Some Democrats push for a fight over DHS funds after ICE shooting in Minneapolis

The democrats have to stand on this issue.  Why have a budget if all the constitutional rights and laws of our country can just be ignored by the current administration?   Hugs

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/democrats-push-fight-dhs-funds-ice-shooting-minneapolis-rcna253799

They want guardrails on immigration agents. The issue has risen to the fore ahead of a key Jan. 30 deadline after an ICE officer shot and killed an American woman in Minneapolis.
ICE agents question a man outside of a store on a sidewalk, it's snowing

ICE officers question a man’s status on Lake Street near Karmel Mall in Minneapolis in 2025.Christopher Juhn / Anadolu via Getty Images file

WASHINGTON — Democrats are wrestling with whether to use a key Jan. 30 deadline to demand constraints on President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed an American woman in Minneapolis.

Progressives in the House and Senate are calling on their party to hold firm in opposition to a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security unless it comes with conditions — such as requiring agents to wear identification, limiting Customs and Border Protection agents to the border and requiring judicial warrants to arrest suspects in immigration cases.

They say Trump is using autocratic tactics by deploying masked agents in cities to intimidate Americans who don’t support him.

“Democrats cannot vote for a DHS budget that doesn’t restrain the growing lawlessness of this agency,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee overseeing DHS, wrote on X after the Minneapolis shooting.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus announced Tuesday that its members have formally voted to oppose any bill to fund DHS “unless there are meaningful and significant reforms to immigration enforcement practices.”

The blowback from Democrats to the Minnesota ICE shooting, which Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and the White House have defended, may pose a problem for Republicans in Congress who will need at least some Democratic votes to fund the government — including DHS — before Jan. 31 or risk a shutdown.

Democratic opposition has already frozen a DHS measure that was slated to be added to an appropriations package getting a Senate vote this week. Republicans control Congress and have largely stood by Trump on ICE deployments across the country, but such a bill requires 60 votes to pass the Senate.

Congress may have to fall back on a stopgap bill to prevent a funding lapse for DHS. That’s where things get trickier for Democrats. If House Republicans pass a continuing resolution on their own, which would keep DHS running on autopilot, Senate Democrats would again have to choose between accepting it and forcing a partial shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., wouldn’t say whether he’s open to guardrails on immigration enforcement when asked Tuesday by NBC News.

But he called on Democrats not to allow another shutdown.

“I think government shutdowns are stupid. I don’t think anybody wins. I hope the Democrats share that view,” he said, while acknowledging that DHS funding is “the hardest one, and it’s possible that if we can’t get agreement, there could be some sort of a CR that funds some of these bills into next year.”

The record-long shutdown last fall, triggered over a health care dispute, yielded no concessions for Democrats. And unlike the Affordable Care Act, a winning issue for Democrats, some in the party are more leery of a standoff over immigration. The center-left group Third Way is encouraging Democrats to steer clear of reviving the “abolish ICE” discourse.

And some Democrats note that the $170 billion infusion of funding for immigration enforcement was approved by Republicans on a party-line basis in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” last summer. That wouldn’t be affected even if DHS funding through the normal appropriations process expires.

One Democratic aide, discussing the sensitive topic on condition of anonymity, noted that a stopgap funding bill for DHS would provide fewer guardrails and more flexibility for Noem to move money around as she sees fit.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., sidestepped questions about whether he favors withholding DHS funding to slap restrictions on ICE, calling it “one of the major issues that appropriators are confronting right now.”

“The appropriators are working on that right now with the four corners and trying to come up with an agreement,” he said.

House Democrats’ strategy on ICE was a major topic of conversation during a closed-door party meeting Tuesday, according to attendees. But the conversation focused more on finding ways to hold the Trump administration accountable, other than withholding money for the agency.

One example of how they plan to do that: Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee will hold a field hearing in the Minneapolis area on Friday, where they plan to highlight the impact of ICE in the community.

