Not just the Superbowl...any day of the week without immigrants would change life in this country in ways they cannot fathom and which they would ultimately find intolerable. Then the rest of us would have to listen to them bitching and moaning, and blaming Biden for some reason.
Please don’t fall into the tribalism trap. Both parties bear responsibility for the immigration policy mess.
“But then he is hardly likely to be overly critical of a monster he helped create.
It was Obama who inherited ICE as a fledgling agency and proceeded to increase its budget 300%. It was under Obama that ICE established a nationwide network of detention centres and expanded the 'secure communities' enforcement program from 14 counties to all 3,181 legal jurisdictions in America.
It was Obama who first hired Thomas Homan, now Trump’s border czar.
It was Obama who awarded Homan a presidential rank award, the highest civil service award in the US, given to him for ‘extraordinary results,’ which included record-high deportations.
It was Obama who expanded and normalised ICE, handing Trump the tools for a domestic terror force.
It was under Obama that the use of special Pentagon programs facilitating the transfer of military weapons to domestic security forces massively accelerated, going from around $80 million worth of equipment in 2007 to nearly half a billion dollars by 2015.
Which is why the responses to events in Minneapolis laying everything at the feet of Trump are so fraudulent, so full of denial and wishful thinking.
The murders of Good and Pretti can be traced back directly to Obama and the architecture of domestic terror he played a central role in establishing.”
Hmm. It must have been in one of the translations. I didn't see "Biden" or "they/them" in Corbin's post at all (unless you were responding to something Victoria said). If so, my bad.
Well, then let's blame Obama. Wait...Obama did not rule by fiat and executive action and did not have a neutered Congress granting him his every whim. In those days, the Executive office was one of three branches of government and pretty much stayed in it's lane regarding it's authority. The purse strings were controlled by Congress. The Dems had House and Senate for the first 2 years, but from 2011 to 2017 the House was Republican and from 2015-2017 so was the Senate, so they controlled the financing and the domestic agenda - hence a massive build-up of military weapons and passage of right wing policy goals. In the first year of his second term Obama deported approximately 400,000 undocumented immigrants, of which, nearly half had violent criminal records. He did this without death camps, terrorizing communities or executing civilians in the streets. According to independent analysis (the administration's wildly exaggerated figures are unreliable as there is no evidence of their claims) Trump has deported approximately the same number of undocumented immigrants in the same time frame. However, he has established death camps, terrorized communities and facilitated the execution of civilians. According to the Cato Institute as of October 2025, 73% of those detained by DHS have NO criminal record, 5% have violent criminal histories and the remaining percentage have misdemeanor infractions. Do I approve of the deportation policies during the Obama administration? No, but there is a very apparent and important qualitative difference in how the Obama administration conducted deportation efforts vs that of the Trump administration. Finally, even Trump apologists must recognize that he is targeting blue cities and states and promoting excessive violence in doing so. Why? Because his revenge tour includes punishing those who do not capitulate to him. While both Democratic and Republican administrations have failed on the immigration issue, it is the Trump administration that has inflicted unprecedented brutality, cruelty and illegality while carrying out it's "deportation" program. Trying to blame a president who has been out of office for 9 years for the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti seems disingenuous.
What is disingenuous is writing things like ‘In those days, the Executive office was one of three branches of government and pretty much stayed in its lane regarding its authority.’ Assassination of American citizens was so Cheney… I mean Obama. Snowden much?
We’re never going to get out of this mess by pointing a finger at the other side and using ‘you suck worse’ as definitive critique.
You can get as defensive as you want, but until the liberal class can admit to itself that the Clintons and Obamas were just as responsible for the current dysfunctional horrors as the Bushs and Trumps, and as vociferously rail against, when it’s favored party is in power, government overreach/ineptitude when it comes to endless war, surveillance/privacy, and corporate totalitarianism, nothing fundamentally changes, or gets substantively fixed.
Touched a nerve much? My comment wasn't defensive, just factual. If you honestly see no difference between the Obama administration and the Trump administration, you either aren't paying attention or you have an agenda. In either case, I wish you peace, calm and clarity. Have a great day!
My nerves are raw from the betrayal of the Democratic Party from its FDR prioritization of people over profit to the Clinton/Obama bend over to monied interest donors, which, since you aren’t paying attention, and do have a siloed agenda, is distinction without difference in comparison to the GOP state of corporate fealty.
