Succumbing To The Temptation

to post snarky news about a very bad person.

Alan Dershowitz Suing Martha’s Vineyard Farmer’s Market Vendor For Tortious Withholding Of Dumpling by Rebecca Schoenkopf

He kept his panties on the whole time! Read on Substack

Evan Hurst Jul 31, 2025

Are Good Pierogis the only pierogis you’ll ever need? Yes! Drive to Martha’s Vineyard and eat them. Tell them, “Alan Dershowitz ain’t got no panties on.” We don’t know if they’ll give you a discount, but they might laugh.

If there’s one thing anybody knows about famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz’s life and career, it’s that he has panties on, except for all the times he’s being a nudist, which by definition implies the absence of panties. One time he definitely always had panties on? When he was getting a massage at Jeffrey Epstein’s Haus of Naked. That’s a five-alarm-panty-party for Alan Dershowitz, he has always assured us.

Another time Alan Dershowitz is always wearing panties — at least as far as we’ve heard — is when he’s having his civil rights and his bill of rights and his human rights violated by the evil shopkeepers and librarians of Martha’s Vineyard, where nobody will invite him over for dinner because they hate his guts, avec ou sans panties. Apparently the Jewish Democrats on Martha’s Vineyard really loathe El Chico Desnudo. Also everybody else on Martha’s Vineyard hates him, all the other liberals, and this makes Alan Dershowitz feel lonely and, well, naked. They won’t let him come to brunch, and it’s definitely not because he’s naked and won’t stop dipping his balls in the hollandaise, why would he dip his balls there, that’s not where Alan Dershowitz’s balls go. They won’t let him do his world-renowned standing-room-only readings and lectures at the meeting room at the library, it is an outrage, it is a seven deadly sins, it is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Larry David doesn’t invite him over, Barack Obama skips his birthday parties, and now he has to sue a Martha’s Vineyard farmer’s market vendor because they wouldn’t give him a dumpling.

A pierogi, to be specific. The vendor wouldn’t give him a pierogi, so now he has to show them his pierogi.

WITH PANTIES ON.

Dershowitz explained what’s going on in exhaustive detail on his Rumble show, but first here’s a tweet:

Dershowitz: Bigoted vendor @ Martha's Vineyard Farmer's Market refused to sell to me for political reasons. I'm suing. Watch the Dershow live @ 5:30pm est on Rumble and Youtube. Become part of the conversation.

OK, so here’s the situation, here is Alan Dershowitz’s Yelp review for “that guy at the farmer’s market with the pierogis.”

“There was the pierogi place,” he said. “They’re Ukrainian, Russian delicacies. And I had gone there a few times before, and I bought the pierogi. They were ok. They were not my grandmother’s pierogi, but they were ok.”

Alan Dershowitz just wanted some pierogis, even though they weren’t that good, just OK.

BUT THEN HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED, ALAN SAYS:

DERSHOWITZ: Can I have six pierogi?

“BIGOTED VENDOR”: No.

DERSHOWITZ: Oh, you’ve run out of pierogi? Too bad.

“BIGOTED VENDOR”: No, no, no. We have plenty of pierogi. I just won’t sell them to you.

DERSHOWITZ: What do you mean you won’t sell them to me?

“BIGOTED VENDOR”: I won’t sell them to you because I don’t approve of your politics. I don’t approve of who you’ve represented. I don’t approve of who you support.

DERSHOWITZ: What is it about my politics that you don’t–

“BIGOTED VENDOR”: I’m not gonna tell you. I just don’t like your politics.

Love it when vendors at the farmer’s market are like “Forsooth, I don’t approve of you! I forsake you! You shan’t have six pierogis today, not to put in your belly, not to eat with panties on, not to slather in your Alan Dershowitz ball-ondaise sauce and save for later!” It’s just how farmer’s market vendors talk.

“The clear implication was that he opposed me because I defended Donald Trump on the floor of the Senate,” Dershowitz added. “I think that’s illegal.”

Alan Dershowitz is a very famous lawyer.

It gets better, because there’s video of at least part of the situation, or at least the aftermath, don’t worry it’s safe for work. Dershowitz was also filming, because he is a serious lawyer and we imagine he knows that sometimes cops and ICE agents and pierogi vendors are full of lies.

This is the other person’s video, though:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Chris Hulbert (@bungee4)

Therein, you can see the cop gently explaining to Alan Dershowitz The Very Famous Lawyer that according to his own understanding, restaurants can refuse service, but if he wants to pursue it further, he can pursue it civilly. Oh yes, Alan Dershowitz says! He is going to put this on the internet too, Alan Dershowitz says! That’ll be the end of this reign of terror for this pierogi seller whose pierogis are OK but not like Alan Dershowitz’s grandmother’s pierogis!

If you’d like to listen to Dershowitz debate the cop for one hundred hours on whether it’s OK for people to discriminate against Alan Dershowitz based on his protected class of sucking so much, that’s in that video. You can’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or race, so how is it fair to discriminate against Alan Dershowitz on the basis of fuck that guy, we hate him? He asks to speak to the manager. The cop explains that actually he’s in charge right now. Dershowitz explains he’s lived here for 53 years and nobody has ever sent him home without pierogi in his belly. He accuses the extremely patient cop of “silencing” him. The cop gently explains that he is causing a disruption, that multiple people have complained, and that no, he may not stand next to the pierogi stand and tell people not to go to the pierogi stand. Alan Dershowitz explains that he would like to get some lemonade.

