Funding Showdown: Democrats Seek to Defang ICE With Long List of Ridiculous Demands

RedState 

The Democrats have shown one thing very clearly: they’re perfectly fine with illegal immigration, and they’ll do anything to promote it. They’ve proven this over and over again with their marching in lockstep with former President Joe Biden’s “let them all in” strategy, they’ve shown it with their sanctuary cities and with their endless handouts to illegal aliens, and they’re showing it by shrieking and whining about the efforts of Trump and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to do something about the problem.

Now they’re demanding all sorts of reforms to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE, or they’ll vote against funding.

Among other things, they want agents to keep their faces uncovered and display their last name, department, and ID number on their uniforms. Never mind that violence against agents has risen 680 percent from last year. 

What, should they put their home addresses and the kids’ names on their too?

Democrats are threatening to block funding for the Homeland Security Department when it expires in two weeks unless there are “dramatic changes” and “real accountability” for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement agencies who are carrying out President Donald Trump’s campaign of federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota and across the country.

Congress is discussing potential new rules for ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection after officers shot and killed two Minneapolis protesters in January. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries reiterated their party’s demands Wednesday, with Schumer telling reporters that Congress must “rein in ICE in very serious ways, and end the violence.”

Talk show host and former Rush Limbaugh producer Bo Snerdley had thoughts:

Democrats demand 'dramatic changes' for ICE, including masks, cameras and judicial warrants

As our Rusty Weiss reported, they also want a ban on enforcement efforts at “sensitive places” like schools, houses of worship, and — of course — polling places. But I thought they told us illegals don’t vote, so what would they be doing at the ballot box?

In effect, Dems want to create mini sanctuaries, because for some reason they believe people breaking the law should have a safe place to go so they won’t face consequences. As Rusty wrote, “Republicans want to protect American elections from illegals, while Democrats will do anything to make sure illegals are protected at a ballot box they shouldn't be anywhere near."

The Dems are also demanding an end to roving patrols, mandatory, always-on body cameras for federal law enforcement, judicial warrants, and no ICE arrests without a judge’s warrant.

RedState's Susie Moore featured a great explainer in her Morning Minute on why the insistence on judicial warrants is "horse hockey"; take a look.

As Breitbart noted:

The demands add up to a very unpopular stealth amnesty for tens of millions of illegal migrants because they would entangle ICE officers in bureaucratic handcuffs, Sanctuary City vetoes, deep-pocketed lawsuits, and personal threats to their families.

Negotiations are continuing. Look for the obstreperous Democrats to continue to be difficult because what they really want is a return to the era of Joe Biden’s disastrous policies, and they’re not going to get that.

SSCI Vice Chair Mark Warner Finds Out DNI Tulsi Gabbard Has Puerto Rico Voting Machines

Conservative Treehouse 

This is funny, not because the narrative is so obvious, but because the well-used script is so transparent.

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), a misnomer if there is one, Vice Chairman Mark Warner, finds out that Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had previously (May ’25) retrieved voting machines from Puerto Rico for analytical review.  Of course, he needs immediate camera time to clutch his pearls, but it gets better.

For those who walk the deep weeds, you will remember when the Warner operation in 2017 needed to promote the intel script about the first discussion of the Christopher Steele “dossier”, they enlisted CNN’s Manu Raju, Jim Scuitto, Jake Tapper and Carl Bernstein.  That ‘breaking news’ was the original trigger for the Daily Beast to then publish the “dossier.”  Senator Mark Warner then came in for the close with the leak of the Carter Page FISA.  That was the script in 2017.  We watched it in real time.

So, now Mark Warner finds out Tulsi Gabbard is on the trail of the intelligence manipulation of election machines.  In this video below, Mark Warner appears for an entirely scripted segment with… wait for it… Manu Raju.  How do you know this was pre-scripted for TV? Because: (a) that’s what they do, and (b) Raju is the only one who asks questions – while Warner doesn’t even look at him because he knows the narrative in advance.  Seriously, watch it. It’s funny:

[A completely unrelated side note: Notice how the U.K, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have refused to join the Board of Peace? You know what they all have in common…. 5-eyes.]

(REUTERS) – WASHINGTON, Feb 4 (Reuters) – A team working for President Donald Trump’s spy chief, Tulsi Gabbard, last spring led an investigation into Puerto Rico’s voting machines, said Gabbard’s office and three sources familiar with the previously unreported events.

The sources said the goal was to work with the FBI to investigate claims that Venezuela had hacked voting machines in Puerto Rico, but added the probe did not produce any clear evidence of Venezuelan interference in the U.S. territory’s elections. Reuters first reported the investigation.

Gabbard’s office, in a statement to Reuters, confirmed the May investigation but denied a link to Venezuela, saying its focus was on vulnerabilities in the island’s electronic voting systems. Her team took an unspecified number of Puerto Rico’s voting machines and additional copies of data from the machines as part of its investigation, a spokesperson for Gabbard’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence said.

Her office said the taking of voting machines and data was “standard practice in forensics analysis.”