“That was a big bulk of what we talked about,” said Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., who plans to attend the hearing. “The plea was to the caucus was that we have to hold people accountable. We have to do oversight when our colleagues won’t do it.”

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the ranking member of the House Judiciary subcommittee overseeing immigration and former Progressive Caucus chair, said that if Democrats wait until next year, “a lot of people are going to die between now and then, because this is now a federalized military force that’s being unleashed.”

“Obviously, the Senate has more leverage than the House, but I do think it’s also critically important for us to be on the record against this amount of funding, number one, and funding without any accountability or guardrails,” she said. “So we have a list of guardrails that we have been working with our leadership and the Senate.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., slammed ICE and Noem as “totally out of control” and in need of “commonsense” restraints that reflect law enforcement conduct.

“What’s in front of us right now is a spending bill that will go either one of two ways,” he told reporters. “Either Republicans will continue their ‘my way or the highway’ approach as it relates to the Homeland Security bill, and if that happens, then it’s going to be on them to figure out a path forward.”

Before the Minneapolis shooting, a national poll by The Associated Press found last month that just 38% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s handling of immigration, while 60% disapprove.

YouGov/Economist poll taken Jan. 9-12, after the Minneapolis shooting, found that 69% of American adults said they saw video of it, while another 22% said they had heard about it. Seventy-three percent said ICE agents should wear uniforms during arrests, and 56% said they shouldn’t be allowed to wear masks while arresting people. A plurality said ICE was making the U.S. “less safe.” And respondents said 46%-43% they support “abolishing ICE,” within the survey’s margin of error.

Protester permanently blinded after DHS agent fires nonlethal round at close range

These criminal gang thugs ICE are out of control and unless the police stand up for the public we are not a land of the free and we have no rights.   Only might makes rights if that is the case, only those with the guns have rights.    They hurt people and destroy property and suffer no consequences.  Can a modern nation, a civilized nation survive that?  This is shithole drug cartel warlord country.   Now ICE will rush into peaceful protestors legally standing where they are allowed, grab one and drag them on to federal property to detain and beat them.    Hugs

The video shows a group of protesters standing on the steps of the center, with several chanting and holding signs and one holding a megaphone. An officer then grabbed one of the young demonstrators—who appeared to be standing peacefully—by the arm, and dragged him up the steps.


https://www.rawstory.com/trump-dhs-2674880952/

Protester permanently blinded after DHS agent fires nonlethal round at close range
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detain a man on a street during a federal immigration operation, in Indio, California, U.S. December 18, 2025. REUTERS/Daniel Cole TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

A young protester in Santa Ana is permanently blind in one eye after being hit in the face at close range by a “nonlethal” round fired by a Department of Homeland Security agent last week amid nationwide protests against an immigration agent’s killing of US citizen Renee Good in Minneapolis.

According to a report from the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, the 21-year-old “underwent six hours of surgery and… doctors found shards of plastic, glass, and metal embedded in his eyes and around his face, including a metal piece lodged 7 mm from a carotid artery.”

His aunt, Jeri Rees, told the Times that doctors feared removing the shrapnel from her nephew’s face, concerned it could kill him, and that he had also suffered a skull fracture around his eyes and nose and had permanently lost vision in his left eye.

The shooting outside the Civic Center Plaza that took his sight on Friday evening was caught on film and has circulated widely on social media, and came hours after an earlier protest, organized by the organization Dare to Struggle, saw hundreds of demonstrators gather in downtown Santa Ana to oppose President Donald Trump’s flooding of US cities with immigration agents.

The video shows a group of protesters standing on the steps of the center, with several chanting and holding signs and one holding a megaphone. An officer then grabbed one of the young demonstrators—who appeared to be standing peacefully—by the arm, and dragged him up the steps.

As he attempted to wrest himself free from the agent’s grip, one of the protesters in the crowd threw an orange traffic cone in the direction of the struggle. This prompted at least one other officer to begin firing their weapons toward the crowd, striking one woman before striking Rees’ nephew in the face, causing him to drop to the ground.