The user who posted the video says:

“I met Allen Dechowitz [sic] today. I stopped him from harassing a vendor who wouldn’t serve him pierogi at the farmer’s market on Martha’s Vineyard.”

The pierogi person, or the person who is presumably the pierogi person, replied, “Hey, thank you so much!”

Again, Dershowitz rushed to get on Rumble and talk about all of this, and he did so wearing a Martha’s Vineyard Farmer’s Market T-shirt. If you choose to subject yourself to this, skip to 3:54 or so in the video. He talks for a LONG VERY LONG TIME, about how the farmer’s market is on QUASI public land, and he pronounces QUASI like SWAYZE.

He explains that he really wanted to go to the farmer’s market that day because it was corn day, and he got there early, because corn day. He says corn day wasn’t supposed to be until August 1, but he had “insider information” that told him corn day would be this weekend instead.

So that’s insider corn day trading, by his own legal admission, somebody should sue Alan Dershowitz for tortious corn day.

In the Rumble video, Alan Dershowitz is much more agreeable than he is on the video with the cop, so we can only imagine what the actual encounter with the pierogi vendor was like. He does mention that when he was told that the pierogi vendor identifies as non-binary and uses the pronoun “they,” Alan Dershowitz responded, “I’ll use whatever language I choose to use, that’s a matter between me and my grammarian,” and when he said “grammarian,” it was like he was gesturing to the Great Grammarian in the Sky, so that might have also contributed to why Alan Dershowitz did not receive any pierogi, for himself or for his grammarian.

In the video, Dershowitz creates his own new metric for whether it’s OK to discriminate, based on the categories of “race, religion or politics,” which is, legal factcheck, not what it is. (The nice cop also tries to explain that to him.)

Dershowitz says he wrote an op-ed about this, he has sent an email to Sean Hannity — yes because the pierogi person was mean to him — and then, having babbled for over 10 minutes about this, starts explaining other times he’s faced discrimination on Martha’s Vineyard, just for being Alan Dershowitz too much. He’s discriminated against by the book fair, he’s discriminated against by the library, he’s discriminated against by the synagogue — he says they hate Israel — and blah blah blah blah blah Alan Dershowitz.

And then we turned off the video.

If you, like us, don’t want to watch the whole video, here is a screengrab of Alan Dershowitz making an Alan Dershowitz face while he complains.

So that is what has happened. Everybody on Martha’s Vineyard still hates Alan Dershowitz and Alan Dershowitz did not get a pierogi, therefore SUING.

Cannot hardly wait for Pam Bondi’s press conference on how she’s filed charges against the pierogi stand for discrimination and anti-semitism and also probably announcing that she found the real Epstein files in the pierogi stand’s fryers, they were there the whole time. (snip)

Democrats’ ‘Impotent’ Response to Trump’s Deportation Campaign

Mehdi moderates a panel with YouTube star Brian Tyler Cohen, LA city council member Nithya Raman, and podcaster Van Lathan, LIVE in Los Angeles!

Mehdi and Zeteo concluded our one-year anniversary tour last week, with a final stop in the city that has made headlines in recent days and weeks, after the Trump administration deployed the National Guard against protesters.

Yes, Los Angeles. Political commentator and YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen: “If it was happening in another country… We would not hesitate for a single second to call it autocracy, authoritarianism, or a dictatorship”

In this special live recording, Mehdi sits down with Cohen, as well as LA City Council member Nithya Raman and “Higher Learning” co-host Van Lathan for a conversation on President Donald Trump’s targeting of LA protesters and immigrants, Democrats’ response, and the media’s handling of Trump 2.0.

LA Councilmember Nithya Raman: “There is an incredible amount of fear right now,” Raman tells Mehdi. “They’re [ICE] showing up at workplaces. They’re showing on street corners. They’re showing up taking street vendors who are selling outside of a Home Depot…

They showed up outside of an elder care facility in Santa Monica and took workers from there. I mean these are kidnappings.” Mehdi asks Lathan, who frequently appears on CNN, about whether he believes the media is meeting the moment right now when it comes to covering Trump’s second term.

Van Lathan: “The legacy media right now is made to serve a commercial break ‘I’m mad on the left,’ ‘I’m on the right,’ ‘I am the host, you two stop fighting! We’ll be right back,’ ‘Proctor & Gamble.’” Did you like this video? It was published on zeteo.com several days ago.

If you would like early access to more exclusive content like this, then do consider becoming a paid subscriber. It costs as much as a single coffee a month, gives you early access to all our fearless, independent reporting, and goes a long way in supporting our mission of bringing the best of journalism to YOU our subscribers. So what are you waiting for?

Germany sees anti-Pride events and restricts rainbow flags ahead of LGBTQ+ parties

The minority groups trying to push hate on the LGBTQ+ are well funded by billionaires like J.K. Rowling and the Christian church. They are using every media they can to turn young people against the LGBTQ+ using the most misinformation they can generate. And as much as they want / demand society return to their fantasied Christian 1950s pro white cis straight only country it was not true then and can’t be true now. Their goal is the total erasure of the LGBTQ+ and also any rights for those gained in the civil rights act. Below is a quote from the article. Hugs.

