BernardoVerda 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Speak Its Name: Yes, This Is Naziism

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2026 @ 05:47pm

    Same rhyme, same meter

    "History doesn't repeat itself... But it rhymes." (often ascribed to Mark Twain, but origin not known)
    What's happening in the USA today is not only rhyming, but following the same old meter as well... so I'll just call it Naziism or fascism, or authoritarian autocracy or totalitarianism or whatever, as best seems to fit at the moment. Right now I don't care; it doesn't matter -- the fight is on, and the arguments are mostly fomented by people trying to distract us from the ugly truth -- I'll leave academic debates over the most precisely correct label as an exercise for political scientists and historians, once the fighting is finally over.

  • On the post: ICE Is So Bad At Immigration Enforcement That It’s Detaining Native Americans

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2026 @ 09:31pm

    "Immigration enforcement" is not "law enforcement"

    Quibble: ICE agents are not Law Enforcement Officers. ICE agents are Immigration Enforcement Officers -- with much more limited authority than actual law enforcement personnel. That's why they wear vests with "POLICE" emblazoned on them -- to imply law enforcement authority that they don't actually have.

  • On the post: ICE Is So Bad At Immigration Enforcement That It’s Detaining Native Americans

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2026 @ 05:03pm

    Cats and mice: footnote

    Some of the mice have convinced themselves that they can save themselves by dressing in cat's clothing, meowing like cats, and joining the hunt for other mice -- even grab themselves some fine cheese. These mice will eventually discover that the cats weren't fooled, but merely exploited their shortsightedness and naivete. When their own turn comes to face the claws, the mice will think it most unfair -- but it won't help them.

  • On the post: ICE Is So Bad At Immigration Enforcement That It’s Detaining Native Americans

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2026 @ 04:47pm

    Cats and mice

    NEARLY ALL Ice protestors are white women (like 80%+), someone pointed out that ICE is considerably more “diverse” than the protestors.
    You seem to have missed the blindingly obvious point. The protesters being mostly white, and mostly white women, isn't an accident -- it's the inevitable consequence of and response to ICE, CBP, and DHS strategy, tactics and actions. Of course, ICE would love for the protesters to be mostly non-white people and immigrants -- it makes life so much easier for the cats, if the mice can be persuaded to obligingly come right to them. So protesters across the USA have quite explicitly agreed that non-white protesters are at vastly greater risk of being illegally assaulted &/or arrested &/or kidnapped (&/or even murdered) by ICE. After all, the indiscriminate targeting of non-whites is precisely why ICE is there in the first place. It would be profoundly stupid and counter-productive to make ICE's job easier that way. It would be utterly stupid and counter-productive to make ICE's job easier that way. So white people are accepting responsibility for the situation, and the responsibility and risks inherent in actually confronting ICE's blatantly illegal spree, because white people simply don't face the degree of risk that anyone "of color", regardless of actual legal status, does (such as say... native Americans, for example). White woman are in the front ranks of anti-ICE protest because they are committed to the classic, democratic and constitutional American principles (not to mention simple humanity) and thus are openly doing what they can to shield their non-white friends and neighbors from the ongoing fascist "vermin hunt". Those women are a clear example of how ordinary Americans are still committed to saving the parts of America that actually made America great, rather than let American democracy be kicked aside for some hollow, oligarchic, religious fundamentalist, fascist imitation -- they're proof that despite everything, and despite appearances, the American ideal isn't quite dead yet.

  • On the post: Two Major Studies, 125,000 Kids: The Social Media Panic Doesn’t Hold Up

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2026 @ 03:30pm

    I'll theck those out, too. Thanks.

  • On the post: Two Major Studies, 125,000 Kids: The Social Media Panic Doesn’t Hold Up

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2026 @ 03:28pm

    Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check it out.

  • On the post: Two Major Studies, 125,000 Kids: The Social Media Panic Doesn’t Hold Up

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 21 Jan, 2026 @ 02:51pm

    Looking for a solid counter-narrative/moral-panic debunking book for friends and relatives

    Is there some under-appreciated, readable and accessible, potential new best-seller out there -- one based on sound data, properly evaluated and reflecting the perspective from relevant expertise -- that deserves to be promoted as a counter-narrative debunking of Haidt's Anxious Generation and similar social-media focused panic mongering? It's been almost two years since Anxious Generation came out -- a proper popular debunking seems overdue...

