They kidnapped him and shipped him off to an ICE facility in Louisiana. And if you don’t think it could happen to you or your loved ones, you need to pull your head out of your arse. You are completely delusional.

This is what they do when the goal is to intimidate the public into shutting the hell up. This is what they do when they intend to beat down the masses so that they get no push back as they rob us of our autonomy and our monies. Don’t believe me? Scoffing at me?

Read a fucking history book.

Oh, can’t read? Hate reading?

Go to YouTube and type in Fascism. Try this one by Rick Steves.

When you first heard that Trump’s henchmen kidnapped Mahmoud Khalil, a legal immigrant, off the streets of New York what was your first thought? Was it that another immigrant had gone and broke the law and thus deserved deportation? Is that what you thought?

Or did it occur to you that Trump, a racist, was targeting yet another legal immigrant for propaganda purposes? Bloodied meat for his ravenous base? Did you think about the Constitution and how it protects the rights of people to protest or did you in your smug self-righteous way think that our founding fathers only meant to protect the rights of white men to protest?

No women. No children. And certainly no person of color should be on the streets protesting. Give Trump a chance, his cult chants as the US stocks take a nose dive while Russia’s stocks which have been in a tailspin suspiciously take flight.

How long before the cult turns on him, sane people keep asking the question the frightened media will no longer consider.

The answer of course should be obvious by now – never. They will never turn on him. He could be photographed nude in bed with Putin and his religious fervor cult will never turn from him. That’s how group think works. In case you haven’t yet noticed, they will literally kill for him.

They’ve declared it. Now they are proving it.

There’s a reason they kidnapped Mahmoud off the streets of New York City and took him out-of-state to a facility in Louisiana and it has nothing to do with a better cafeteria menu.

It’s because the private company that runs the ICE facility in Louisiana is known for inhumane treatment of immigrants. There’s a reason Trump fancies Putin and it has everything to do with torturing and killing people.

If Elon Musk was really interested in getting rid of fraud and waste in government and saving taxpayers’ monies, he should have started with the ICE facilities. According to DHS’s own internal report, the government’s ICE facilities have wasted over $160 million:

Forty-seven percent of the facilities inspected paid for unused bedspace under a guaranteed minimum
contract or agreement. Under these contracts or agreements, ICE guarantees minimum
payments to detention facility contractors or state and local governments—paying for beds
regardless of use. From FYs 2020 to 2023, we found eight facilities inspected paid for unused
bed space, paying approximately $160 million under contract.
Although ICE must acquire and maintain enough bed space to satisfy demand for population
surges and must adjust for health and safety requirements, it must also strive for balance to
avoid wasting funds on empty beds.

But Elon’s role in government is nothing but grift for himself and his companies. He’s a thieving conniving crook. That 30% of Americans are willing to grant him access to rob them blind is grievous to the rest of us, especially those of us who know a bit of history.

I fear that Mahmoud Khalil will end up in a similar fate as Jamall Khashoggi, a murder which seemingly had the thumbs up from the previous Trump administration.

I don’t know what it is going to take to get Americans off their phones and into the streets demanding the release of those wrongly incarcerated. If this had been the 1960s America’s youth would have been storming the streets demanding Khalil’s release. But every protest I’ve attended lately has been conducted primarily by the post-menopausal crowd, the very same folks who were marching against the American War in Vietnam at Kent State and in Chicago.

Trump and Elon will continue to do as much harm as the American masses give them leadway to do. This madness will not stop until the majority of Americans rise up against the wrongs being carried out.

Make no mistake about it, today it’s a Palestinian activist, tomorrow it will be the arrest of those opposing cuts in Medicaid, or the dismantling of the Department of Education.

Perhaps even me for writing such a post. Until then…

Every voice counts. Raise yours.

Karen Spears Zacharias is author of The Devil’s Pulpit & Other Mostly True Scottish Misadventures (Mercer University Press)