Noting similar voting infrastructure elsewhere in the United States, it added: “ODNI found extremely concerning cyber security and operational deployment practices that pose a significant risk to U.S. elections.”

Jorge Rivera Rueda, head of Puerto Rico’s State Elections Commission, said he could not comment on any ongoing investigations. He added in a statement, “the Commission will fully cooperate with any investigative process conducted by the appropriate authorities, whether at the state or federal level.”

Venezuela’s government did not respond to a request for comment.

ODNI said some security gaps in voting machines used in Puerto Rico stemmed from their use of vulnerable cellular technology and that software flaws existed that could give hackers access deep into vital electoral systems. (more)

Warner is super nervous.

DNI Tulsi Gabbard is off the range of control.

The next play is obvious.  Warner et al will attempt to put DNI Gabbard into a position where an answer to a Senate question will need some kind of classified response.  The weaponized IC elements, of which Warner is a key participant, need to get Tulsi Gabbard removed from her position.

Maryland Man, Colin Demarco (26), Arrested on Attempted Murder Charges for Plan to Assassinate OMB Director Russ Vought

Office of Management and Budgets Director Russ Vought has been targeted by media repeatedly for his approach at reducing the size and scope of the Federal Government.  As the architect of “Schedule F” — a regulatory plan that essentially reclassified thousands of federal workers, making it easier to remove them.  Director Russ Vought was targeted, isolated, ridiculed and marginalized by the far-left and their media outlets.

News reports are now revealing that a Maryland man named Colin Demarco, 26, (pictured below fold) was arrested on Jan. 22nd, after he visited the home of Director Vought wearing gloves and a facemask with the intention to murder Vought. Arlington County police intercepted the assassin and conducted an investigation.

The details of the assassin’s plan are beginning to surface.

WASHINGTON (CBS) – […] Colin Demarco, 26, was arrested on Jan. 22 by Arlington County Police on several criminal charges, court records show. He is due to appear in court on Feb. 23.

During the course of the investigation, agents with the U.S. Marshals Service also discovered that Demarco had previously claimed to be writing a manifesto and that he had also drafted a series of notes detailing everything from a weapons stash to a “Body Disposal Guide.”

The court records show that Demarco is accused of plotting to murder a victim with the initials “R.V.” who, according to the criminal complaint, “has served as a presidential appointee.”

The complaint adds that the alleged victim was involved in the creation of Project 2025 — a project funded by the conservative Heritage Foundation- to produce a policy agenda for the next GOP administration. It called for a radical reshaping of the government in ways that consolidate power in the executive branch.

Sources familiar with the case separately confirmed to CBS News that Demarco’s alleged target was Vought.

A spokesperson for OMB said in a statement, “We are grateful for the work of law enforcement in keeping Director Vought and his family safe.”

[…] According to the criminal complaint, which was drafted by an Arlington County police officer, Demarco was captured on a Ring doorbell camera at the front door of Vought’s Arlington home on Aug. 10 wearing gloves, a backpack, sunglasses and a surgical mask.

He was also seen looking through Vought’s mailbox, and he approached a neighbor to ask if anyone was home. The neighbor told investigators that Demarco appeared to have a gun tucked under his shirt.

[…] Demarco also spoke of his admiration for Luigi Mangione — the man who is charged with murdering former United Health CEO Brian Thompson.

When Marshals Service investigators obtained a search warrant for Demarco’s iCloud account, they found a series of notes discussing a stash of weapons, and another titled “Body Disposal Guide” that called for taking steps such as “always wear rubber gloves” and “make an airtight alibi.” (read more)

Senator Elizabeth Warren Complains that Half of Something She Tripled is Not Less

Conservative Treehouse 

Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent appeared on Capitol Hill today to give testimony to the Senate Banking Committee. The leftists were well prepared with narrative scripts to advance their opposition agenda. Bessent was unfazed.

In this highlight, Senator Elizabeth ‘Liawatha” Warren complains to Secretary Bessent about the price of things she tripled and quadrupled. Bessent responded by pointing out the Trump administration is reversing the catastrophic damage from the Biden-Warren economy. “I’m-a-git-me-a-beer” was not pleased at the retort. WATCH:

No senator, half of something you quadrupled is not less.

Thankfully, the grocery prices that Biden-Warren exploded, are finally starting to come down thanks to the economic policies of President Trump.  Warren’s “affordability” narrative collapses each month the real wages of the American worker rise faster than the trailing inflationary impact of prior policy.

As noted by several economic indicators, inflation on the stuff that matters is in retreat. We are now entering the phase of lower gasoline prices, lower transportation costs, lower overall energy costs and stable domestic market prices.  Additionally, exfiltrating illegal alien workers, both underground and above ground, is starting to put upward pressure on American wages and lower overall housing costs.

Hating ‘Hate’ Is The Left’s Laziest And Dumbest Virtue-Signal Yet

‘Hate’ is just another word for meanness, which is the opposite of niceness, which is the guiding ethic of the postmodern liberal mind.