The agent then grabbed him by the hood of his sweatshirt, dragging him across the ground. His face is visibly bloody and he appears to be struggling to breathe as he is dragged away by the neck.

According to the Times, another video shows Rees’ nephew lying bloodied on the ground inside the building while another agent fires pepper balls at another person who approached the building, attempting to film the incident.

While such projectiles are often described as “nonlethal,” Ed Obayashi, the Modoc County sheriff’s deputy and legal adviser to police agencies, told the paper that firing one just feet away from a person’s face “constitutes as deadly force as far as the law is concerned” because “these projectiles can cause serious injury [or] death.”

He added that officers are only supposed to deploy deadly force in situations where they believe their lives are in imminent danger or that they are at risk of grave bodily harm.

Rees said that her nephew told her agents pressed his face into the pool of blood and did not immediately call paramedics. She said her nephew also told her that “the other officers were mocking him, saying, ‘You’re going to lose your eye.’”

“This is an egregious abuse of power,” said Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.). “Americans have the right to protest without fear of retaliation or worse. Trump’s violence must stop now.”

THIS IS F***ING ILLEGAL

Remember the clip I posted of the house invasion yesterday?  Well this is the full clip.  With no warrant ICE gang thugs broke into the home that had kids in it, stormed the house like they were in a war zone going after enemy combatants, and manhandled the woman and her kids.  This is not police behavior, and it is not legal.  But what can a person do if twenty heavily armed guys broke into your home?  Where are the police who are to be protecting the public from gangs like this.  No one knows who these guys are, they could be there to rob someone or rape them.  Maybe traffic the kids?  Who knows.  I am tired of this.  These armed criminal gang thugs are not going into bad areas, areas with other gangs, areas that they might be hurt, they are going after suburban parents and homes with kids?   Hugs

Better Than Republicans Now!

Links within, and everything. Give it a read-especially the letter!-you’ll enjoy it. -A.

Hillary Clinton May Finally Get Lock-Her-Upped For Refusing Stupid Subpoena From Dipsh*t James Comer

Hell yes, and welcome to the resistance, guys.

Doktor Zoom

So far, the Justice Department has released only about one percent of the files it has on Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump’s involvement with the serial child molester, and the government’s failure to hold Epstein accountable. It’s the sort of thing Congress should be demanding action on, but the House Oversight Committee was instead planning to spend this week grilling Bill and Hillary Clinton about their long-ago contacts with Epstein, because that would take the spotlight off Trump.

Yesterday, the Clintons sent a scathing four-page letter (New York Times archive link) to committee chair James Comer (R-Kentucky) telling him why they wouldn’t be playing along, arguing that instead of demanding the Justice Department comply with the law requiring release of the Epstein Files, Comer and the Oversight Committee “have prevented progress in discovering the facts about the government’s role.”

You should definitely give the full Clinton letter a read, because it lays out not just why the Clintons won’t go along with Comer’s attempt to shift attention away from Trump and the DOJ’s foot-dragging, but also why this government’s corruption must be resisted wherever possible, from the streets to closed-door hearing rooms. The letter, not from their attorneys but from the Clintons themselves, starts by laying out the unprecedented attacks on the rule of law by Trump’s government, and sums up:

Every person has to decide when they have seen or had enough and are ready to fight for this country, its principles and its people, no matter the consequences.

For us, now is that time.

The letter also notes, again, that Bill Clinton has repeatedly called for the DOJ to release every last bit of information about him from the Epstein Files, which isn’t exactly what somebody trying to hide something would say. As opposed to, let’s say, a president who has fought every single attempt to release everything.

Separately, the Clintons’ attorneys sent Comer a more conventional letter explaining why they consider the committee’s subpoenas “invalid and legally unenforceable,” which may be useful if Comer follows through on his threat to charge the Clintons with contempt of Congress. But the Clintons’ letter, like Comer’s attempt to drag them before the committee for show, is openly and unabashedly political.