“I’m almost 40 and have seen so much progress like equal marriage,” Kelly says. “But something is changing. Hatred towards people like me is becoming mainstream again.”

July 25, 20255:00 AM ET

Heard on Morning Edition

Esme Nicholson

Demonstrators participate in an event called “Show the flag: For queer visibility in the Bundestag!” in front of the Reichstag building that houses Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, in Berlin, on July 8. The conservative president of the Bundestag said the rainbow flag would no longer be raised on top of the parliament building during Pride month, which in Germany runs from June 28 until July 27.

Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images

The tree-lined neighborhood near Nollendorfplatz square in central Berlin is as gay today as it was a century ago.

It’s where Christopher Isherwood wrote novels chronicling the rise of the Nazis amid the city’s rich queer nightlife that inspired the musical Cabaret.

Every summer, the neighborhood throws its own smaller-scale LGBTQ+ Pride event separate from the city’s main annual parade taking place this weekend.

It’s just one of more than 200 Pride events taking place in Germany this year. But with far-right extremist groups staging anti-Pride protests, many Pride attendees fear for their safety.

A special series on Pride Month

Sipping on a cocktail as the street party gets underway, 62-year-old Georg Schmidt says he’s relieved that this event is a relaxed affair. He says he attended a different local pride parade last month across town in the district of Marzahn and the mood there was tense.

“There was a massive police presence to shield us from anti-Pride protests. We only felt safe because the police kept us apart,” Schmidt says.

The counter demonstration was organized by far-right groups designated by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency as violent and extremist. It’s one of 17 extreme-right anti-Pride demonstrations that have taken place so far this year, according to the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy — an organization that monitors extremism. Some cities have even canceled pride because of threats.

Revelers march down the Leipziger Strasse street during a Pride parade in Berlin, July 23, 2022.

Markus Schreiber/AP

Sabine Volk, a researcher at the Institute for Research on Far Right Extremism at the University of Tübingen, says these groups attract young men who promote what they call traditional family values — a kind of pride that has little to do with rainbow flags.

“The key slogan is that the German flag and Germany itself is already colorful enough,” Volk says. “And the overall message is that queer life does not have a place in Germany.”

Consider This from NPR

The Global Struggle For LGBTQ+ Rights And The People Who Defend Them

But it’s not just far-right extremists who are exacting about flags.

The new president of the German parliament, Julia Klöckner — who is a member of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative party — says the rainbow flag will no longer be raised on top of the legislature building during Pride month, which runs every year in Germany from June 28 until July 27. She has also prohibited parliamentary public servants from attending Pride in an official capacity and lawmakers have been asked to take down rainbow flags and stickers from office doors.

President of German Parliament Bundestag Julia Klöckner speaks to the media on July 8 in Berlin.

Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images

Speaking on public broadcaster ARD, Merz signaled his support for the rule at Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, with the words, “the Bundestag is not a circus tent” — a remark to which many have taken umbrage.

Merz backs his colleague’s argument that the lower house must maintain neutrality and cannot support events with a political agenda.

Nyke Slawik speaks during a parliamentary debate on queer hate crime in the Bundestag. Photo: Carsten Koall/dpa (Photo by Carsten Koall/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Carsten Koall/picture alliance via Getty Images

Opposition Green Party lawmaker Nyke Slawik criticized the move. “Declaring the rainbow a political symbol is highly problematic” stressing that “queer people are not an ideology; they are people!” Slawik told public broadcaster ZDF.

Slawik argues they are people increasingly in need of protection. Germany’s federal police report an almost tenfold increase in reported queerphobic hate crimes since 2010 and they believe the majority of cases go unreported.

The issue is not divided by party political lines; criticism of Merz’s choice of words has come from within his own party. Sönke Siegmann, the chair of the Christian Democrats’ LGBTQ+ Association, says some within his party are still catching up on terminology.

“If you say queer in my party, most people take a deep breath and say: ‘Oh, that’s a left-wing term,’ ” Siegmann observes. He says he has spoken with Merz since he made his “circus tent” comments.

“We explained to him what queer really means and two days later when asked in Parliament about LBGTQ+ hate crimes and what his government will do about them, Merz actually used the term queer,” Siegmann says.

Back in the Nollendorfplatz area, rainbow flags fly every month of the year. But local resident Chris Kelly says the mood here is not as “live and let live” as it once was. He recently opened a boutique that sells high-end garments made from industrial strength rubber. He says business is good and he has a broad customer base, but it was almost impossible trying to find premises for the boutique.

“We found plenty of suitable spaces to rent and our finances are solid, but a lot of landlords rejected us, saying they didn’t want people like us,” Kelly remembers. “Real estate agents had warned us, but I was flabbergasted to encounter such prejudice in Berlin’s queerest, gayest neighborhood.”

Kelly’s store is located just down the street from Romeo and Romeo, a gay bar whose owner was attacked last month. Kelly says he too gets more verbal abuse than he used to and he hears again and again of attacks on members of the LGBTQ+ community.

“I’m almost 40 and have seen so much progress like equal marriage,” Kelly says. “But something is changing. Hatred towards people like me is becoming mainstream again.”

Kelly points out that a few doors down in the other direction is where the legendary nightclub Eldorado stood until the Nazis closed it down in 1933, eventually sending its queer clientele to concentration camps.

