room to Improve Austin
From Texas Monthly:
Last February, a Silicon Valley émigré named Joe Lonsdale looked out the window of his Austin office and did not like what he saw.
There on the lawn of the exquisitely restored mission-style building that housed the Cicero Institute, a public policy nonprofit Lonsdale had founded to “fix broken public systems” and to “preserve the promise of American liberty for generations to come,” were a lot of people who did not seem to be on the same page.
It was a cool, brisk day, and the group of fifty or so flattening Cicero’s grass were dressed in knit caps, T-shirts, and hoodies. They were protesting Lonsdale’s push, locally and nationally, to sweep the homeless off the streets by ticketing or jailing those camping on city thoroughfares. As Lonsdale had made the homeless a target, so this group had now targeted him: a very wealthy white man of the political right who had come from California and was dead set on persuading the city of Austin to see things his way. He wasn’t subtle. Lonsdale had shelled out for billboards that featured his face on the left, a cowboy hat on the right, and in between, the words “Freedom. Honor. Growth.” And “Lonsdale & Cicero Institute Fight for Texas.”
As can happen, Lonsdale’s notion of freedom was colliding with that of the protesters. “Cicero Profits off Pain,” read signs printed in red on black. “Poverty Is NOT a Moral Failing,” read a handmade poster. The sign directly adjacent declared that “Billionaires Shouldn’t Exist.” A few protesters used megaphones to express their fervent opinion that Cicero’s policies amounted to criminalizing the homeless, something they accused Cicero of advocating for across the country. “Joe Lonsdale and the Cicero Institute, the victims of Cicero see through your lies!” a woman with a bullhorn cried. As she spoke, the group began a slow surge toward the porch, chanting, shaking their posters, and demanding that Cicero staffers come outside and hear them out.
Cicero’s founder made Austin his home in 2020 after becoming one of the most influential voices in Silicon Valley. A disciple of libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel, he launched his career with a college internship at PayPal, which was cofounded by Thiel and was where Lonsdale came in contact with Elon Musk. After graduating from Stanford, Lonsdale worked at Thiel’s hedge fund, Clarium Capital. Then, in the early aughts, the two men founded the data mining and defense-tech company Palantir.
I wonder if Lonsdale will have to call in some of ICE Barbie’s goons to crack down on trouble makers right here in Austin?
Ice Barbie Is Fun and All, but Where Is This Headed?
Ezra Klein of all people has some salient points in the introduction to an interview with Radley Balko, the author of “Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces.”
I see the evisceration of due process. I see detention centers being built where it is extraordinarily hard for lawyers and families to reach the people inside. I see men in masks refusing to identify themselves and pulling people into vans. I see armed U.S. troops in camo, some on horseback, riding through MacArthur Park in Los Angeles like they’re an occupying army. I see Trump sending in armed forces to take over the American capital.
What is going to happen when, predictably, a protester throws a rock at an agent? Or a Marine hears a car backfiring and thinks it’s a gunshot?
In an instant, this could all explode. You could have American troops firing on American civilians in an American city in a country-defining crisis. What happens then?
Because that’s the other picture I see — the one that keeps coming into clear focus. Not Trump cleaning up crisis or disorder but Trump creating crisis and disorder so he can build what he has wanted to build: an authoritarian state, a military or a paramilitary that answers only to him — that puts him in total control.
And let’s let the worthy Mr. Balko have the last word about Trump’s strategy, as implements by ICE Barbie Kristi Noem and her beau Corey Levandowski:
ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have long been the most rogue, renegade and certainly pro-Trump police agencies in the federal government. So I think Trump sees those two as the most loyal to him. Also, obviously, the mass deportations are going to ensure that those two agencies remain relevant throughout his administration.The F.B.I. has had a long, proud history and culture. There are a lot of stains on that history and culture, but it’s an institution that has prided itself on its independence. Same with the A.T.F., which is often bucked by Republican administrations. I’ve certainly had my problems with the D.E.A. over the years, but there is a separate culture and sense of independence there.I think this is an effort to build up the two federal policing agencies that Trump sees as most loyal and deferential to him.…I’ve warned for a long time about police agencies becoming too militarized, too aggressive and too us versus them. Militarized both in the sense of the equipment that they use but also in the mentality that they bring to the job. But it was always in response to a real threat. So it happened during the crack epidemic, which killed a lot of people. It happened again after Sept. 11, when you had these attacks on American soil. Homeland security started equipping police departments across the country with this military-style police gear.…So what we’re seeing is this massive increase in aggressiveness and brutality — in response to a crisis that is completely of Trump’s own making. What we’re seeing is not a good-faith effort to go after the worst of the worst.…Stephen Miller is a menace. He’s been very clear about what his intentions are. He has been very clear that he does not believe the United States should be a place that takes in refugees from other countries. He has been very clear that he thinks the United States should be a primarily Western culture country. We’ve read investigative journalism about his being influenced by white supremacists. He has not pretended to hide who he is.…There aren’t very many countries in which the figurative political head of the country assembled his own personal paramilitary force that was loyal only to him where things turned out well. So that’s where I think we are right now.
Buckle up, things are only going to get wilder from here.