  • On the post: DHS Tells Reporter That Filming ICE Officers ‘Sounds Like Obstruction Of Justice’

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 17 Jan, 2026 @ 03:07pm

    Some examples of how ICE commonly defines "assault" in official reports (listing not complete):

    "They hit my fist with their face." "They stuck their neck between the ground and my knee." "They didn't fall down the first time I shoved them." "They scratched my front bumper with the side of their car -- repeatedly." "They bumped the rear of my vehicle with their vehicle when I brake-checked them." "They demanded to see a proper, signed, judicial warrant." "They were videoing our illegal actions."

  • On the post: Prosecutors Flee DOJ After Being Told To Investigate The Murdered Woman, Not The Murderer

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 16 Jan, 2026 @ 04:13pm

    Against protocols -- but known practice anyways

    The Man Who Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Standing in Front of Cars https://hejon07.substack.com/p/the-man-who-learned-to-stop-worrying Decade-old probe found immigration agents stepped in front of cars to justify shooting https://www.rawstory.com/border-patrol-shooting-2674878723/ US Border Agents Intentionally Stepped in Front of Moving Vehicles to Justify Shooting at Them https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/us-border-agents-intentionally-stepped-front-moving-vehicles-justify-shooting-them/ Note also that Ross himself was a CBP agent of some years standing when this investigation was performed and the report written -- therefore he knows better, and did it anyways.

  • On the post: Prosecutors Flee DOJ After Being Told To Investigate The Murdered Woman, Not The Murderer

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 16 Jan, 2026 @ 04:06pm

    If the doctors even suspected internal bleeding, Ross would not have been allowed to leave the hospital. So it's a lie. A very clumsy lie, one that they didn't even try to trot out until later and it became clear that the general public, with access to several videos contradicting the official narrative, simply wasn't buying official line. So they flailed about for something to buttress the official narrative, and decided an "invisible injury" would fit the bill and save their convenient little faerie tale -- too bad the medical community is saying it just doesn't work that way.

  • On the post: Prosecutors Flee DOJ After Being Told To Investigate The Murdered Woman, Not The Murderer

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 16 Jan, 2026 @ 03:54pm

    Every doctor I've heard from says that even a plausible possibility of internal bleeding, would have been an automatic 24 hour stay at the hospital for close monitoring and observation. The whole "internal bleeding" story was just a clumsy lie to try to buttress a false narrative that anyone who bothers to check out the videos simply isn't going to believe anyways. Additionally, people being struck by moving vehicles don't stay firmly on their feet and fire accurate pistol shots within a fraction of a second of being struck. I swear, cultists don't even try to exercise critical thinking ability.

  • On the post: Prosecutors Flee DOJ After Being Told To Investigate The Murdered Woman, Not The Murderer

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 16 Jan, 2026 @ 03:44pm

    No -- Ross did not have internal bleeding. We know this because (as many doctors have pointed out) if he had internal bleeding, or even evidence that it was a significant possibility, he would have been kept in the hospital at least over-night for close observation and treatment. So that was just yet another clumsy lie from Trump administration mouthpieces.

  • On the post: Bari Weiss Is Sad That People Aren’t Enjoying Her Clumsy Destruction Of CBS News

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2026 @ 04:06pm

    Apropos nothing at all... When Ellison went on his little buying spree, I saw a number of political commentators on YouTube and social media, who noted that although they had several times the audience that Bari Weis's little media enterprises had, somehow no one ever offered to buy their boutique operation for 150 million dollars...

  • On the post: Tom Homan: If Democrats Don’t Stop Calling Us Murderers, We’re Just Going To Be Forced To Keep Murdering You

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2026 @ 10:28am

    Ross had already transferred his phone to his other hand while crossing in front of the vehicle and already had his hand on his pistol before the car started forward.

  • On the post: Tom Homan: If Democrats Don’t Stop Calling Us Murderers, We’re Just Going To Be Forced To Keep Murdering You

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 14 Jan, 2026 @ 10:24am

    Not a legal shooting, regardless.