In what may have been a deliberate throwback, the Clinton letter is in good old-fashioned typewriter text (or a digital recreation of it), not a more obvious laser-printed Times New Roman or Arial, as if to suggest that in contrast to a clumsy Twitter message or a random email blast, the IBM Selectric is an elegant communications device for a more civilized age:

Screenshot of the Clintons' letter to James Comer, with stylized presidential seal embossed in gold above the names 'WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON / HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON' printed on letterhead. Text: 'January 13, 2026 Chairman Comer, We want to take a moment, given everything, to address you directly. This past year has seen our Government engage in unprecedented acts, including against our own citizens. People have been seized by masked federal agents from their homes, their workplaces, and the streets of their communities. Students and scientists with visas permitting them to study and work here have been deported without due process. The people who laid siege to the U.S. Capitol have been pardoned and called heroes. Agencies vital to the country's national security have been dismantled. Universities, media companies, and law firms have been subjected to threats to their funding, access, and licensing unless they made concessions and surrendered their right to constitutionally protected free speech. American troops have been deployed on the streets of our towns and cities. The Justice Department has been used as a weapon, at the direction of the President, to pursue political opponents. And most recently and searingly, an ICE agent killed an unarmed mother only days ago. Every person has to decide when they have seen or had enough and are ready to fight for this country, its principles and its people, no matter the consequences. For us, now is that time.'

While Comer accepted sworn, written declarations from eight other people the committee subpoenaed, he’s only demanded that the Clintons show up in person to be grilled behind closed doors. But no thanks, they write, we aren’t going to help you create a sideshow that detracts from the administration’s stonewalling on releasing the files:

We have tried to give you the little information that we have. We’ve done so because Mr. Epstein’s crimes were horrific. If the Government didn’t do all it could to investigate and prosecute these crimes, for whatever reason, that should be the focus of your work — to learn why and to prevent that from happening ever again. There is no evidence that you are doing so.

Predictably, Comer is now rattling on about charging Bill Clinton with contempt of Congress for not appearing Tuesday, and Hillary as well, since there was little chance she’d show up for her scheduled deposition today. Anticipating that, they basically tell him in the letter, BRING IT:

Despite everything that needs to be done to help our country, you are on the cusp of bringing Congress to a halt to pursue a rarely used process literally designed to result in our imprisonment. This is not the way out of America’s ills, and we will forcefully defend ourselves.

Indeed, bringing the Republicans’ cruel agenda to a standstill while you work harder to pass a contempt charge against us than you have done on your investigation this past year would be our contribution to fighting the madness.

If that’s the direction Comer goes, the letter warns, get ready, because while they’re still willing to testify in a public hearing, the Clintons will also “defend ourselves in the public arena and ensure this country knows exactly why you are doing so, instead of helping the American people who need this Congress’s work and protection.”

The letter closes with another warning, with a nice jab at MAGA obsessions with the perfectly legal and cromulent use of autopens on official documents, which is fun to read in a letter that looks as if it came from a typewriter. (Are the signatures here digital or handwritten, and does anyone care?)

Screenshot of Clinton letter: 'Continue to mislead Americans about what is truly at stake, and you will learn that Americans are better at finding the truth than you are at burying it. Continue to pursue autopens instead of penning laws Americans need, and you will learn that you are signing away any remaining chance of being on the right side of history. Continue to abet the dismantling of America, and you will learn that it takes more than a wrecking ball to demolish what Americans have built over 250 years. Sincerely,  [signatures] Bill Clinton / Hillary Rodham Clinton'

It’s a hell of a read, and it matters because unlike all the ways Trump and his sycophants have thrown norms (and the law) under the bus, this letter makes clear that the Clintons are defying the subpoenas not out of contempt, but to highlight that the GOP “investigation” is itself a political act aimed at intimidating Trump’s enemies. This isn’t an attempt to escape answering tough questions — they’ll happily do that in the open and in a sworn written statement. It’s civil disobedience, because this is a goddamned emergency.