The Federalist

Since the tactic of writing off half the country as “Nazi” “garbage” wasn’t working, the Democrat Party’s unofficial PR team has a new shorthand for everything they don’t like: “hate.”

At Sunday’s Grammys, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio — a man who looked at himself one day and decided he wanted the entire world to refer to him as “Bad Bunny” — put this shorthand to practice, magically distilling arguments about immigration policy into a binary between “hate” and “love.” Celebrity award acceptance speeches are low-hanging fruit as far as journalistic criticism goes, so I’ll spare you a further breakdown, but you can read his comments here if you’re a glutton for punishment.

The weaponization of the word “hate” is nothing new. Since 1990, the Southern Poverty Law Center has managed a list of “hate” groups, which now includes “Radical Traditional Catholicism,” Moms for Liberty, the American College of Pediatricians, and “pickup artists.” (SPLC defines the latter hate group as “a community of men who use certain seduction techniques referred to as ‘game’ to pursue sexual relationships with women.”)

But the slur has been deployed with renewed moral preening recently, at immigration agents who are enforcing immigration laws that a majority of the country voted to start enforcing.

Look for photos of white liberals taking to the streets to make their disdain for law enforcement known, and you’ll probably see someone who forced their kid to hold a sign like “Love over Hate.” Small-time revolution spokesman Abdikarim Khasim, who also works as a “Minnesota rideshare driver,” announced at a Minneapolis gathering that Americans “are facing a tsunami of hate from our own federal government.”

In Tallahassee, Florida, on Monday, a smattering of high schoolers played hooky to “protest” immigration enforcement. In the eloquent words of its teenage organizer, “The hate in the halls is loud, but we want to be louder.”

The oppressed high school population of resort town Park City, Utah, declared their commitment to “choose love not hate” in a walkout last week. (Their expressions of “love” and “unity” included “ICE IS BETTER CRUSHED” and “THE ONLY ICE I LIKE IS THE ICE MY TWO GAY HOCKEY BOYFRIENDS SKATE AROUND ON,” alongside an Orwell quote.)

Reducing your political opponents and their beliefs to “hate” allows you to dismiss them entirely, without the inconvenience of having to engage with any perspectives but your own. It also spares you the trouble of having to say specifically why you don’t like things like countries having borders and rapists being deported. Like the nonsense smear “election denier,” it has enough moral superiority and vague meaninglessness to ostracize your intended target without actually saying anything.

There are the obvious realities that these same people have no problem “hating” ICE agents who are doing their jobs. They’re so full of “love” that their battle screech is “F— ICE,” black ICE agents are getting called “f—ing house n—–s” by the self-appointed hate-haters, and oh look there’s been an 8,000 percent increase in death threats against ICE agents and their families.

Nor do these moral arbiters express qualms about hating other conservative-coded bogeymen such as Donald “literally Hitler” Trump, J6ers, or Charlie Kirk, a husband and father whose public assassination was celebrated publicly on the left. Obviously, they’re unbothered by the hate in the hearts of the illegal aliens who murdered Laken Riley, Jocelyn Nungaray, and an untold number of other innocent Americans. The hypocrisy is so obvious and tired that it’s hardly worth pointing out anymore.

But the mindless “hate” bashing isn’t just hypocritical; it’s a worldview giveaway. Hate, after all, can be properly directed at evil, and every leftist invoking Christianity must also reckon with the command in Romans 12:9 to “hate what is evil.” God Himself “hates the wicked.”

That’s an uncomfortable truth for many today because they are uncomfortable with the reality of evil. Laken and Jocelyn’s murderers weren’t “evil,” in this framework; they were just victims of a system that created them. Cultures that normalize the rape and abuse of women and children aren’t “wicked,” they’re just different from your heteronormative Western ways and also you’re a racist for noticing.

The rapists and murderers can’t really be bad, so the guys who are trying to arrest them must be bad. Suicidal empathy is just Christian ethics minus the reality of evil.

The “F— ICE” crowd borrows from the remnants of Christian ethics enough to assign righteousness to itself and badness to scary ICE agents in masks. But they have to couch their moral crusade in sophistry about how they’re fighting evil in a really nice, loving way. Sure, Renee Good drove her car into an ICE agent, but she told him she wasn’t mad at him!

The same dynamic is at play in poll numbers showing Americans want mass deportations, but also want ICE agents to be nice to the murderers, rapists, and other lawbreakers they’re deporting. Society has grown uncomfortable with strong, masculine responses to injustice. Public hangings for our worst criminals were deemed inhumane and replaced with execution at the tip of a needle, mimicking medical care. When Brett Kavanaugh got visibly angry at being accused of being a serial gang rapist, he was crucified for daring to show outrage. There’s a reason all the anti-ICE protesters are “fighting” with annoying whistles and childish taunts, and (thankfully) not the traditional forms of warfare you might expect from people who believe they’re under “Nazi” rule.

“Hate” is just another word for meanness, which is the opposite of niceness, which is the guiding ethic of the postmodern liberal mind. The worst thing you can do under this moral regime isn’t an act, like murdering an innocent girl while she’s jogging — it’s having hateful feelings.