All of the performers and artists are bailing, so it's a form of subterfuge so that he doesn't need to try to explain why nobody wants to perform there during his occupation of the place. Now he can tell his gullible cult, aka Team Predator, that he's making the Kennedy Center great again with big new walls and stuff!!!
Yes, I suppose he had to do something to hide the fact that no-one now wants to perform there! And of course admitting what the problem really is would be too much for his ego 🙄
Are you sure the Trump regime isn't team Xenomorph? Strike that! I have more respect and admiration for the xenomorphs of the Alien franchise than I do the Trump regime. Of course, I have more respect the predator from the Predator franchise as well. Maybe we could just call them Team Melania.
Xenomorphs and the Predator species both have a lot more scruples than Republicans, which you realized before you finished your thought. I do think these people are so out there that there must be an invasive alien species, involved, though.
Thanks for the wonderful news, Linda! We’ve been cheering all the anti-ICE protests across France—and there have been plenty. I even find myself spontaneously erupting in anti-fascist chanting down here in our small village in southern France ;-)
David, You people in France rock! I love that video too, and also some from Italy as well. I was meeting online with several women in France and some in Italy to organize economic resistance through Indivisible Abroad. We were discussing that Capgemini was a sort of victory, but it would have been better for them to shut down the US branch working with ICE than to put them up for sale, but still, movement on the issue after a lot of protesting. Here's an encouraging word: https://www.france24.com/en/france/20260201-french-it-group-capgemini-to-sell-us-subsidiary-linked-to-ice
If you scroll down the map you will see that Paris has a group. Also, you can go to Get Involved and scroll down to the flags, you can click on the Paris home page. Theirs is a Facebook page and I don't do Facebook, but if you do you can see their pictures.
I also have a group in Bremen, Germany. Ours just started. The Paris group is going strong.
Right! I have been saying all along that he is lifting his leg over everything, like a male dog, especially in the White House and now on The Kennedy Center, to mark his territory.
I think he's also big mad that his bald head is showing through the thinning yellow whatever he is trying to cover it with. And NONE of that goes with the burnt sienna makeup on his face that doesn't reach his ears. He has become a caricature.
Because Trump is unpopular and he wants to hide that he ruined it by pretending the opposite. In "1984" it is called Doublespeak, and Trump is a master of it. You need to understand when he is speaking and when he is using double speak. When he tells young girls he has raped if they tell he will bury them in his golf course with other girls they know who have disappeared he is speaking. When he tells us that he has to remodel the defunct Kennedy Center he is using double speak.
Doesn't any renovation to the Kennedy Center have to go through Congress? What about National Historic trust, etc.? I'm sure it's illegal for him to renovate it, that he'll use taxpayer money for it, and that he'll ignore any laws that say he can't do it.
He was supposed to need the same permissions to tear down the White House. What we lack is enforcement of the laws, but no one foresaw that a president would do any of the things he's been doing.
Trafficking in children is a goddamn crime and I don’t see the good judge locking these bastards up for their criminal behavior. He certainly could have instructed his clerk to advise the police of this crime and get the ball moving.
To keep on saying,”you’re a bad boy, you really bad boy, bad, bad boy, oh no you bad boy.”
That shit ain’t gonna cut it no more.
But we can’t even get the system to force this
ped🤡phile to register.
I mean, OMG, even a little children clutch at their mother‘s waist when they sense 🍤🤡🍄
How right you are. What's blowing my mind is how everyone in Congress and the Media carry on like this is just any other day. Can you IMAGINE!!!!! the outrage from Congress and Media if that was Barack Obama---24/7 we'd never hear the end of it. And that REALLY pisses me off!
I think a lot of this is prompted by partisan reporting by Fox and NewsMax, which have a stake in keeping us divided to capture a large audience of conservatives from the MSM and demonizing them. With a larger audience, they can steal or attract sponsors and receive more advertising dollars, hence bigger executive salaries.
An earlier version of this piece mistakenly stated that Judge Fred Biery was a Republican appointee. He was appointed by Bill Clinton. I have deleted that error.
Thank you, Billie Eilish, for finally stating the ironic fact that we not only stole this land from the indigenous peoples, slaughtering them and relegating the survivors to the least arable and livable spaces in the country, but also, we are either ALL illegals or NONE of us are.
Beautiful: “No one is illegal on stolen land.”
Plus, the notion that a human being “is illegal” merely due to their country of origin, ethnicity and culture rankles me. It’s immoral and amoral thinking.
ICE may be losing the public narrative, but that doesn’t stop the machinery. Culture can turn, judges can scold, even unlikely voices can defect, and ICE can still keep operating through the quieter channels that don’t make headlines.