    It doesn't matter. Officers are not allowed to voluntarily, let alone deliberately, place themselves in the escape path of a vehicle, and then claim they subsequently were forced to shoot the driver in self defense (unless the driver is threatening them with an actual weapon, such as a pistol -- the vehicle itself explicitly doesn't count). The CPB itself commissioned a report on this -- at the time that Ross was a CPB officer -- that described this known CBP practice (including several dozen specific examples) of deliberately creating a situation of officer endangerment, to justify resorting to deadly force under the guise of "self-defense", and called out the practice as not only illegitimate but dangerous to officers and general public alike. https://www.rawstory.com/border-patrol-shooting-2674878723/ -- And by the way, just one more little thing... Please do explain how Ross could allegedly be struck by Good's car, and not only not have been knocked of his feet (or at the very least staggered) but could even -- fractions of a second later -- still accurately shoot Good through her windshield?

  • On the post: Tom Homan: If Democrats Don’t Stop Calling Us Murderers, We’re Just Going To Be Forced To Keep Murdering You

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2026 @ 05:34pm

    The Man Who Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Standing in Front of Cars

    Found this -- worth a read: The Man Who Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Standing in Front of Cars A Three-Layer Analysis of Institutional Memory and Tactical Amnesia https://hejon07.substack.com/p/the-man-who-learned-to-stop-worrying It starts like this (and then looks at the legal arguments based on those facts):

    On January 7, 2026, ICE Agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, in Minneapolis. Ross positioned himself near the front of Good’s vehicle before firing. Video footage shows Good’s wheels turned to the right, away from Ross’s position, as she attempted to leave the scene. Jonathan Ross served as a Border Patrol agent from 2007 to 2015, working near El Paso, Texas. The PERF report, completed in February 2013, found a disturbing pattern: Border Patrol agents “deliberately stepped in the path of cars apparently to justify shooting at the drivers.” The report specifically noted agents “intentionally put themselves into the exit path of the vehicle, thereby exposing themselves to additional risk and creating justification for the use of deadly force.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which commissioned the report, attempted to suppress it. When Congress requested copies, they received only a summary that omitted the findings about agents positioning themselves in front of vehicles. In June 2024, Ross broke a suspect’s car window, reached inside, got his arm stuck, and was dragged when the vehicle fled. He required 33 stitches. In January 2026, Ross shot Renee Good after positioning himself in front of her vehicle. Ross has served with ICE since 2015. He is a firearms instructor, active shooter instructor, SWAT team member, and FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force member. ...

  • On the post: DHS Tells Reporter That Filming ICE Officers ‘Sounds Like Obstruction Of Justice’

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2026 @ 03:36pm

    No; filming ICE isn't obstruction of justice -- but shit like *this* is.

    The DOJ is the party that's obstructing justice. They are refusing to investigate ICE "officer" Jonathon Ross's murder of of Renee Good -- but they ARE investigating Renee Good's widow.

  • On the post: DHS Tells Reporter That Filming ICE Officers ‘Sounds Like Obstruction Of Justice’

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2026 @ 02:44pm

    Even here in Canada, we know that your nutshell legal summary is simply wrong. It starts out half right, and gets wronger in every point.

  • On the post: DHS Tells Reporter That Filming ICE Officers ‘Sounds Like Obstruction Of Justice’

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2026 @ 02:41pm

    Apparently, filming ICE from one's own front porch is terroism.

    Just saw a YouTube video this morning, in which a guy was assaulted and arrested on his own front porch, when he didn't obey a fully kitted ICE "officer"s order to stop recording and to go inside -- even while he was explaining that the order wasn't legal and the ICE mercenary didn't have that authority.

  • On the post: Tom Homan: If Democrats Don’t Stop Calling Us Murderers, We’re Just Going To Be Forced To Keep Murdering You

    BernardoVerda ( profile ), 13 Jan, 2026 @ 02:32pm

    Some distant, grainy/blurry videos can be interpreted as Ross being struck by Good's vehicle. Clearer videos from closer up, make it clear that he wasn't struck. Ross's feet can be seen, well clear of the vehicle and clear of its path even if it wasn't turning. (There's also the awkward question of how a shooter struck by a moving vehicle manages to simultaneously stay firmly on his feet and shoot accurately.)

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