DL Open Thread: Saturday, January 31, 2026

ICE Thugs Ignore The Memo:

On Friday, federal agents arrested Ian Austin, an Army veteran and ICE protester who was featured in a recent viral Mother Jones video.

Austin was among the dozens of protesters who, nearly two weeks ago, interrupted a service at a church in St. Paul, where a local ICE official serves as a pastor. Since then, federal officials have been targeting those involved in the demonstration—including, today, journalist Don Lemon—and arresting them on federal charges.

I met Austin last week outside the Whipple Federal Building, where ICE operations are based and where there has been a standing protest for weeks. I was struck by the honesty and vulnerability he brought to the conversation; he was brought to tears by how betrayed he felt by the government he had fought for.

“When they say, ‘Why would you be out here?’ How the fuck could I not be out here?” he said at the time. “My nation is under attack.”

A few days earlier, Austin had been tackled and arrested for peacefully protesting outside the same building. He was detained for several hours—in shackles—before being released without charges.

In the days after we met, as news broke that some protesters from the church demonstration had been arrested, I checked in with Austin. Was he worried that he’d be next? “It’s fucking emotional as hell, and it’s scary,” he said over the phone, “but I’m not going to live in fear.” He added, “You guys want to arrest me for protesting and expressing our First Amendment rights in a church?…I’ll go down with the ship.”

Austin was arrested on Friday outside the Whipple Building. Sarah Gad, a Minneapolis defense attorney who was there to see another client, happened to witness the arrest and was able to speak with him afterwards for a few minutes.

“Federal agents just kind of swarmed this young man,” she said. “He wasn’t shouting or being boisterous. It just seemed like they were looking for him and they found him and they just kind of pounced.”

Call it whatever you want.  I call it Fascism.  BTW, the people of Minneapolis are already DL’s ‘Person Of The Year’.

Of Course She’s Canadian:

When Laura Wittmann decided this week to submit her resignation from Uline, the giant office supply company owned by two of the biggest donors to Donald Trump’s 2024 election and other Maga Republicans, she did not hold back.

“As America descends rapidly into fascism,” Wittmann wrote in a two-page company-wide email sent on Wednesday, “I can no longer work to grow the personal fortunes of people who helped make it so.”

Working for the multibillion-dollar privately held company had become untenable for the 32-year-old Canadian in the aftermath of the recent killing of Renee Good, a mother, and Alex Pretti, a VA nurse, by border patrol agents in Minneapolis, she told the Guardian in an interview.

“The most insidious form of evil is that which hides behind outward decorum, concealing the violence of its intent behind written policy, monetary donations, and old-fashioned principle. It’s easy to see the evil of those who are outwardly violent, tactless, and crude, but it’s harder to see the evil of the frail old man and his wife, who comes around once a year to rearrange our paintings,” she wrote.

The political activities of the Uihleins, who recently hosted a speech by Vice-President JD Vance in their Allentown, Pennsylvania, facility, are well known.

The couple are ranked as the fourth largest donors in the 2024 election cycle, having donated $139m to Maga Republicans and their political action committees, according to Opensecrets, which tracks money in politics.

Liz Uihlein in particular is known for the pointed letters she includes in the company’s thick hundred-pages long catalogues, which she signs. One missive in 2022 criticized workers who were leaving the company after less than two years of employment, given the “precious resources” used to train them.

$139 million.  Now that’s free speech, according to the Supreme Court.

The Complete Epstein Document Dump Isn’t.  Complete, that is.  Not by a long-shot:

Deputy Attorney General—and, of course, President Donald Trump’s former criminal defense attorney—Todd Blanche begrudgingly made a television appearance Friday to say that, fine, the Justice Department will release some Epstein documents. Happy now?

According to Blanche, after releasing 3 million of the 6 million Epstein files, the DOJ’s work here is done. That’s because, per Blanche, 50% of those documents were not “responsive” and therefore will not be released. 

However, there is no provision in the Epstein Files Transparency Act for a determination of responsiveness. Put another way, the DOJ doesn’t have the leeway to decide whether something in its possession is relevant or meaningful enough to include. 

And that’s just the cost to purchase the buildings—ICE also has to pay to turn them into jails with bathrooms, beds, dining, and recreation facilities. A third warehouse purchase in El Paso, Texas, could be one of the largest jails in the United States when completed, housing 8,500 beds.

ICE plans to use up to 23 warehouses around the country to detain immigrants in even more cities, including in Minnesota, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The new strategy is a shift for ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, which has been relying on many tent camps, such as the notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” in south Florida.

People who live near the proposed jails are pushing back against the plan, with protesters showing up in Hagerstown to protest on January 20 despite freezing temperatures. In Oklahoma City, the owners of a warehouse backed out of a deal Thursday to build an ICE facility, following local backlash to the plan. Similarly, the owners of a warehouse in Salt Lake City announced they had “no plans to sell or lease the property in question to the federal government” after protesters showed up at their offices.

Finally, Some Sense Of Compassion From Mayor Carney:

The William “Hicks” Anderson Community Center sheltered about 150 people experiencing homelessness through last weekend’s snowstorm and its aftermath.

Mayor John Carney held a meeting with city staff ahead of the storm to discuss housing people experiencing homelessness.

Carney opened Christina Park to unhoused individuals last year (and closed everywhere else), and city staff helped those residents and others get to shelter over the weekend. The Hicks Community Center sheltered about 150 people from Saturday to Tuesday.

Wilmington Parks and Recreation Director Melody Phillips said she was beyond pleased with the results of opening Hicks to the community for the first time.

“Oh my goodness, when I tell you that all the individuals who came for shelter were so happy and warm and welcoming and signing their intake forms,” Phillips said. “And we didn’t have any challenges or anything.”

Friendship House helps the city manage Christina Park, and their staff helped make the residents comfortable. They provided snacks and soup to the residents before seeing them out Tuesday.

Phillips said the guests are now spread out between local shelters, hotels and churches. The city and Police Department are doing sweeps at Christina Park to make sure individuals get out of the cold and into local shelters.

Phillips added it’s possible the community center could open back up as a shelter if another storm comes through.

Half A Loaf On Reassessment:

The Delaware legislature passed one half of a two-bill package Thursday that would give New Castle County new authority to review the results of its much maligned property reassessment.

That first bill, Senate Bill 228, gives New Castle County the ability to temporarily expand the authority of its Office of Finance to conduct “quality control” reviews of its commercial property assessments. 

Rep. Cyndie Romer (D-Newark), the House sponsor of SB 228, said she saw an unwillingness from New Castle County to investigate “clear outliers” after Delaware’s first-in-a-generation property reassessment. Her legislation is meant to explicitly give county officials the authority to look into commercial properties that were seemingly undervalued.

But House Majority Leader Kerri Evelyn Harris (D-Dover) said concerns about ensuring “due process” for business owners stopped lawmakers from holding a vote on the second bill, Senate Bill 230, which would give New Castle County officials the power to subpoena certain businesses for records showing the income earned from their properties.

What do you want to talk about?