"Their actual position is we can kill you if you disagree with us. That's their position."

[bigtree]

Last edited Sat Jan 10, 2026, 12:03 AM - Edit history (1)

Atlantic reporter Adam Serwer today on Chris Hayes:



(excerpt)

Look, their real position is if you
disagree with us, we get to kill you.
Uh, and I think it's interesting,
however, that whatever little nub of a
conscience is in his mind there, uh, is
forcing him to lie about the video and
say that she tried to run the man over
when we can all see her turning turning
the wheel away from the ICE agent. Uh,
you know, and that kind of lie is sort
of a tell, you know, like in poker, it's
a tell.

It says that he knows that he's
making an unjustifiable argument by
saying that, you know, a law enforcement
gets to kill you if you're non-compliant
or perceived to be non-compliant, which
is what he's really saying. So, they
have to go back to this madeup. She
attempt she was an attempted terrorist,
she was an attempted murderer, but their
actual position is we can kill you if
you disagree with us. That's their
position.

The two last things she does are turn
the wheel to the right and then try to
drive uh away. There's also when you
take a step back, Michelle, like this is
like all this weird right-wing discourse
on calling it like a clean shoot and you
know when you take a step back, right?
Okay, what's the context here, right, in
in the in the context of policing,
right?

Um around George Floyd and other
examples we've seen, you know, there's
an argument like, well, we need police
to keep us safe and to fight crime and
we can't have officers cowed and put
that discourse aside. In this case, what
are they going to do? What what did they
what is what did they do a few hours
after the shooting?

They went to a high school in Minnesota
where they started tackling people at a
high school and pepper-sprayed them.
Like what is being protested here is that
this has absolutely nothing if you take a step
back from what happened on that street
with public safety or protecting people,
right?

And I think the lesson is that,
and this should have been clear from the
beginning, but it should be doubly clear
now, is that when you put these
unaccountable, masked, armed men on the
streets who've been told by the
administration that they're fighting a
war, that they're, you know, kind of
involved in some sort of live-action
video game.

This is not just the the kind of the
change in the fundamental relationship
between the people who live in this
country and its rulers does not just
apply to immigrants. It applies to all
of us, right?

I mean, you're in this situation now
by this Republican congressman's own
words in which you as a citizen or as
a person have the onus to be kind of
perfectly disciplined and to to behave
like, you know, with kind of with to
behave with perfect obedience
and they have sort of no onus to be
restrained, to be restrained in any way
to deescalate.

It's a climate. I mean, it's a climate
that's like anathema to just being a
free citizen. And it doesn't matter if
you're undocumented or not.

And and part of the context here, which
is, you know, it's a true context when
they talk about leftwing agitators, is
there's a huge organized effort by
ordinary citizens to disrupt what ICE is
doing, right?

And that's what they are trying
to, I think, overtly intimidate people
from participating in. I mean, yes, all
over this country, wherever ISIS turned
out, you've seen ordinary people turn
out to peacefully document the people
that they're snatching so that there's
some record of their arrest and also to
videotape them in part because when they
don't videotape them, they are able to
get away with kind of unspeakable things
and to use their first amendment right,
Adam, to tell them to take a walk and
tell them they're not welcome, which is
constitutionally protected.

You know, as Michelle said, this is actually
reversed. It should not be the case that
the burden is entirely on the citizen uh
to preserve their own life against an
agent of the state who has been
empowered with the authority to protect
the lives of citizens and to be able to
use lethal force in their defense.
Instead, now we have this sort of idea
that uh you know they can do whatever
they want. They can act as recklessly as
they want or as contemptuously as they
want. uh and and individual people if
they are not perfect can be put to death
or or summarily executed as a result.

That is not freedom. That is tyranny. Uh
and it's something that every you know
the reason that people are out there
protesting ICE or honking at ICE or
blowing whistles is because they are
opposing tyranny which is the most
American thing I can think of.

And as unfortunately you know,
mass men with guns killing
people because of their political
beliefs or because of their gender or
because of their identity. Uh that's
also American but it's a kind of
American behavior uh you know that is
should be relegated to the dark chapters
of our history instead of something that
is something that we should have to
worry about today.


'First the Shooting. Then the Lies:' Adam Serwer for The Atlantic
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/1/8/2362162/-First-the-Shooting-Then-the-Lies

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/ice-defense-minnesota-killing/685549/


The vice president of the United States today blamed a political 'ideology' he disagrees with for his federal agent shooting and killing this U.S. citizen in cold blood.

Vance said part of him felt “very, very sad” for Good. He called her “brainwashed” and “a victim of left-wing ideology.”

“I can believe that her death is a tragedy, while also recognizing that it’s a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left who has marshaled an entire movement -- a lunatic fringe -- against our law enforcement officers.”
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2026-01-08/vance-calls-killing-of-minneapolis-woman-by-an-ice-officer-a-tragedy-of-her-own-making

...IOKIYAMR.

The vice President of the United States advocating his ferderal agents shooting and killing Americans with impunity, "total immunity." WH sanctioned execution of people in this country who he determines, on his own, hold a 'left wing ideology.'

[moondust]

1. Very dangerous hubris.

Perhaps even a gangsters' god complex.

The Six Dark Lessons Roy Cohn Taught Trump (That He Still Uses Today):

1. Never apologize or admit wrongdoing, ever.
2. Always counter-attack, and always with greater force than you received.
3. Use the legal system as a weapon, not a recourse for justice.
4. Manipulate the media ruthlessly.
5. Use fear as both shield and sword.
6. Build a fortress of loyalty around yourself.

[bigtree]

4. cohn was a thug

...Trump's a thug.

Thug rule in America.

[moondust]

7. Those "lessons"

are the "morality" that will constrain him.

[HAB911]

2. PSA

[bigtree]

3. America

...

[B.See]

5. What's amazing to ME is that

anyone EVER thought it was just going to stop at 'illegal immigrants' in the FIRST place.

... told em so.

[Ghost of Tom Joad]

6. Who is going to take away their license to kill?

&list=RD_mrIRC00Azo&start_radio=1