A commuter walks down the steps of Berlin’s Bundestag subway station, decorated with rainbow colors, the symbol of the LGBTQ+ community, on July 24.

John MacDougall/AFP via Getty Images

As preparations for Berlin’s main Pride parade get underway, the city police say they’ve received a permit request for a counterdemonstration protesting “against Pride terror and identity disorders.”

In reaction to the Bundestag president’s decision not to fly the rainbow flag on top of parliament this year, Berlin’s transport authority has decorated its Bundestag subway station stop in rainbow colors, writing on Instagram: “So our Bundestag is ready for Pride.”

Kelly urges people to attend Pride and stand up to a new generation of the far-right. He has no desire to say Goodbye to Berlin and the neighborhood around Nollendorfplatz, as Isherwood was forced to do.

The 1st Grape Boycott, & Capital Punishment Ruled Unconstitutional, In Peace & Justice History for 7/29

I wasn’t an adult in 1972, but it was a relief to me, that there was no more death penalty! Four years later, it was back, and I cannot explain how that happened. My town had a death penalty trial almost immediately. A teacher had access to an execution film; the state was required to keep that on record for a while, whenever anyone sat on Ol’ Sparky; we viewed it before the trial (no one present was on the jury, of course.) It was medieval. And, here we still are in 2025, killing people in the names of everybody who lives here. There are ways to work against it; let me know if there is interest in comments.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjuly.htm#july29

With Famine, No Electricity, Fuel, Water, No Family, How Are You Going To Survive?’ in Gaza

After over 21 months of Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza, the humanitarian crisis in the Strip has reached its worst point yet. 94% of Gaza’s hospitals have been destroyed or damaged. Dozens of children have died from malnutrition. And Israeli troops continue to kill scores of Palestinians as they try to receive food from the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.”

In this second part of Zeteo’s live ‘Unshocked,’ Dr. Yasser Khan – a Canadian ophthalmologist and plastic surgeon who has traveled twice to Gaza since October 7, 2023 – describes to Mehdi and Naomi how Israel’s humanitarian assault on Gaza has turned injuries and disabilities in Gaza into, “a death sentence.”

Dr. Yasser Khan: “It was horrific, the most horrific things that I’ve ever seen.”

In the interview, Dr. Khan shares the stories of his many patients, the vast majority of whom he says were women and children.

Dr. Khan also discusses how upon returning from Gaza, many of his colleagues in the medical field refused to believe such stories, with some even going out of their way to tell him that, “‘he’s done nothing to be a hero.’”

Dr. Khan explains how he came to the conclusion that what he was seeing in Gaza was indeed a genocide and why he takes so much inspiration from the people in Gaza. Mehdi, Naomi, and Dr. Khan also take questions from a live audience.

Do consider becoming a paid subscriber so you can get early access to exclusive content like this.

Also, if you are interested in learning more about Israel’s assault on Gaza’s healthcare system, check out Zeteo’s most recently acquired documentary, ‘Gaza: Doctors Under Attack.’

Trump’s DEATH TRAP Leaks… and CHAOS ERUPTS

‘I Call It Israeli Settler Terrorism’ — Father of Killed Palestinian-American Speaks Out

Sayfollah Musallet, a Palestinian-American born in Florida, was visiting family in the West Bank town of Al-Mazra’a ash-Sharqiya when Israeli settlers brutalized him, beating him unconscious and blocking an ambulance from reaching him, according to the victim’s family. The young Palestinian-American was pronounced dead by the time he arrived at a hospital.

And although days have passed since Sayfollah was apparently killed by Israeli settlers, no one from the White House has contacted the family. No one from Congress. No one who represents Florida, where Musallet hails from.

Kamel Musallet, Sayfollah’s father, spoke with Zeteo’s political correspondent Prem Thakker about the lack of accountability from both US and Israeli officials over the ongoing settler violence in the West Bank. “An American has been killed by Israeli violence… Israeli settler terrorism,” Kamel told Prem.

Sayfollah is the seventh American killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the past 21 months. Most US politicians remain conspicuously silent about the widespread violence carried out by Israeli settlers.

This video was released earlier on Zeteo.com, if you want to get earlier access, make sure you subscribe: zeteo.com/subscribe

While We Watch Colbert and South Park, They Build A $1.2 B Desert Concentration Camp In Texas

https://beingliberal.substack.com/p/while-we-watch-colbert-and-south?r=3j50y&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true

While America’s distracted by the Steven Colbert Show drama and South Park revenge, Trump’s government just dropped over a billion dollars to build the largest detention center in U.S. history

Being Liberal

Jul 25, 2025

Welcome to Fort Bliss—A $1.2 Billion Dystopian Human Suffering Factory—Funded By You.

You read that right.

Everything is bigger in Texas. $1.26 billion taxpayers money funneled to private pockets. 5,000 prisoners. No due process. Tent concentration camp in a desert.

America 2025 – Detention Will Make You Free

What’s Being Built—And Why It Should Terrify You

A $1.26 billion federal contract has been awarded to construct a 5,000-bed detention camp at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.

It will be operated under military supervision with private contractors and no guaranteed legal oversight.

This is part of a broader Trump-era policy goal: scaling ICE detention to 100,000 beds nationwide—up from around 40,000.

This facility is slated to fast-track deportations under EO 14159, which targets up to 1 million removals per year.