That’s what scares me in places like Nevada: the under-the-radar pipeline. Local jails are paid to hold people, rosters get reviewed, detainers get issued, and people who are already in custody can be quietly transferred into federal detention far from their families and lawyers. So yes, they may be losing “permission” in the culture, but we have to watch the logistics and local cooperation, because that’s where the harm keeps happening when the cameras move on. 287g is alive and flourishing in my state of Nevada.
Thank you as always, Jay! One thought: "nor should you demonize victims for having a licensed firearm on their person at the time you shoot them in the back." Those agents illegally confiscated that licensed, holstered weapon and *then* shot him multiple times in the back--when he was already pepper-sprayed, on the ground, and disarmed.
I can’t wait for the superbowl! I don’t like football really, but Green Day (I LOVE Green Day) and Bad Bunny: this should be good. GD vociferously despise trump and BB, well, he’s been pretty clear, too!
On steeling their spines - We mapped all the congressional reps who voted to give a blank check to ICE on this map and how to call them with one click. The map also highlights how Republicans have cut money from healthcare to fund ICE and give tax cuts to billionaires.
Republicans Cut Your Healthcare To Fund ICE And Give Tax Cuts To Musk: Follow The Money
"No taxation without representation" - Why should people like Renee Good have to pay taxes that Republicans then divert to pay ICE agents like Jonathan Ross who kill them. And on top of that Republicans are pushign voter suppression that makes it harder for victims of ICE to vote to change things. "No taxation without representation" is a message most Americans can support especially with rogue, military force like ICE.
i don't agree with the comment that we may have to endure ICE for months if not years. "they" created it, they can control it and dismantle it if they chose. Just like they fired all the federal employees. do the same here- either reform it or get rid of it and the unqualified people they hired to do this dirty work of the regime.
Again, thank you, Jay. Common sense is going to eventually prevail in the country. Murdering citizens and kidnapping little kids is finally sinking in with people like Rogan. Coming around late is better than never at all. It says maybe there's hope for his other supporters to see the light. Maybe.
Just a thing about Joe Rogan, he is pretty supportive of ICE if you listen to more than clips. It's hard, but I listened to a recent whole 10 minutes, ugh. He was feeling bad for ICE agents, "using" statistics to claim that they have likely removed "thousands of bad criminals", I had to take a shower after that.
This saga is becoming almost allegorical. "Good" and "Pretti" killed, ICE sinks the Vance Titanic.
Great article, Jay. Some protesters have the best idea: if we starve this govt as artists and patrons starved the Kennedy Center, maybe we can "close it down" too. Problem is, many people are so mindless about the fact they could soon be living in "North Korea" that they would be INCONVENIENCED by participating in a strike.
Why does the Kennedy Center have to be renovated? The building was renovated in 2019 to the tune of $250 million!
Just a cover up for the FAILURE
Artists cancelled, people did not buy tickets
EMPTY HALL
Yesss! As Andy Borowitz posted this morning: 😆
“Trump Begins Renovation of Kennedy Center by Removing Audience“
Very funny: https://open.substack.com/pub/borowitzreport/p/trump-begins-renovation-of-kennedy?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
Haha
It just needs one 5-letter word removing from its new name!
All of the performers and artists are bailing, so it's a form of subterfuge so that he doesn't need to try to explain why nobody wants to perform there during his occupation of the place. Now he can tell his gullible cult, aka Team Predator, that he's making the Kennedy Center great again with big new walls and stuff!!!
Yes, I suppose he had to do something to hide the fact that no-one now wants to perform there! And of course admitting what the problem really is would be too much for his ego 🙄
Don't forget the new marble armrests (snark).
Are you sure the Trump regime isn't team Xenomorph? Strike that! I have more respect and admiration for the xenomorphs of the Alien franchise than I do the Trump regime. Of course, I have more respect the predator from the Predator franchise as well. Maybe we could just call them Team Melania.
Xenomorphs and the Predator species both have a lot more scruples than Republicans, which you realized before you finished your thought. I do think these people are so out there that there must be an invasive alien species, involved, though.
That is for sure. However, would like to share this bit of hope from the French. They are on the side of good, not evil in the USA.
Spontaneous anti-fascist chanting at a Paris Metro station https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUPV6fujSTo/?igsh=ZWljd2xoemE1ODZw
Oh, how wonderful!! And they’ve had to live under a fascist regime — they get it.