I have (relative) peace, calm, and clarity. It’s why I recognize the Biden/Harris support of genocide, surveillance, and imperial global hegemony was as evil as the Trump/Vance one is, and why neither received my vote.
Gutless bought and paid for corporatist cowards vs. authoritarian assholes. Different? Depends on the day, and which way the wind blows. Supporting/defending either is a mistake, imo.
“As for who you should vote for, why turn to me for the answer? You already know what you need to know, and now it is up to you to face yourself in the privacy of the ballot box, just as the faithful are, in the end, alone with their own conscience. But the problem is that the metaphor of one’s vote as a matter of the lesser or greater evil is, for too many Americans, simply a metaphor. How many Americans will choose the lesser evil and recognize that it is not a metaphor but is, in fact, evil? And will then choose to fight not only the greater evil but the lesser evil as well? Fighting a greater evil provides reassuring moral and political clarity. Fighting the lesser evil would mean recognizing the ultimate unity of the Quiet American and the Ugly American, archetypes of this country from its very origins, when settlers arrived in the Garden of Eden and imagined themselves as Adam and Eve, when they were, in fact, the serpent.”
– from “Lesser of Two Evils? Our Fight Is Against Both, No Matter How We Vote”, an essential read, by Pulitzer Prize Winner Viet Thanh Nguyen
I'm glad you have "(relative) peace, calm and clarity". It's important in these trying times that we are able to regulate our emotions and focus our attention and energy on the immediate issues and crises we are facing right now, at this moment in time. I hope you have a good evening, and thank you for the reading suggestion.
The troublemakers in society are some of the most ungrateful in existence.
Removing that which they take for granted - all of it - might be the shock they need to humble their dumb, selfish, cowardly selves. And I'm not being cruel, just factual.
The other morning I woke up thinking that we'd know that Americans were really serious about defending democracy if we cancelled the Super Bowl---completely. And it shouldn't just be Immigrants, documented, or undocumented, it should be the sons and daughters of immigrants ---and then every non-white who has anything to do with it. Let's see what the teams look like when there are no Black players, no foreign-born players, no descendants of immigrants on the field. Let's see how long any place of business could stay open without immigrants. The willful blindness of Americans is staggering.
And since there seems to be blatant disdain for ANYONE of color in the country, let's give the day off WITH PAY to players, coaches, referees, concession stand workers, janitors, etc.
ANYONE who isn't "lily white" doesn't show up for work gets the day off. PAID!
Good idea. Without immigrants my area would not process poultry. Few born here want these jobs. They don't pay well, damage your body over time through repetitive motions. Workplaces stink with innards, blood, and dirty feathers. The price of poultry would rise as the quantity produced drops. That would make snack time at the Super Bowl, or the fast food joint down the road, far more expensive. Just imagine, booting out the immigrants causing inflation. Do you think Stephen Miller, or Trump, even know how we produce food in this country? (I write on this a lot, so if you want to know more see https://wayneteel513055.substack.com)
Yes, pay the workers, and especially caregiver jobs. Also, it is complicated because their clients (let's call them "grandmas") will suffer and maybe even die.
I'd full on agree if Bay Area people, like Minnesota people, were organizing effectively to make sure those who stay home have meals for their families, can pay the bills and don't lose their jobs. Alas. Minnesota is WAY ahead of us. Strikes work only with labor union support or a whole lot of grassroot organizing. Let's pick a date in the future when we're ready and get it done
Fantastic article! If anyone is interested, there is an old movie (2004, Sergio Arau) titled "A Day without a Mexican", a delightful, tongue-in-cheek work with a sharp point. It is worth your time.
12 stars for multi-language post.
Not just the Superbowl...any day of the week without immigrants would change life in this country in ways they cannot fathom and which they would ultimately find intolerable. Then the rest of us would have to listen to them bitching and moaning, and blaming Biden for some reason.
Please don’t fall into the tribalism trap. Both parties bear responsibility for the immigration policy mess.
“But then he is hardly likely to be overly critical of a monster he helped create.
It was Obama who inherited ICE as a fledgling agency and proceeded to increase its budget 300%. It was under Obama that ICE established a nationwide network of detention centres and expanded the 'secure communities' enforcement program from 14 counties to all 3,181 legal jurisdictions in America.
It was Obama who first hired Thomas Homan, now Trump’s border czar.