Rebecca Solnit writes that we need to see more of this from people whose privilege usually protects them. They could testify in private and ride out the political screeching (neither would be at any risk) but they’re instead saying hell no and courting a contempt charge because it would bring attention to Trump’s crimes:

It’s significant that they’ve come out fighting. This is specifically about James Comer’s attempt to force them to testify about all things Epstein, even as this administration covers up for Epstein’s best friend, refuses to release 95% of the Epstein files, etc. What’s striking here is that the Clintons articulate it’s all of a piece with all the other appalling and lawless things the Trumpists are doing. That these supremely status quo/high status people see themselves as under attack in illegitimate ways and are now fighting back with broad accusations matters, not least because it may shake up some other people with high status/status quo positions, including high up in the Democratic Party.

We also wholeheartedly endorse Solnit’s caution that “I don’t really want or need to hear about why you don’t like the Clintons,” because yes, that conversation has been ongoing for 35 years, but this is something new, and because hey, did you notice the whole building is on fire?

THIS TRIGGERS TRUMP EVERY TIME…

notice at the intro Sam mentions that China has a huge trade surplus.   Making lots of money and they don’t even tariff.  Hugs

MS Now ICE attacks and abuse of people clips

 

 

The video below has horrific clips of ICE assaulting bystanders and protestors.  One clip showed the ICE gang thugs breaking down a door and entering a home like they think they are a special forcer unit in Fallujah Iraq.  They seem to be acting like street gangs or drug cartel members as they just attack anyone that displeases them.    They are not police nor professional but they act as though only they have rights.   Hugs

 

 

 

Immigration Agents Terrified of ICE Backlash After Shooting

I want to thank Ali for sending me this link.   I really hope this causes some real soul searching with in some of these people as they sure need to.  I saw these documents show on The Majority Report but I was not sure how correct it was because then I saw horrific actions, beatings, and gang thug behavior from ICE.   Hugs


https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/immigration-agents-terrified-by-ice

Leaked documents show Border Patrol needs volunteers for Minneapolis surge

I would like to make a personal post if no one minds

https://gofund.me/5d1def2cc

Ok I know that as soon as most of you read the title you thought I was going to talk again about my childhood abuse.   

No what I need help with is for another abuse victim I have come to care a lot about.  He and I met through the abuse site and we bonded emotionally.  He needed to vent a lot of anger  / hate / why me stuff and I was OK with him doing it on me as long as he never attacked me personally.  He also came to care about me and the kind nature I shared with him.  He is much farther along in his therapy so was able to point things out to me far sooner than everyone here did.  

I think by now everyone who follows here realizes I am talking about Kamyk.  Pronounced Camick.  He got very ill shortly after we were friends and if you look back through the archives I asked and many of you did send him cards in the ICU he was in.  He has told me I can share his medical condition he has suffered from all his life and he blames it on both his childhood abuse and his father’s narcistic behavior he developed cysts on his colon.  One day he was talking to me telling me how much pain he was in and then he was gone.  Rushed to the hospital and placed in an ICU. 

Normally to do a GI surgery they have to void the bowels entirely but they simply did not have time and when they tried he crashed, so they rushed him to surgery and according to the surgeon it was the worst most dirty bowel surgery he ever did. 

 Sadly they had to take a large part of Kamyk’s intestines and his entire colon.  Kamyk wanted to die.  After a year of nearly doing so and many surgeries he was left with a couple stomas and an ileostomy.  He came so close to death that several times I asked people here to send him cards.  I know some did.  

Long story short, after all this time he got the ileostomy reversed and one of the stomas.  He could have gone back to his apartment he had managed to keep paying for … but the first nursing home he was sent to let him get a huge pressure sore on his tailbone that is so deep doctors are saying it would take a year to heal.  I get pressure sores and I know what to do once they developed, the pictures Kamyk sent me were so deep and so gross it is a violation of every medical rule I ever practiced under.  It was criminal. 

