Skylee Ryan

The best measure of how America is doing isn’t the stock market, or GDP growth. It’s how well most Americans are living — and right now most are struggling.

Levin: He ought to go back to Turkey. He’s just a thug.

💢 Video, satellite imagery, and weapons analysis indicate the U.S. dropped a 2,000-pound on a family home in a densely populated residential neighborhood on Iran’s Qeshm Island overnight Thursday, The New York Times reported. The strike killed a husband, wife, and their 2-year-old son. Two other children, now orphaned, were pulled alive from the rubble. The report says evidence raises serious questions about why one of the U.S. military’s largest conventional bombs was used in a residential area and whether the use is consistent with international law.

🚨In Key West, an ICE/Border Patrol agent threatened to PULL A U.S. CITIZEN OUT OF THE CAR because he cursed at an agent… then had the audacity to tell the U.S. citizen to “learn your laws.” So, let’s learn them. In the video, Border Patrol agents pulled over a car of U.S. citizens and demanded everyone hand over their IDs. When the passenger says, “Bitch, fuck you,” an agent asks what he said and then threatens to pull him out of the vehicle if he “says one more thing like that.” The passenger correctly asks: “For what? That’s freedom of speech.” The agent responds: “That’s not how that works. Learn your laws.” Oh, we’re going to… Cursing at a government agent is not, by itself, a crime. The First Amendment protects a significant amount of verbal criticism, insults, and profanity directed at law enforcement, as long as it is not a physical threat. The government cannot punish people simply for verbally challenging or criticizing law enforcement. And it gets even worse. After the passenger calls the agent a “fucking white cracker,” the agent asks what he called him… and then tells another agent he is “thinking of calling in and arresting this guy.” For what? Because he hurt your feelings? The government does not get to arrest someone for speech they don’t like. And yes, Border Patrol has special authority near the border. That includes operating immigration checkpoints where agents can briefly stop vehicles, without individualized reasonable suspicion, for immigration questioning. But, that is different from a roving patrol stop. When not operating at a checkpoint, Border Patrol needs reasonable suspicion to pull over a vehicle for immigration questioning. And even at a checkpoint, the agents’ authority is not unlimited. A checkpoint stop does not automatically give them the right to search the vehicle, indefinitely detain people, or arrest someone because they said something an agent didn’t like. The Constitution does not say… “You have freedom of speech, unless a federal agent gets offended.” It says the government cannot punish you for exercising that right. And perhaps the most important part of this entire video is… The passenger knew his rights better than the federal agent threatening him. The agent told the U.S. citizen to learn his laws… But maybe the agent should have learned them first.

A fully masked ICE agent pepper sprayed a woman in New York yesterday merely for videotaping. This is what tyranny looks like in Trump’s America. Imagine if Biden had Trump supporters pepper sprayed for videotaping.