It was Obama who awarded Homan a presidential rank award, the highest civil service award in the US, given to him for ‘extraordinary results,’ which included record-high deportations.
It was Obama who expanded and normalised ICE, handing Trump the tools for a domestic terror force.
It was under Obama that the use of special Pentagon programs facilitating the transfer of military weapons to domestic security forces massively accelerated, going from around $80 million worth of equipment in 2007 to nearly half a billion dollars by 2015.
Which is why the responses to events in Minneapolis laying everything at the feet of Trump are so fraudulent, so full of denial and wishful thinking.
The murders of Good and Pretti can be traced back directly to Obama and the architecture of domestic terror he played a central role in establishing.”
https://www.donotpanic.news/p/a-very-american-execution?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1402572&post_id=185938868&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=eov1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Gee. . . I didn’t read anything in this post about political parties. I don’t think the words “Democrat” or “Republican” appeared once.
Gee… your comment reading awareness needs remedial refreshment. The words ‘they/them’ and ‘Biden’ did apppear.
Gee..Is they/them and Biden synonymous with ObamaObamaObama in your comment?
No, but it is synonymous with ‘political parties’.
Gee.
Hmm. It must have been in one of the translations. I didn't see "Biden" or "they/them" in Corbin's post at all (unless you were responding to something Victoria said). If so, my bad.
It was a response to V. No problem.
Well, then let's blame Obama. Wait...Obama did not rule by fiat and executive action and did not have a neutered Congress granting him his every whim. In those days, the Executive office was one of three branches of government and pretty much stayed in it's lane regarding it's authority. The purse strings were controlled by Congress. The Dems had House and Senate for the first 2 years, but from 2011 to 2017 the House was Republican and from 2015-2017 so was the Senate, so they controlled the financing and the domestic agenda - hence a massive build-up of military weapons and passage of right wing policy goals. In the first year of his second term Obama deported approximately 400,000 undocumented immigrants, of which, nearly half had violent criminal records. He did this without death camps, terrorizing communities or executing civilians in the streets. According to independent analysis (the administration's wildly exaggerated figures are unreliable as there is no evidence of their claims) Trump has deported approximately the same number of undocumented immigrants in the same time frame. However, he has established death camps, terrorized communities and facilitated the execution of civilians. According to the Cato Institute as of October 2025, 73% of those detained by DHS have NO criminal record, 5% have violent criminal histories and the remaining percentage have misdemeanor infractions. Do I approve of the deportation policies during the Obama administration? No, but there is a very apparent and important qualitative difference in how the Obama administration conducted deportation efforts vs that of the Trump administration. Finally, even Trump apologists must recognize that he is targeting blue cities and states and promoting excessive violence in doing so. Why? Because his revenge tour includes punishing those who do not capitulate to him. While both Democratic and Republican administrations have failed on the immigration issue, it is the Trump administration that has inflicted unprecedented brutality, cruelty and illegality while carrying out it's "deportation" program. Trying to blame a president who has been out of office for 9 years for the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti seems disingenuous.
What is disingenuous is writing things like ‘In those days, the Executive office was one of three branches of government and pretty much stayed in its lane regarding its authority.’ Assassination of American citizens was so Cheney… I mean Obama. Snowden much?
We’re never going to get out of this mess by pointing a finger at the other side and using ‘you suck worse’ as definitive critique.
You can get as defensive as you want, but until the liberal class can admit to itself that the Clintons and Obamas were just as responsible for the current dysfunctional horrors as the Bushs and Trumps, and as vociferously rail against, when it’s favored party is in power, government overreach/ineptitude when it comes to endless war, surveillance/privacy, and corporate totalitarianism, nothing fundamentally changes, or gets substantively fixed.
Touched a nerve much? My comment wasn't defensive, just factual. If you honestly see no difference between the Obama administration and the Trump administration, you either aren't paying attention or you have an agenda. In either case, I wish you peace, calm and clarity. Have a great day!
My nerves are raw from the betrayal of the Democratic Party from its FDR prioritization of people over profit to the Clinton/Obama bend over to monied interest donors, which, since you aren’t paying attention, and do have a siloed agenda, is distinction without difference in comparison to the GOP state of corporate fealty.
I have (relative) peace, calm, and clarity. It’s why I recognize the Biden/Harris support of genocide, surveillance, and imperial global hegemony was as evil as the Trump/Vance one is, and why neither received my vote.
