Just an old Cat...

me: i would just give it to you.

my dad:

anyway, some kid who didn't buy insurance got hit with a "medical bill" early on, so he was supposed to be bankrupt and have to sit the rest of the game out. the 8 year olds were not having it and spontaneously invented crowdfunding so he could keep playing with everyone else.

Remember Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old man from Cuba, who died in ICE custody on January 3rd, 2026. His cause of death was reported by ICE as “medical distress and under investigation”. Witnesses saw guards hold down and strangle Geraldo. The county medical examiner determined cause of death to be “asphyxia due to neck and torso compression”, and ruled his death as a homicide.

Remember Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres, a 42-year-old man from Honduras, who died in ICE custody on January 5th, 2026. His cause of death was reported by ICE as “complications related to congenital heart failure”.

Remember Luis Beltran Yanez–Cruz, a 68-year-old man from Honduras, who died in ICE custody on January 6th, 2026. His cause of death was reported by ICE as “heart-related health issues.”

Remember Renee Nicole Good, who was shot and killed by ICE on January 7th, 2026.

Remember Parady La, a 46-year-old man from Cambodia, who died in ICE custody on January 9th, 2026. His cause of death was reported by ICE as “anoxic brain injury, post cardiac arrest, shock and multiple organ failures following severe drug withdrawal”.

Remember Victor Manuel Diaz, a 36-year-old man from Nicaragua, who died in ICE custody on January 14th, 2026. His cause of death was reported by ICE as “a presumed suicide; however, the official cause of his death remains under investigation.”

Remember Heber Sanchaz Domínguez, a 34-year-old man from Mexico, who died in ICE custody on January 14th, 2026. His cause of death is “currently under investigation” according to ICE.

Remember Wael Tarabishi, whose health declined and ultimately led to his death on January 23rd, 2026 after his father and primary caregiver, Maher Tarabishi, was taken by ICE. The Tarabishi family are once again asking for Maher’s release, this time so he can attend his son’s funeral.

Remember Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed by Border Patrol on January 24th.

Additional sources:

ICE website (filter to detainee death notifications)

Wikipedia: List of Deaths in ICE Detention

2025:

The Guardian: “2025 was ICE’s deadliest year in two decades. Here are the 32 people who died in custody.”

Previous post on ICE-related deaths in 2025

This post is a list of ICE-related deaths in 2026. It has been edited to include Keith Porter since he was killed just hours before the new year, and Wael Tarabishi.

A cat is a small creature in the middle of the food chain that is fully aware that you are a very large thing that could stomp its head in at any moment and yet it chooses to rest its tiny little head on your leg for a nap and spreads out on the floor near you exposing its belly and its most sensitive organs. It brings dead mice and bugs to you to share food.

Don’t you get it? This tiny thing trusts you. It wants to help you too. It licks your leg thinking that it’s helping. It kneads on you to find comfort. It shares its body warmth with you in the cold and gives you your space in the heat. It hisses at other mammals it sees outside including other cats in an effort to protect its family.

#Mood

And you know why? Because these same policies will also improve life for all Americans, including ... Those People. (insert scary music)

If you're playing Monopoly and you decide that being in Jail sucks so you move your piece to Go and call it a tunneling loophole, there's nothing built into the game to actually stop you from doing that. Other players yelling at you and banishing you from the table is how the rule is enforced. But if they don't, if they let you do that, then I'm sorry but that's just how the game is played now. If you're allowed to do it then it's not against the rules.

We all instinctively understand that when you're running track, you're not supposed to cross the lines into someone else's lane. But the lines are not a wall. They're not physically preventing you from doing anything. If you decide you want to run into the lane to your right and jump-kick the other racer, you physically can do that.

The line on the ground is a social construct. It's part of the magic circle; A thing that takes on special meaning, even psychological power, so long as we exist within its play space. But it's not real, and it only has power if somebody comes over and drags you off the field for striking that other racer.

At the highest echelons of power, a lot of what "can" and "can't" be done are actually just the boundaries of a magic circle with few real enforcement mechanisms. The President can't do that. But. Like. Who's going to stop him if he does?

The biggest thing we learned during the Trump Presidency was just how many restrictions on government power are illusory. Trump spent his four years in office testing the limits of what he can and can't do. Stepping over the lines of the magic circle to see which ones had enforcement mechanisms and which were merely decorative. And revealing that an alarming number were decorative.

Because the thing about the highest offices, about POTUS and SCOTUS and Congress, is that they're the highest offices. There's nobody above them. The only check on their power is each other and, contrary to what high school social studies might tell you, those checks aren't very strong at all.

Trump wants to redefine the game rules to be dictatorial. The magic circle says he can't do that. But the only factor that truly decides whether he can or can't is whether the other players at the table will let him do it. And if you listen to the way Republican Congressmen talk, it's not reassuring.

There are no executive super-cops who will arrest Trump if he breaks the rules. The Avengers are not going to show up and stop him from continuing to reconfigure the magic circle to his liking. The only thing, the only true restriction on his power, is the vote. It's the fact that we, as a population, get to make a choice as to whether or not he even gets to sit back down at the table to play again at all.