Subscribe

Fort Bliss? It’s Another Alligator Auschwitz,
Of Texas Desert Kind

Let’s be clear: this isn’t just a holding site—it’s inhumane state-sanctioned cruelty.

Fort Bliss sits in El Paso’s desert, where summer temps regularly hit 100–110°F. Inside tents, that can spike above 120°F. No air conditioning. No proper plumbing. Just canvas and suffering. And in winter? Temperatures dip below freezing at night, with no insulation to protect detainees.

The result?

Heat exhaustion. Hypothermia. Dust storms. Insects. Infections. Psychological breakdowns.

Just like at Florida’s now-notorious “Alligator Alcatraz,” ambulances driving through the gate will be a daily feature. Already, reports from that prototype camp detail detainees suffering from medical neglect, contaminated food, and makeshift showers rigged with hoses. Some have called it “worse than jail”—and Fort Bliss will be five times bigger.

Here’s what we know—and why it’s enraging—that private contractors stand to profit from building this $1.2 billion tent detention camp at Fort Bliss:

Who’s Getting Rich from the Fort Bliss Camp?

Acquisition Logistics LLC (Prime Contractor)

Awarded the main Department of Defense contract—worth $1.2‑$1.26 billion—to construct and operate the 5,000‑bed tent camp for ICE detainees at Fort Bliss, supported by $232 million in Army funds so far.

Based in Virginia, without previous large-scale detention experience, mostly focused on smaller administrative and logistics contracts (often under $2 million).

Disaster Management Group (Subcontractor)

A key subcontractor owned by Nathan Albers, a Republican donor whose former firm pleaded guilty in 2019 for employing undocumented workers under a shell-company scheme.

Disaster Management specializes in erecting large-scale temporary housing (often used in refugee projects). It has received over $500 million in federal contracts since 2020.

Its workforce practices have drawn legal and ethical scrutiny: a 2022 Department of Labor review found wage and overtime violations, leading to nearly $16 million in recovered back pay and compliance enforcement.

Amentum (Another Subcontractor)

A large engineering and tech services firm tapped to support unspecified portions of the Fort Bliss project, likely involving logistics, structure builds, and base coordination.

Why This Should Outrage You

It’s Yet Another Trumpian Grift! Public Funds Are Fueling Private Profits
Taxpayer money is funding manufacturers of suffering—people with no due process detained in harsh, tented desert conditions. It’s a state funded deliberate cruelty.

The Blueprint of Authoritarianism

Let’s break it down:

Scapegoat a vulnerable group.

Detain them en masse with no trial.

Use military infrastructure and private contractors to bypass accountability.

Build in remote areas—out of sight, out of mind.

Brand it with Orwellian irony.

“Fort Bliss”? That’s not just cruel. It’s fascist stagecraft.

This isn’t about security. It’s about dehumanization at scale, with taxpayer money funding open-air internment that recalls the ugliest chapters of history. Sound familiar?

PolitiSage

The International Criminal Court Must Indict Donald Trump NOW.

Read more

10 days ago · 2292 likes · 111 comments · Morgaan Sinclair, Ph.D.

What You Can Do

Expose it – Share this article. Make people say the name: Fort Bliss Concentration Camp.

Share

Mobilize; Organize or attend protests in Texas. Follow groups like the ACLU , RAICES, and the Detention Watch Network.

Demand Oversight: Call reps. Demand medical transparency, independent inspections, and an immediate halt to construction.

Support Legal Aid: Many detainees will have no lawyer. Contribute to immigrant defense funds now.

Final Thought

Stop saying “it can’t happen here.” It already is.

We’re not just locking people up—we’re engineering human suffering. And we’re doing it with public funds, in military facilities, under desert sun, with names like Alligator Alcatraz, Fort Bliss to mock our conscience.

If we let this slide, history won’t ask if we knew. It will ask why we stayed silent.

Being Liberal Substack – From Revolution to Resistance is a reader-supported publication. Subscribe. Resist. Share. Fight.

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The Pentagon Won’t Track Troops Deployed on U.S. Soil. So We Will.

This is long. Even long for a news nerd like me. But it is well worth it if you want to see how the current administration is using the military in ways it was not designed to do and against the laws to make it easier for them to be used in civilian control to enforce the will of tRump should he again refuse to accept the fact he has to leave office or if he wants something a governor / state won’t give him. The article shows how the military is tRump’s big stick to hit anyone who disagrees with him. Hugs

The Pentagon Won’t Track Troops Deployed on U.S. Soil. So We Will.

The Pentagon says 20,000 federal troops have deployed to support ICE across the country. The real number may be markedly higher.

Nick Turse

July 22 2025, 11:36 a.m.

A U.S. Marine with 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, attached to Task Force 51, guards a federal area in Los Angeles on July 12, 2025. Photo: Lance Cpl. Andrew Whistler/U.S. Marine Corps/DVIDS

In his first six months in office, President Donald Trump has overseen the deployment of nearly 20,000 federal troops on American soil, including personnel from the National Guard, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marines, according to the Pentagon’s public statements.

But the true number of troops deployed may be markedly higher. When asked directly, the Army said it has no running tally of how many troops have been deployed. These federal forces have been operating in at least five states — Arizona, California, Florida, New Mexico, and Texas — with more deployments on the horizon, all in service of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda.

Experts say military involvement in domestic anti-immigrant operations undermines American democracy and has nudged the United States closer to a genuine police state.

