Source: The Watch
by Radley Balko
“The downside of the budget impasse is that it has made police state tactics a point of negotiation. In any other era, if a local police department were doing what ICE and Border Patrol have done in Chicago, Portland, and Minnesota, a state attorney general or federal government would have launched investigations, and the architects of the policy — Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, Corey Lewandowski — would be sweating out questions at oversight hearings. Instead, we’re talking about these abuses in the context of a budget fight. And that risks giving the impression that basic constitutional rights and restraints on police and executive power that date back to the Founding are, actually, negotiable. I guess we’ll see over the next couple weeks if the Democrats believe they really are.” (02/16/26)
https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-constitution-is-not-a-bargaining