{"id":3598,"date":"2026-07-11T13:37:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T13:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=3598"},"modified":"2026-07-11T13:37:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T13:37:10","slug":"ice-donald-trump-killings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=3598","title":{"rendered":"ICE are heavily armed killers. They\u2019re also huge losers"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Donald Trump\u2019s Homeland Security regime has been at the center of two critical stories in the past two weeks. In the first, federal agents shot and killed a man<\/a> and quickly got to work justifying the use of force under the flimsiest of pretenses. In the other, it made house calls<\/a> to people who said mean things to them online.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Since taking office last year, the Trump administration has been telling us that fighting the good fight of white supremacy will make you look cool and noble. The DHS under former Secretary Kristi Noem spent $220 million<\/a> to help her cosplay as a cowboy railing against immigrants and call up ICE recruits as if we\u2019re fighting a new World War, this time against our friends and neighbors. It\u2019s all very embarassing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The propaganda is cringeworthy. But the immigration crackdown it services has been, undoubtedly, cruel and deadly. In Texas just this Tuesday, an ICE officer shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father of three who lived in the US for 35 years building houses and caring for his family. The agency immediately released a statement justifying lethal force on someone it alleges tried to \u201cweaponize his vehicle.\u201d Videos showing parts of the confrontation already suggest it\u2019s probably another bullshit story like the ones we\u2019ve seen from Minnesota. The feds later admitted<\/a> they were looking for an entirely different person. Salgado Araujo nonetheless ended up dead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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ICE has proven it can\u2019t handle public confrontation. That\u2019s bad. But it also can\u2019t even handle emails and Instagram posts<\/em>. It\u2019s demanding a total lack of accountability not only from the law, but from society itself.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Over the past year, DHS has invented its own novel version of \u201cdoxxing\u201d \u2014 once the domain of angry gamers<\/a> on the internet \u2014 wherein the public now dares to unmask and name federal agents who have been responsible for horrors like the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis. The government doesn\u2019t want us to talk about the agent accused of shooting her to death (whose name, by the way, is Jonathan Ross<\/strong><\/a>). Before being shot to death, Good told agents, \u201cI\u2019m not mad at you.\u201d They killed her anyway, then called her a \u201cfucking bitch.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The government is very upset that people are criticizing it for shooting innocent mothers to death in the street. DHS stalked and intimidated a man<\/a> who protested against state-sponsored killing, issuing him a \u201cWARNING NOTICE\u201d as flimsy as the nonjudicial \u201cwarrants\u201d it uses now<\/a> to bust into people\u2019s homes. It\u2019s like if Jay and Silent Bob showed up at your house because of an online comment you wrote, except with guns and the force of the federal government. It\u2019s both deadly serious and deeply unserious. What are they afraid of? Well, we already know. Accountability in any form.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Minnesota officials had to sue the federal government<\/a> for access to evidence that would aid in investigating ICE shootings because the feds won\u2019t cooperate. It would <\/em>be a weird thing for the feds managed by an allegedly pro-cop party to do, except when you consider it\u2019s not really a pro-cop party, what with the January 6th insurrection. The current White House webpage<\/a> about January 6th calls it \u201ca date which will live in infamy\u201d while moping about cop-killers being unfairly treated and saying Democrats did the real insurrection<\/em>. Yeah, they\u2019re lying. But also, seriously: weak crybaby stuff.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This of course all ladders up to Trump, whose project for more than a decade has been to accumulate power while eliminating the concept of shame and accountability. The man cannot tolerate a single slight without going off the rails, nor can his subordinates. This posture has trickled down to his army of fellow losers who mirror him in several ways: (1) denying any wrongdoing, (2) blaming others, and (3) intimidating anyone who crosses them. In some really bad cases, (4) obstructing justice. Then there\u2019s also (5), looking really lame while doing it<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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These people feign outrage and aggrievement at any opportunity. Almost immediately after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Noem maligned the victims by invoking the language of \u201cdomestic terrorism<\/a>\u201d \u2014 a truly malicious thing to do while bodies are still warm and evidence is being gathered. When they were shot to death, Good had just finished dropping off her 6-year-old child at school; Pretti, an ICU nurse, was helping someone prone on the street, like any good nurse would.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Federal incitement reinforces things Americans already reasonably fear about policing. As I wrote<\/a> for the country\u2019s recent birthday, state and local police are also <\/em>demonstrably bad at upholding our rights (especially the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments) and routinely conduct themselves like weaklings who can\u2019t handle the slightest criticism. Police are often witnessed struggling to maintain calm at the slightest challenge to their authority. So what happens when they get superpowered by federal intervention? Things like reporters getting allegedly intentionally assaulted by cops<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Policing in America has always been complicated, but the Trump administration has made it a runaway train of abuse fueled by billions of dollars and unapologetic racial animus. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has gotten so much money and permission from Trump that it operates its dear leader\u2019s fundamentally racist mission of mass deportation with impunity. ICE agents have kidnapped people<\/a>, knocked down doors without warrants<\/a>, assaulted reporters<\/a>, terrorized the general public<\/a> (including children and infants<\/a>), and even shot dead innocent people<\/a> in broad daylight. And that\u2019s just the brief <\/em>summary of events.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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ICE is a menace to democracy and its murderous conduct should be soberly considered. But we should also recognize that these people are weak and sad and ought to be made fun of. Even their stupid outfits, which look ripped from a \u201chow to be tacticool\u201d buying guide. And Americans are <\/em>ridiculing these people. What better way to protest an army of clowns than by showing up as Portland did with a human frog at the front?<\/a> Cops arrested that frog. Trillions of dollars later, we\u2019ve learned nothing about counter-insurgency, because now there\u2019s a frog legion<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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These ICE agents are so small that they wear masks in public like a bunch of cowardly Patriot Front wannabes<\/a>, who probably got a similar amount of training<\/a>. You\u2019d think the average DMV worker would have been masked up for years based on the abuse they <\/em>get, but then again, the average government employee is far braver than these fools.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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ICE is now the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the federal government. If you know anything about the actual waste, fraud, and abuse of federal funding for defense, you\u2019ll know this is not something that guarantees quality or competence. This is just Donald Trump\u2019s new private domestic army. I\u2019d call them Stormtroopers except for the fact I\u2019m pretty sure some of them are getting their uniforms and body armor from Temu.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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