Thank you so much! It’s made my day 👍
Thanks for the wonderful news, Linda! We’ve been cheering all the anti-ICE protests across France—and there have been plenty. I even find myself spontaneously erupting in anti-fascist chanting down here in our small village in southern France ;-)
David, You people in France rock! I love that video too, and also some from Italy as well. I was meeting online with several women in France and some in Italy to organize economic resistance through Indivisible Abroad. We were discussing that Capgemini was a sort of victory, but it would have been better for them to shut down the US branch working with ICE than to put them up for sale, but still, movement on the issue after a lot of protesting. Here's an encouraging word: https://www.france24.com/en/france/20260201-french-it-group-capgemini-to-sell-us-subsidiary-linked-to-ice
I belong to Democrats Abroad. https://www.democratsabroad.org/
and Indivisible Abroad. https://indivisibleabroad.org/
If you scroll down the map you will see that Paris has a group. Also, you can go to Get Involved and scroll down to the flags, you can click on the Paris home page. Theirs is a Facebook page and I don't do Facebook, but if you do you can see their pictures.
I also have a group in Bremen, Germany. Ours just started. The Paris group is going strong.
He's a narcissistic old man, knows he's gonna die, and wants to piss on all the buildings. His "legacy" of rot and gold paint.
Right! I have been saying all along that he is lifting his leg over everything, like a male dog, especially in the White House and now on The Kennedy Center, to mark his territory.
He needs to learn the hard way that it ISN’T his. #NoKings in the USA!
Lol, Sandy! 😆 Perfect!
Argh! And he promised the Kennedy Center beautiful marble armrests … 🙄
I think he's also big mad that his bald head is showing through the thinning yellow whatever he is trying to cover it with. And NONE of that goes with the burnt sienna makeup on his face that doesn't reach his ears. He has become a caricature.
Well said.
Because the Dumpster needs a fig-leaf excuse to shutter it to avoid further embarrassment, duh.
May also want to give it the Temu Saddam makeover while he's at it, like he now does with everything he sees as his property...
To put in those marble armrests he displayed as well as to find places for his lost marbles.
Because Trump is unpopular and he wants to hide that he ruined it by pretending the opposite. In "1984" it is called Doublespeak, and Trump is a master of it. You need to understand when he is speaking and when he is using double speak. When he tells young girls he has raped if they tell he will bury them in his golf course with other girls they know who have disappeared he is speaking. When he tells us that he has to remodel the defunct Kennedy Center he is using double speak.
I hope there are plans for 10s of thousands of protesters to surround the Kennedy Center if any demolition equipment starts heading towards it.
He just wants to destroy anything beloved by Democrats
it doesn’t have enough fake gold.
He wants to remake it in his own self image and basically remove all evidence of the true meaning of The Kennedy Center.
So the already screwed-over taxpayers can pay for another tRump boondoggle! I’m sure it makes sense in the bizarro world he inhabits.
Doesn't any renovation to the Kennedy Center have to go through Congress? What about National Historic trust, etc.? I'm sure it's illegal for him to renovate it, that he'll use taxpayer money for it, and that he'll ignore any laws that say he can't do it.
He was supposed to need the same permissions to tear down the White House. What we lack is enforcement of the laws, but no one foresaw that a president would do any of the things he's been doing.
Because somehow giving Fox propagandists tours that show of costly tacky brick-a-brac will distract from the empty seats and fascism.
Needs more gold plating...or something
Not enough fake gold ornamentation.
So rump can get more $$$ from his rich supporters. Thereby more $$$ in his pocket!
Jesus would have done what Don Lemon did. We must disrupt white supremacy and Christofascism in churches. I wrote a poem for Don, inspired by his bravery: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/don-lemon-poem
Trafficking in children is a goddamn crime and I don’t see the good judge locking these bastards up for their criminal behavior. He certainly could have instructed his clerk to advise the police of this crime and get the ball moving.
To keep on saying,”you’re a bad boy, you really bad boy, bad, bad boy, oh no you bad boy.”
That shit ain’t gonna cut it no more.
But we can’t even get the system to force this
ped🤡phile to register.
I mean, OMG, even a little children clutch at their mother‘s waist when they sense 🍤🤡🍄
AMBIENCE, a stench coming ever closer👺
How right you are. What's blowing my mind is how everyone in Congress and the Media carry on like this is just any other day. Can you IMAGINE!!!!! the outrage from Congress and Media if that was Barack Obama---24/7 we'd never hear the end of it. And that REALLY pisses me off!
I think a lot of this is prompted by partisan reporting by Fox and NewsMax, which have a stake in keeping us divided to capture a large audience of conservatives from the MSM and demonizing them. With a larger audience, they can steal or attract sponsors and receive more advertising dollars, hence bigger executive salaries.