“If the president can use the military as a domestic police force entirely under his control, it can be used as a tool of tyranny and oppression.”

“This level of involvement of the military in civilian law enforcement in the interior of the country is unprecedented — and really dangerous,” said Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center’s liberty and national security program, who told The Intercept that recent deployments violated the Posse Comitatus Act, a bedrock 19th-century law seen as fundamental to the democratic tradition in America which bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement.

She added: “If the president can use the military as a domestic police force entirely under his control, it can be used as a tool of tyranny and oppression. We’ve seen it all around the world and throughout history.”

The norms surrounding the use of military force within U.S. borders are eroding, and the executive branch is operating with free rein, emboldened by a legislature and judiciary seemingly uninterested in curtailing its actions.

These soldiers have been sent to patrol the border, put down popular protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, participate in ICE raids, and assist in immigration enforcement missions from coast to coast. Here, to the extent of what is known so far, is what they’ve been up to.

Most Read

Feds Make It a Crime to Give PPE to ICE Protesters

Akela Lacy

Our Reporter Got Into Gaza. He Witnessed a Famine of Israel’s Making.

Afeef Nessouli, Steven W. Thrasher

Border Patrol Wants Advanced AI to Spy on American Cities

Sam Biddle

President Donald Trump began the further militarization of America on his first day back in office. “Our southern border is overrun by cartels, criminal gangs, known terrorists, human traffickers, smugglers, unvetted military-age males from foreign adversaries, and illicit narcotics,” Trump announced on January 20, directing the military to “assist the Department of Homeland Security in obtaining full operational control of the southern border.”

Despite the fact that Trump’s fearmongering was his typical hyperbole, more than 10,000 troops are deploying or have deployed to the southern border, according to U.S. Northern Command, or NORTHCOM, which oversees U.S. military activity from Mexico’s southern border up to the North Pole.

Under the direction of NORTHCOM, military personnel — including soldiers from the Fourth Infantry Division at Fort Carson in Colorado, one of the Army’s most storied combat units — have deployed under the moniker Joint Task Force-Southern Border, or JTF-SB, since March, bolstering approximately 2,500 service members who were already supporting U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s border security mission.

One-third of the U.S. border is now completely militarized due to the creation of four new national defense areas, or NDAs: sprawling extensions of U.S. military bases patrolled by troops who can detain immigrants until they can be handed over to Border Patrol agents.

The Air Force is responsible for the recently created South Texas NDA, which encompasses federal property along 250 miles of the Rio Grande River. The Navy controls the Yuma NDA, which extends along 140 miles of federal property on the U.S.–Mexico border near the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range in Arizona.

The New Mexico NDA, created in April, spans approximately 170 miles of noncontiguous land along that state’s border, serving as an extension of the Army’s Fort Huachuca. Another NDA was created in May in West Texas and covers approximately 63 miles of noncontiguous land between El Paso and Fort Hancock, serving as an extension of the Army’s Fort Bliss.

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Around 8,500 military personnel were assigned to JTF-SB to “enhance US Customs and Border Patrol’s capacity to identify, track and disrupt threats to border security,” chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said at the beginning of the month. JTF-SB says the current number of personnel deploys stands at 7,600, while NORTHCOM says the current number of federal troops providing border security is closer to 8,600.

No one actually knows how many troops have been involved in border operations this year. “We do not maintain a running total of Service Members who have served with JTF-SB since its inception, so the total number since March is currently unavailable,” Kent Redmond, a spokesperson for JTF-Southern Border told The Intercept. NORTHCOM didn’t have a number on hand either. But more than 10 Task Forces have assisted JTF-SB, including Task Force Mountain Warrior, consisting of soldiers from the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team; Task Force Castle, made up of soldiers from the 41st Engineer Battalion; 500 Marines and Navy personnel from Task Force Sapper; and 500 Marines and sailors from Task Force Forge. The latter replaced the Task Force Sapper troops and are now conducting patrols in the Yuma NDA.

Since March alone, Parnell said, the JTF-SB has conducted more than 3,500 patrols, including more than 150 “trilateral” patrols with CBP and the Mexican military. There have, however, been only seven temporary detentions by troops within the National Defense Areas, according to Redmond. He said the seven persons were “detained in place” by JTF-SB personnel for less than 10 minutes.

“The amount being spent to have the world’s best fighting force walk around the border to pick up a handful of people is shocking.”

“Setting aside the threats to democracy and liberty, the sheer waste is staggering. The amount being spent to have the world’s best fighting force walk around the border to pick up a handful of people is shocking,” said Goitein, who also noted that the detentions violated the Posse Comitatus Act.

“They may think if they detain people for only 10 minutes it’s not a violation, but that’s not how the law works,” Goitein explained. “They may also say that the Posse Comitatus Act simply doesn’t apply when the purpose is to protect a military base, but here it’s clear that the primary purpose is enforcement of immigration law.”

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The southern border increasingly resembles the site of one of America’s post-9/11 foreign occupations, as military personnel employ weapons and gear originally intended for foreign battlefields. Troops have used Stryker armored vehicles (for the first time on the border since 2012), Black Hawk helicopters, Humvees, hulking up-armored MRAPs, long range advanced scout surveillance systems (which the Army uses for “line of sight target acquisition”), Black Hornet microdrones, tethered aerostats (surveillance balloons with high-powered cameras), command launch units (which provide thermal imaging), AN/TPQ-53 Quick Reaction Capability Radar (used in the event of attack by rockets and mortars), AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar systems (used to counter low-flying aircraft and drones), while conducting, ground patrols, mounted patrols in armored vehicles, helicopter aerial “deterrence” patrols, and even “air assaults.”