Sadly in a depressed area of the country one can’t sue a medical provider as all the other providers close their doors to you.   I mean if you sue a hospital in your area you better hope you never need a hospital again.  Unless you are in the emergency room dying no physician can admit you.  

Against all odds Kamyk has pulled through everything life thrown at him.  He aggressively started learning to walk again after one surgery left one of his legs not working.  He really wanted to get out of there and return to his home and I think we can all understand that.   Through it all on a very limited income Kamyk kept paying the rent on his apartment.  Until just recently tragedy struck in the form of the government and greed.

Kamyk was looking forward to going home from the step down care facility he was in.  But without his knowing the facility he was in made arrangements to transfer him to a nursing home.  The nursing home grabbed his entire SSI payment which meant not only did his rent payment fail but a recent device he had saved up for to buy also defaulted in the payments. 

I understand what he is saying as when Ron’s brother had to be put into a nursing home we had to jump through the same damn situation.  He was only allowed 30 dollars of his SSI payment but Ron had to stop his military disability payment of $100 dollars because that put him over the limit allowed to be in the nursing home.  Everything was so strict that Ron and his sister Diane had to pay what few bills he had, they sold his car, and they had to buy him anything he needed as he was not allowed to have any money build up in his bank account.   The system is designed to keep the person in the home as poor as possible, while letting the home take all the money and assets that person has.   It is the punish the poor republican idea of if they are poor then it is their fault.  

Here is why I am writing all this.  I was going to start a Go Fund Me for Kamyk.  He bought a Steam Deck computer device that would let him keep up with friends around the world and with me in a situation where he couldn’t use voice talk to communicate.  As you can imagine some of the things Kamyk would like to talk abut can’t be voiced loudly in a shared room.   Also he needs it is so he can play games with his friend of a decades Wolfy and escape from the horrid place he is in at least for a while, something every one I really understand.    I have worked in a nursing home for a few weeks and I can tell you that the residents in some homes don’t have much to do all day and don’t get much respect.  The staff is over worked, underpaid, and they are struggling also.  

I care deeply for my friend and have seen how horrendous this time has been for him.  He is in a very depressed area of the country in Ohio and he has no family in a position to help him.   

Kamyk has helped me do this by sending me a blurb and other information. They will be below.  Thanks and hugs.  

Kamyk’s journey has been incredibly tough, and it’s clear that every day presents new challenges. After enduring multiple life-threatening infections and a long recovery, the road ahead still feels uncertain. Living in a nursing home where their needs are often overlooked only adds to the struggle. One thing that could bring Kamyk some much-needed joy and connection is the ability to play games with their best friend in New Zealand. A Steam Deck and a secure backpack would provide a way to escape the pain and trauma, even if just for a little while. This small gesture could make a significant difference in their healing process. If you can, please consider contributing to this cause. Your support would mean the world to Kamyk and help them find moments of happiness during this difficult time. Thank you for your kindness and generosity. Best regards, https://gofund.me/5d1def2cc

———————————————————————————————————————–

Update:  There was some questions as to the amount and what the situation was.  I wrote kamyk and called him about it.  He was able to respond after I went to bed.  

Gofundme is weird it only starts with a minimum, supposedly to get the ball rolling before showing the full requested amount. My full requested amount is $1000

Steam deck is $700, TSA approved slash resistant locking backpack is $80, a bluetooth headset i can use with the steam deck or my phone is about $40 which would allow me to talk to you, mark, or wolfy semi privately without the issues the earbuds have, and gofundme suggested the additional difference so i could get some more games

I also added further text to my fundraiser page explaining that my ultimate goal is $1000, and that it feels deceptive to me to rely on a marketing technique to get donations, so I clarified

Thanks to everyone that reads this, forwards it, and if possible can help.   I am sorry for the confusion I did not know how Go Fund Me works.   Hugs

More ICE clips from The Majority Report

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘This looks like Russia’: Joe shocked by ICE’s tactics in Minnesota