Gutless bought and paid for corporatist cowards vs. authoritarian assholes. Different? Depends on the day, and which way the wind blows. Supporting/defending either is a mistake, imo.
“As for who you should vote for, why turn to me for the answer? You already know what you need to know, and now it is up to you to face yourself in the privacy of the ballot box, just as the faithful are, in the end, alone with their own conscience. But the problem is that the metaphor of one’s vote as a matter of the lesser or greater evil is, for too many Americans, simply a metaphor. How many Americans will choose the lesser evil and recognize that it is not a metaphor but is, in fact, evil? And will then choose to fight not only the greater evil but the lesser evil as well? Fighting a greater evil provides reassuring moral and political clarity. Fighting the lesser evil would mean recognizing the ultimate unity of the Quiet American and the Ugly American, archetypes of this country from its very origins, when settlers arrived in the Garden of Eden and imagined themselves as Adam and Eve, when they were, in fact, the serpent.”
– from “Lesser of Two Evils? Our Fight Is Against Both, No Matter How We Vote”, an essential read, by Pulitzer Prize Winner Viet Thanh Nguyen
I'm glad you have "(relative) peace, calm and clarity". It's important in these trying times that we are able to regulate our emotions and focus our attention and energy on the immediate issues and crises we are facing right now, at this moment in time. I hope you have a good evening, and thank you for the reading suggestion.
Wow. 😱
Good point. Good idea.
The troublemakers in society are some of the most ungrateful in existence.
Removing that which they take for granted - all of it - might be the shock they need to humble their dumb, selfish, cowardly selves. And I'm not being cruel, just factual.
The other morning I woke up thinking that we'd know that Americans were really serious about defending democracy if we cancelled the Super Bowl---completely. And it shouldn't just be Immigrants, documented, or undocumented, it should be the sons and daughters of immigrants ---and then every non-white who has anything to do with it. Let's see what the teams look like when there are no Black players, no foreign-born players, no descendants of immigrants on the field. Let's see how long any place of business could stay open without immigrants. The willful blindness of Americans is staggering.
Or, watch A Day Without A Mexican
I would pay an immigrant not to work on Super Bowl Sunday. I would bet what is paid is what I could afford.
Speaking of 'pay': The farmers here pay ICE not to deport their workers. SO Trump has fostered yet another criminal market in the US.
And since there seems to be blatant disdain for ANYONE of color in the country, let's give the day off WITH PAY to players, coaches, referees, concession stand workers, janitors, etc.
ANYONE who isn't "lily white" doesn't show up for work gets the day off. PAID!
Time to bring back kneeling for the national anthem?
Good idea. Without immigrants my area would not process poultry. Few born here want these jobs. They don't pay well, damage your body over time through repetitive motions. Workplaces stink with innards, blood, and dirty feathers. The price of poultry would rise as the quantity produced drops. That would make snack time at the Super Bowl, or the fast food joint down the road, far more expensive. Just imagine, booting out the immigrants causing inflation. Do you think Stephen Miller, or Trump, even know how we produce food in this country? (I write on this a lot, so if you want to know more see https://wayneteel513055.substack.com)
Is there a way for the “Strikers” to get paid? Some of these workers are doing 2 & 3 shifts, as it is.
I was wondering if there’s a way to ensure the “Strikers” receive their pay? It seems like some of them are already working two and three shifts.
Yes, pay the workers, and especially caregiver jobs. Also, it is complicated because their clients (let's call them "grandmas") will suffer and maybe even die.
Love this idea. Hope it works.
I'd full on agree if Bay Area people, like Minnesota people, were organizing effectively to make sure those who stay home have meals for their families, can pay the bills and don't lose their jobs. Alas. Minnesota is WAY ahead of us. Strikes work only with labor union support or a whole lot of grassroot organizing. Let's pick a date in the future when we're ready and get it done
Fantastic article! If anyone is interested, there is an old movie (2004, Sergio Arau) titled "A Day without a Mexican", a delightful, tongue-in-cheek work with a sharp point. It is worth your time.
Trump could never have built his hotel empire without immigrant labor. And how many undocumented immigrants work at Mar-a-Lago?
I haven't watched a Superbowl since Fran Tarkington played for the Vikings.
I mow my own lawn
I do my own house repairs
I have a garden
That’s my point. You reckon you’re self sufficient. You’re not. I’m not. None of us are. We’re tied together.