The military has even dispatched Navy warships offshore to secure the border. After battling Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Gulf of Aden earlier this year, for example, the USS Stockdale — a guided-missile destroyer — was deployed to support NORTHCOM’s southern border operations alongside the Coast Guard on the U.S.–Mexico maritime border. That ship took over for the USS Spruance, another guided-missile destroyer drafted into anti-immigrant operations.

“We are dead serious about 100% OPERATIONAL CONTROL of the southern border,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a post on X in March.

Since then, the Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly announced historically low apprehensions along the southern border. “The numbers don’t lie — under President Trump’s leadership, DHS and CBP have shattered records and delivered the most secure border in American history,” said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem earlier this month. And as early as April, DHS announced, “Customs and Border Protection now has total control of the border.”

Despite all of this, as well as the huge influx of troops and weapons of war deployed at the border, when The Intercept inquired whether full operational control of the border had been achieved and “if not, why not?” DHS demurred. A senior DHS official, who offered comments on the condition of anonymity for no discernible reason, provided rote talking points and praise of Trump and Noem. The official added that the department was “grateful” for JTF-SB’s “support.”

More than 5,000 troops have also been deployed to Los Angeles since early June.

The National Guard soldiers and Marines operating in Southern California — under the command of the Army’s Task Force 51 — were sent to “protect the safety and security of federal functions, personnel, and property.” In practice, this has mostly meant guarding federal buildings across LA from protests against the ongoing ICE raids sweeping the city.

Since Trump called up the troops on June 7, they have carried out exactly one temporary detainment, a Task Force 51 spokesperson told The Intercept.

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Parnell, the Pentagon spokesperson, described this deployment as Task Force 51 supporting “more than 170 missions in over 130 separate locations from nine federal agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Agency, the U.S. Marshal Service, ICE and the Department of Homeland Security” in a briefing in early July. Task Force 51 failed to provide any other metrics regarding troops’ involvement in raids, arrests, or street patrols in response to questions by The Intercept.

Troops were sent to LA over the objections of local officials and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

In addition to guarding federal buildings, troops have also recently participated in raids alongside camouflage-clad ICE agents. An assault on MacArthur Park, a recreational hub in one of LA’s most immigrant-heavy neighborhoods on July 7, for example, included 90 armed U.S. troops and 17 military Humvees. Its main accomplishment was rousting a summer day camp for children. No arrests were made.

California National Guard soldiers also backed ICE raids on state-licensed marijuana nurseries this month. The troops took part in the military-style assaults on two locations, one in the Santa Barbara County town of Carpinteria, about 90 miles northwest of LA and one in the Ventura County community of Camarillo, about 50 miles from LA. ICE detained more than 200 people, including U.S. citizens, during the joint operations. One man, Jaime Alanís Garcia, died while trying to flee from the raid in Camarillo.

On July 1, Task Force 51 announced that it would release approximately 150 members of the California National Guard from their LA duty. That same day, NORTHCOM said that the Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment were leaving Los Angeles but would be replaced by the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment.

Last Tuesday, Trump administration officials announced that about 2,000 more National Guard members deployed to LA would be released from service. On Monday, the Trump administration announced it was withdrawing the 700 active-duty Marines from Los Angeles. The withdrawals followed repeated reporting by The Intercept highlighting the failure of the troops to do much of substance.

All told, since the deployments began, around 5,500 troops have been sent to southern California, according to Becky Farmer, a NORTHCOM spokesperson.

Read Our Complete Coverage

The War on Immigrants

On the other side of the country, Marines are being hustled to Florida to aid the administration’s anti-immigrant agenda. Responding to a DHS request, Hegseth approved a mobilization of up to 700 active, National Guard, and Reserve forces.

The first contingent — approximately 200 Marines from Marine Wing Support Squadron 272, Marine Corps Air Station New River, North Carolina — have been mobilized to support ICE’s “interior immigration enforcement mission” in Florida, NORTHCOM announced earlier this month. The command noted that they were only the “first wave” of ICE assistance. NORTHCOM says additional forces will be deployed to Louisiana and Texas. Hundreds more Guardsmen are expected to be sent to assist in more than a half dozen other states, including Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia.

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Greg Abbott’s Border Theater Is Having Disastrous Consequences for Everyone Involved

Some of these same states are also using their own National Guard members in their own anti-immigrant operations. More than 4,200 Texas National Guard soldiers and airmen on state duty are engaged in Operation Lone Star, a border security initiative launched by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in March 2021. Texas’s forces were bolstered, until April, by members of the Indiana National Guard.

Nearly 70 Florida National Guard members are also on state duty, conducting base camp security at the remote migrant detention center in the state’s Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz.” While Trump insisted that the swamp gulag was reserved for “deranged psychopaths” and “some of the most vicious people on the planet,” it was revealed that hundreds of detainees had committed no offense other than civil immigration violations.

“Governors should be doing everything in their power to avoid their state’s national guard troops being pulled into this lawless, authoritarian power grab, not spending precious resources to help it along,” Sara Haghdoosti, the executive director of Win Without War, told The Intercept.

