Further

Still held in a Louisiana detention center for the crime of denouncing the slaughter and starvation of Gazan children, Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil told a judge Thursday his deportation would likely mean death for him and his family. His testimony came hours after Khalil finally got to hold his one-month-old son Deen for the first time - in a surreal victory, without plexiglass - after a legal battle against "the calculated cruelty" of a malignant regime that had argued a father-son meeting would be "unsafe."

An Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent born in a refugee camp in Syria, Khalil became a legal permanent resident of the U.S. and earned his master's degree in international studies at Columbia last year before becoming the first Gaza protester arrested under a promised crackdown. Abducted in March by ICE and charged under an obscure provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act, he was alleged by Marco Rubio to pose "adverse foreign policy consequences" despite virtually no evidence and no charge of a crime. One of the few protesters still in detention - several others were released as their cases play out - he missed the April birth of his first child - request denied - and his graduation this week while his case winds its way through immigration and federal courts.

The indefatigable Bruce Springsteen just launched his aptly bittersweet Land of Hope & Dreams Tour in England, where he preceded three songs in turn with eloquent, furious critiques of the "weird, strange and dangerous shit going on in my home, the America I love" at the hands of "an unfit president and a rogue government." Unsurprisingly, the sick, vile man-child he cited then attacked and threatened him; stirringly, The Boss just said it all again the next night, darkly reiterating, "This is happening now."

Springsteen and his longtime E Street Band openedthe tour last week with the first of three shows in Manchester at the massive Co-op Live; they plan to perform across the U.K., France, Spain, Germany and Italy through early July. At his first show, he appeared in the dark to "call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock and roll in dangerous times." Before kicking into Land of Hope and Dreams, he delivered an impassioned screed lamenting, "In my home, in the America I love, the America I've written about (is) currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration." The crowd roared. "Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism, and let freedom ring."

In a dystopian appearance before the House Homeland Security Committee, robotic sycophant and Cosplay Barbie Kristi Noem dodged, lied and gaslighted her way through questions from angry lawmakers about illegally disappearing migrants, defying court orders, arresting mayors, deporting children with cancer, declining a basic proof of life request or even acknowledging a massive photo of fake tattoos put before her because, "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears."'

The absurdist, infuriating spectacle played out as Kilmar Abrego Garcia, along with many other Venezuelans, marked three months in El Salvador's hellhole of a prison, and as a spiteful regime that "knows no shame and has no bottom" released a Shepard-Fairey-like poster of the now-iconic Kilmar - "We call this one not a Maryland Dad" - with a giant "MS-13" replacing Obama's "Hope," evidently because, "'We accidentally sent a Maryland dad to a foreign torture prison and can’t be bothered to get him back' doesn’t poll well outside the extreme MAGA fringe." It was amidst their smears and turpitude that Homeland Security's deeply complicit ICE Barbie faced off against Dems repulsed by her so-called leadership - endless photo-ops in tactical gear and "cosplaying as every Fox News fever dream," flagrant sidestepping of court orders, a sickening, staged, well-coiffed performance, complete with $50,000 Rolex, before the silent, shackled prisoners in El Salvador's CECOT.

Three days after ICE goons arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka for doing his job and exercising his First Amendment right to protest the regime's illegal disappearing of his constituents, about 50 faith leaders gathered at the same facility Monday to link their arms, block the entrance, demand information on conditions inside and declare, "This is not acceptable" - after which they too were set upon by goons. One minister: "This is the enactment of a police state."

in February, ICE was awarded a contract with the GEO Group to operate its formerly shuttered, 1,100-bed Delaney Hall, in an industrial area outside Newark, as a for-profit detention center for immigrants facing deportation. Despite widespread opposition and a still-pending lawsuit by the city over compliance with multiple permits, ICE began delivering detainees there on May 1. Last Friday, three New Jersey members of Congress went to the site and, acting on their legal right to conduct Congressional oversight, sought a tour of the facility. Because the current regime no longer cares about anyone's legal rights, they were banned.