An earlier version of this piece mistakenly stated that Judge Fred Biery was a Republican appointee. He was appointed by Bill Clinton. I have deleted that error.
Thank you, Billie Eilish, for finally stating the ironic fact that we not only stole this land from the indigenous peoples, slaughtering them and relegating the survivors to the least arable and livable spaces in the country, but also, we are either ALL illegals or NONE of us are.
Beautiful: “No one is illegal on stolen land.”
Plus, the notion that a human being “is illegal” merely due to their country of origin, ethnicity and culture rankles me. It’s immoral and amoral thinking.
Could it be that DHS is so full of white nationalists they “leaked” the names of two Latinos? That should send chills to any collaborators.
Also: funny typo, Jay. “Stealing the spines”? If they still have them I think we’re hoping they’d be steeled.
ICE may be losing the public narrative, but that doesn’t stop the machinery. Culture can turn, judges can scold, even unlikely voices can defect, and ICE can still keep operating through the quieter channels that don’t make headlines.
That’s what scares me in places like Nevada: the under-the-radar pipeline. Local jails are paid to hold people, rosters get reviewed, detainers get issued, and people who are already in custody can be quietly transferred into federal detention far from their families and lawyers. So yes, they may be losing “permission” in the culture, but we have to watch the logistics and local cooperation, because that’s where the harm keeps happening when the cameras move on. 287g is alive and flourishing in my state of Nevada.
So damned true. We must all be vigilant in our communities.
Nuremberg Principle IV: Acting under orders does not relieve a person of responsibility.
Thank you as always, Jay! One thought: "nor should you demonize victims for having a licensed firearm on their person at the time you shoot them in the back." Those agents illegally confiscated that licensed, holstered weapon and *then* shot him multiple times in the back--when he was already pepper-sprayed, on the ground, and disarmed.
I can’t wait for the superbowl! I don’t like football really, but Green Day (I LOVE Green Day) and Bad Bunny: this should be good. GD vociferously despise trump and BB, well, he’s been pretty clear, too!
Ooh, good one on the Titanic!
Paraphrasing what I saw elsewhere: Ah yes, the Titanic... a vessel famous for turning around and safely avoiding obstacles.
On steeling their spines - We mapped all the congressional reps who voted to give a blank check to ICE on this map and how to call them with one click. The map also highlights how Republicans have cut money from healthcare to fund ICE and give tax cuts to billionaires.
Republicans Cut Your Healthcare To Fund ICE And Give Tax Cuts To Musk: Follow The Money
https://thedemlabs.org/2026/02/01/healthcare-cuts-fund-ice-billionaire-tax-breaks/
"No taxation without representation" - Why should people like Renee Good have to pay taxes that Republicans then divert to pay ICE agents like Jonathan Ross who kill them. And on top of that Republicans are pushign voter suppression that makes it harder for victims of ICE to vote to change things. "No taxation without representation" is a message most Americans can support especially with rogue, military force like ICE.
i don't agree with the comment that we may have to endure ICE for months if not years. "they" created it, they can control it and dismantle it if they chose. Just like they fired all the federal employees. do the same here- either reform it or get rid of it and the unqualified people they hired to do this dirty work of the regime.
I just doubt “they” will do anything to rein ice in
I sincerely hope you are wrong
“Waste, fraud, abuse.”
Again, thank you, Jay. Common sense is going to eventually prevail in the country. Murdering citizens and kidnapping little kids is finally sinking in with people like Rogan. Coming around late is better than never at all. It says maybe there's hope for his other supporters to see the light. Maybe.
Just a thing about Joe Rogan, he is pretty supportive of ICE if you listen to more than clips. It's hard, but I listened to a recent whole 10 minutes, ugh. He was feeling bad for ICE agents, "using" statistics to claim that they have likely removed "thousands of bad criminals", I had to take a shower after that.
Or two or three, I imagine…
Eucalyptus scented soap or bodywash cuts that smell fast.
This saga is becoming almost allegorical. "Good" and "Pretti" killed, ICE sinks the Vance Titanic.
Great article, Jay. Some protesters have the best idea: if we starve this govt as artists and patrons starved the Kennedy Center, maybe we can "close it down" too. Problem is, many people are so mindless about the fact they could soon be living in "North Korea" that they would be INCONVENIENCED by participating in a strike.
Basics....to win a war, you must win hearts and minds
He has done the opposite
Creating MARTYRS, Renee Good, Alex Pretty, murdered. 5 year old Liam Ramos kidnapped
Fatal mistakes
He acts that way because HE HAS NO HEART NOR BRAINS
Our courage. Empty, stinking, sack of excrement.
I love you Jay Kuo and your message.