The Trump administration’s use of military forces in its anti-immigrant crusade has been criticized as a publicity stunt and an authoritarian power play.

The directive signed by Trump calling up the California National Guard, for example, cited “10 U.S.C. 12406,” a provision within Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Services that allows the federal deployment of National Guard forces if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

There was, however, no rebellion. Vice President JD Vance even recently vacationed at Disneyland in Anaheim, about 25 miles from LA.

Still, experts say that the stunt deployments represent a clear danger to American democracy by violating the Posse Comitatus Act; normalizing the use of the military in civilian law enforcement activities; and further transforming the armed forces into a tool of domestic oppression by aiding ICE, which increasingly operates as a masked, secret police force.

“ICE is running a nationwide campaign of violent, racist kidnappings, and Hegseth’s Pentagon is bending over backward to make the military into ICE’s chief sidekicks,” said Haghdoosti. “Troops abetting violence against their own neighbors isn’t tenable for our communities, our democracy, or the troops themselves.”

IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT.

What we’re seeing right now from Donald Trump is a full-on authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government.

This is not hyperbole.

Court orders are being ignored. MAGA loyalists have been put in charge of the military and federal law enforcement agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency has stripped Congress of its power of the purse. News outlets that challenge Trump have been banished or put under investigation.

Yet far too many are still covering Trump’s assault on democracy like politics as usual, with flattering headlines describing Trump as “unconventional,” “testing the boundaries,” and “aggressively flexing power.”

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Nick Tursenick.turse@theintercept.com@nickturseon X

African Nation Says It Will Repatriate Migrants Deported by U.S.

The Trump administration sent five deportees to Eswatini, an African kingdom, saying that their own countries would not take them. But Eswatini says it will send them home.

Mswati III, King of Eswatini, addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 2023.Credit…Dave Sanders for The New York Times

By John Eligon and Hamed Aleaziz

John Eligon reported from Johannesburg and Hamed Aleaziz from Washington.

July 16, 2025

Leer en español

The tiny African kingdom of Eswatini announced on Wednesday that it would repatriate the five migrants who had been deported there by the United States, a day after American officials said the migrants’ home countries had refused to accept them.

The migrants came from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Yemen and Cuba, and had been serving time in American prisons for serious offenses, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Their removal was the first so-called third-country deportation from the United States to take place since the Supreme Court ruled this month that the Trump administration could move forward with the practice.

The flight included individuals whose own countries “refused to take them back,” Homeland Security Department Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote on X Tuesday night.

But an Eswatini government spokeswoman, Thabile Mdluli, said in a statement on Wednesday that the governments of her country and the United States, together with the International Organization for Migration, will “facilitate the transit of these inmates to their countries of origin.”

The International Organization for Migration said that it had no involvement in the removal of the migrants from the United States and had not been asked to provide any support with repatriation.

The Trump administration has worked aggressively to broker deals with international partners willing to take deportees. Legal experts have challenged the deportations on the grounds that the migrants could be subject to mistreatment and torture.

Earlier this month the Supreme Court approved the deportation of eight men to South Sudan, only one of whom is from that country. Their families have not heard from them since, according to their legal team. Officials in South Sudan have said the men are “under the care of the relevant authorities,” but have provided no further details.

After the Supreme Court decision, immigration officials acted quickly to implement new regulations that allow the government to carry out third-country deportations in as little as six hours, even without assurances that the migrants will be safe.

Former immigration officials view the deportation efforts as part of the administration’s push to get migrants to self-deport.

“This is another clear example of how the United States is flagrantly violating the law restricting it from deporting people to countries where they will likely be persecuted or tortured,” said Matt Adams, a lawyer for the migrants sent to South Sudan.

The Trump administration used the deportations to Eswatini “simply for political theater,” he said. “Spending millions of dollars to fly five men to the other side of the planet.”

Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, is tucked between South Africa and Mozambique and has one of Africa’s last ruling monarchies. The kingdom is divided between those who praise its adherence to tradition and those who argue that the lavish lifestyle of King Mswati III stands in painful contrast to the poverty afflicting many of the country’s 1.2 million people.

Some citizens of Eswatini and foreign governments have also raised concerns about the country’s human rights record, accusing the government of using excessive — sometimes lethal — force against people who oppose the king.

Those opposed to the monarchy were quick to condemn the arrival of the deportees.

“This is appalling,” said Lioness Sibande, the secretary general of the Swaziland Peoples Liberation Movement, an opposition group. She described the move as an example of the West’s long history of exploiting African nations. “The West is always disrespecting us as Africans and thinking we are their dumpsite,” she said.

In her statement, Ms. Mdluli, the government spokeswoman, sought to temper the concerns of Eswatini citizens. She said the deportees were being held in isolation units at correctional facilities.

The decision to take migrants from the United States came after months of talks that included “rigorous risk assessments and careful consideration for the safety and security of citizens,” she said. “The nation is assured that these inmates pose no threat to the country or its citizens.”

Ms. Mdluli added that she could not reveal what Eswatini received in return for taking the migrants because the terms of the agreement with the United States remain classified.

A correction was made on

July 16, 2025

:

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to eight men deported to South Sudan by the Trump administration. One of the men is from South Sudan; they are not all from other countries.