A chilling incident in Syracuse, New York is slowly gaining national attention, and it should terrify all of us.
Yesterday, @syracusedotcom reported that two ICE agents showed up at a polling place to harass an election worker.
Her supposed “crime”? Back in January, PaigeLynne Gonyea shared an Instagram post citing a Minnesota Star Tribune article that identified Jonathan Ross as the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good.
Gonyea didn’t leak any private information; by the time she posted it, Ross’s name was already public knowledge and circulating widely across national media.
Gonyea told the outlet that the agents tried to lure her outside the building to “talk.” Fearing what would happen to her in the shadows, she instead invited them inside.
“I’ve seen the news, especially in Minnesota, and I didn’t want anything to happen to me at all,” she admitted.
Sit with that for a moment.
Democracy has eroded so severely that Americans are a) fearful being alone with immigration officials and b) are being harassed by the government for sharing something that was in the newspaper.
The agents provided Gonyea with a form letter, which she later shared.
Per the outlet, it read in part: “This notice officially informs you that it is unlawful to threaten to assault, kidnap, and/or murder a federal official or that federal official’s immediate family member with the intent to impede, intimidate, and/or interfere with the federal official’s duties...”
Gonyea has maintained her position, refusing to delete the post.
“For ICE to come to me over a social media post just feels very 1984 to me,” she remarked. “[ICE] definitely should have known better to not go into a polling place, even if I said it was OK.”
The incident has sparked a broader debate about the potential for federal agencies to be used in ways that might intimidate or obstruct the voting process.
Trump surrogates like Steve Bannon have repeatedly floated the idea of using ICE to intimidate voters to avoid jail.
Moreover, Bannon and other cronies know that a loss in the midterm elections will lead to prosecutions for many of them, himself included.
“And I will tell you right now, as God is my witness, if we lose the midterms, if we lose 2028, some in this room are going to prison — myself included,” Bannon confessed in November.
All of this is lunacy — these people are not terrified of losing an election; they are fully aware that in a functional democracy, they'd be behind bars.
Bannon's remarks were far from the first time a Trump crony has confessed to knowing they ought to be jailed.
Elon Musk famously told Tucker Carlson on the eve of the 2024 election that he NEEDED Trump to win to avoid prison.
This is a dangerous level of desperation, and yesterday, Trump tanked his own party's bipartisan housing relief legislation during a press conference, holding it hostage and demanding the GOP ram through a voter suppression bill.
We are almost at the finish line and November is coming fast.
It is critically important to stay on top of these issues, and crucially, we cannot allow this coterie of whiny bullies to fully destroy our democracy.
Are you going to let them scare you out of exercising your rights, or are you going to vote?
[Images: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz, PaigeLynne Gonyea/Instagram]
YOU HAVE TO ADMIT THAT SOMETHING IS SERIOUSLY WRONG WITH THE PRIORITIES OF THE AMERICAN JUSTICE SYSTEM WHEN THEY ARE ARRESTING PEOPLE FOR TOUCHING TRUMP'S REFLECTING POOL BUT NOT THE EPSTEIN PEDOPHILES FOR RAPING CHILDREN🙄
This administration throws a lot at us every day. But the inhumanity in his concentration camps, some of which house children, is what I wake up with every morning & go to sleep with every night. Trying to do what I can do and wishing it was more.
If you want to see what true elite hypocrisy looks like, look no further than tech oligarch Peter Thiel.
He is the ultimate example of a man who successfully climbed the ladder of democratic freedom and is now trying to pull it up behind him.
Thiel owes his entire fortune to the liberalism and protections of Western democracy. Moving to the United States as an immigrant and living openly as a member of a sexual minority, he benefited immensely from California's legal and social progressivism. Today, he uses that same fortune to bankroll authoritarian ideologies. His worldview is deeply rooted in a fascist contempt for democratic institutions, and he is obsessed with replacing public governance with corporate, autocratic control.
He feels absolutely no loyalty to the United States or the people living here. Thiel operates as a borderless sovereign who maintains multiple exit strategies. Whether it is his controversial fast-tracked citizenship in New Zealand or his new moves in Argentina, he is always ready to escape the consequences of the political fires he lights, leaving regular people to burn.
He is the hypocritical and dangerous ”global elite” his pawns claim to fight
🇺🇸Trump at 6:30 PM — “For the first time in 3,000 years, we are finally going to have peace in the Middle East.”
🇺🇸Trump at 6:33 PM — “If 🇮🇷Iran takes a toll, in a matter of 15 minutes I will blow the shit out of them.”
Believe me, both statements were made by him within three minutes 😭
He has completely lost his mental balance.
Ken Paxton says he often doesn’t want to be in Texas and prefers spending time in California, where he grew up, instead:
“I like places in California, even though I don’t like to admit that I go to California, but it’s beautiful.”
BREAKING: Trump staffers are reportedly worried that if Trump presents the FIFA World Cup trophy 70,000 spectators from all over the world will boo him and start chants about the Epstein Files.
Texas is poised to require all public school students read the Bible as part of their mandatory book list, potentially violating the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.
Ted Cruz talking tough is hilarious considering Trump insulted his wife’s looks on national TV and Cruz still came back wagging his tail. A man who couldn’t stand up for his own wife suddenly wants to lecture everyone on what a woman is?