My conversations with Peter Wehner are always timely, but today’s podcast seems especially so. In his latest article for The Atlantic, Wehner notes that the Department of Homeland Security is claiming that it is doing God’s work, and even citing the words of Jesus — including the Sermon on the Mount — to justify its tactics and recruit agents.
But, as Wehner argues, the MAGA Jesus bears little if any resemblance to the real Jesus. And this is decidedly Not What Jesus Would Do.
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This is what evil looks like
Here is the front page of the Drudge Report right now —a story Ron Fournier describes as “Innocence Seized by Evil.” The 5-year-old boy in this picture is named Liam Conejo Ramos. As Fournier reports, “He’s one of at least four children arrested — some might say kidnapped — by ICE agents from the same suburban school district this month.”
The Wapo account seems torn from a dystopian novel: After ICE agents arrested his father, they asked 5-year-old Liam “to knock on the door to see if any other people were inside the home, “using a 5-year-old as bait,” according to the school district.
Another adult living in the home who was outside at the time, ‘begged the agents’ to leave the child with them, the school district said. ICE agents refused.
Liam’s middle-school-aged brother returned home 20 minutes later to find that his younger brother and father had been taken away.”
Liam and his father are now in San Antonio in the custody of Homeland Security authorities, the family’s lawyer, Marc Prokosch, said in an email. They are not U.S. citizens but ‘have been following the legal process perfectly, from presenting themselves at the border to applying for asylum and waiting for the process to go through,’ he said.
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Unfortunately, there is more.
Local police say that ICE has been racially profiling off-duty Minneapolis-are cops.
[O]n Tuesday a trio of local police leaders held a press conference at the state Capitol to warn that the DHS goons’ out of control actions are undermining the public’s trust in law enforcement. All three of the top local cops said they were getting “endless complaints from US citizens” about harassment by ICE, and that DHS hasn’t done dick to communicate with local law enforcement. Further, all three said their own off-duty officers of color — all US citizens — had reported being pulled over by ICE thugs who wanted to see their “immigration” papers, noting that if it can happen to cops in their private vehicles, it can happen to anyone. … We’ve cued up this video of the press conference to the start of Bruley’s remarks, in which he recounts how one of his officers was racially profiled by ICE agents who held guns on her and only left when she identified herself as a cop. … Bruley said that an off-duty officer in his department was recently “boxed in” by ICE vehicles after the crime of driving past them while nonwhite.
BREAKING: In Minneapolis, ICE agents are now illegally detaining children at gun point, who are U.S. citizens, and taking them, as they raid houses without warrants.
In the video you see a man come out of the garage with his hands up. ICE agents are already surrounding the house with guns drawn.
A woman inside has her hands up, terrified, begging them not to break into her home because her kids are in the house.
Instead of de-escalating the situation, one agent with a shield and his gun pointed at the unarmed mother, enters her garage and yells, “Who is in the house?”
She tells him, “My two [young] kids and son.”
He orders her, with his gun pointed at her, to step out and bring her kids.
He then aims his gun at the back of the garage, where the kids are walking, and she screams, “My kids! My kids are so young!”
Agents grab her teenage son… a U.S. citizen… unarmed, in shorts and sandals, and put his hands behind his back while the younger children cry.
She yells, “my son is a citizen!” but they don’t listen and walk away with him. Only later, after they realize they can’t arrest a teenager, do they bring him back.
You can watch the video here. [Screenshot]
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This…
Autopsy report classifies ICE detainee’s death as a homicide - The Washington Post
The recent death of a detainee at an immigrant detention camp in Texas has been officially deemed a homicide, according to an autopsy report released Wednesday by the El Paso County Office of the Medical Examiner.
“Based on the investigative and examination findings, it is my opinion that the cause of death is asphyxia due to neck and torso compression,” Adam C. Gonzalez, deputy medical examiner for El Paso County, said in the report. “The manner of death is homicide.”
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And, breaking news: Memo tells ICE officers they can enter homes without a warrant | AP News
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal immigration officers are asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo obtained by The Associated Press, marking a sharp reversal of longstanding guidance meant to respect constitutional limits on government searches.
The memo authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based solely on a more narrow administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final order of removal, a move that advocates say collides with Fourth Amendment protections and upends years of advice given to immigrant communities.
Trump’s MAGA Jesus
On today’s podcast, Wehner discusses the Department of Homeland Security’s bizarre attempt to co-opt the Gospels — and the words of Jesus Christ — to justify all of this. [Gift link]
Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, has become an evangelist of a certain sort. During her tenure, her department has on multiple occasions released slick social-media recruitment videos in which scripture verses feature prominently.
One video quotes from Isaiah 6:8 (“Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, ‘Whom shall I send and who will go for us?’ I said, ‘Here I am. Send me.’”); another quotes from Proverbs 28:1 (“The wicked flee when no man pursueth; but the righteous are as bold as a lion.”).
On the pod, I admit to Peter that this blew my mind:
The most recent DHS video quotes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
Writes Wehner:
What’s striking is less that the federal government is using Bible verses in its promotional videos than that the agency doing the recruiting is Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The videos, set to music, include militaristic images. They show heavily armed agents in tactical gear, weapons drawn, donning masks, looking through night-vision goggles, zip-lining from helicopters, breaking down doors, and conducting nighttime raids.
The message the Trump administration is sending is not subtle: ICE is doing the work of God. The brutal and sometimes lethal tactics being used by a growing number of ICE agents are divinely sanctioned. Come join this holy campaign.
Leni Riefenstahl would have approved.
A highlight of our conversation
The Sermon on the Mount?
Thursday dogs
Yeah, they are shocked too.
