Wednesday, February 25, 2026

Milkfat

Studies have failed to consistently confirm that dairy fat is bad for you, with some suggesting that it's good for you.

Article suggests that butter is probably still bad for you (it's just all saturated fat) but there's scant evidence for that either.  (I've cut out butter, but I daily consume several teaspoons of cream--which I think is healthier and tastier.  All the rest of my considerable dairy intake is non-fat.  I use olive oil for all other purposes.)

It was saturated fat from meats which is the troublesome one.  But the harm of that has probably also been overstated.

Sugar and it's disorder Metabolic Syndrome (Type II Diabetes) are leading factors in the research I have seen.  Sugar is not going to be proven healthy, except in tiny amounts promoting hydration (which is healthy).  The Sugar industry funded the research that led to blanket condemnation of saturated fats, which are typically a secondary concern.  This led to a generation of low-fat products with extra sugar and soaring diabetes.

I'd call into question the entire HDL/LDL cholesterol theory too.  Research I've seen suggests these are fairly unimportant, and insignificant for people over 65.  And yet, there's now a whole industry related to this, at least two of my senior friends with very healthy diets are statin taking statin drugs.  (I took statin drugs for 15 years while I was still working and eating very unhealthy amounts of fat and sugar and not getting enough exercise either.  In those conditions, statins could be marginally helpful overall, I believe now, but probably not others).  I see this as an example of over-medication.  Older people actually need to consume more fat (also protein and calcium) per kg of body weight for regular body maintenance because it's used less effectively.  Old people have a strong tendency to get too thin and weak because they don't bear this in mind.

People imagine heart disease as a simple accumulation of fatty stuff eaten, but that's not at all the case.  Some with the highest saturated fat intakes may have the least issues.  It seems most likely now that heart disease is some sort of regulatory failure or autoimmune disease and may be related to subclinical infections that flourish in the environment of sugar, metabolic disease, and stress, with fats being only of secondary or tertiary importance.

It's easy to find lots of correlations around the illuminated lamp pole of things you can measure easily.  Especially when there are areas like sugar and stress that are blacked out by the Sugar Industry and Capitalism.




Glyphosate

Glyphosate (the original herbicide in Roundup, now only in commercial versions) is defended here:  The actual evidence for harm to humans is thin.  It is also somewhat biodegradable.  However it is used in such vast quantities that I'd still be worried and it is destructive of all plants until degraded.


Don't Fight. Love!

Not fighting for anything is perfectly fine in my book.  Not fighting for something evil is even better.  Love, solidarity, and resistance are the most ethical tools, and the only ones that goodness will ever demand.

I wrote this on a thread showing multitudes of Jewish anti-Zionists protesting against Israel.  These scenes are real (confirmed by Grok).  I've seen many other (often mind blowing) protests and gatherings by anti-Zionist orthodox Jews (filling giant stadiums, dancing with joy while burning Israeli flags).

https://x.com/voiceofrabbis/status/2026493784004194644

It should also be noted that deep leftist (Socialist and Communist) Jews have also always opposed Zionism.  Only bourgeois liberals and conservatives were sucked in.  (And perhaps a few anarchist romantics, like the young Noam Chomsky, though it's hard to see how someone so rational and intelligent could have been so fooled.)

I was replying to a Zionist on that thread who wrote criticizing these anti-Zionist orthodox Jews.  She wrote, "Orthodox Jews don't believe in fighting for anything.  They were the first to bard the Umshlagplatz and walk peacefully into the "Showers."  Sabras fight for their country, and defend Israelis, whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim."  I'd also argue with the veracity of that claim, Zionists fight for Zionists and persecute or slaughter everyone else.  And this includes the persecution of anti-Zionist Jews in their midst.

(And perhaps murder too?  It is interesting that the Jewish temple in Australia that was bombed in 2025 was also an anti-Zionist synagogue.  Why did the bombers pick that one?  It's already well known that a Muslim was one of the key defenders.)

What then would I say about noble "defenders."  I can't think of any such in US history, US was born in genocide and has spent most of it's existence fighting imperialist wars.  I might well have been better off born in the lands of my ancestors, including Norway.  But there are some I'd consider noble, like the Vietnamese, defending their homeland first against French imperialists and later US imperialists.  What about them?*

I still believe that goodness does not demand killing other people.  There is no cause, even personal self defense, defense of children, defense of Country (ie regime) which goodness demands killing other people for.  One can be a conscientious objector to the very end, and I believe that's perfectly fine, even probably the best option always.

But I would hold that goodness turns a blind eye to limited violence and murder which are done in the name of honorable self defense--including defense of one's own life and 'country'--assuming you or they are not engaged in commensurate evil as well.  So, at best, goodness neither celebrates nor condemns honorable self defense.  Because we live in our own self-justifying information bubbles, it can be a tough calculation to apply violence when and only when it is ethically permissible.  Goodness does not require that we be capable of such calculations.  Meanwhile, conscientious objection is always good, and I believe it is always the best approach.  We don't need to put our stamp on the world.  The world will evolve just as well without such stamps, even if they are honorable ones.

(*The Vietnamese example is the best one, and there are many others clearly similar to that.  I would go further and argue that the Russian Invasion of Ukraine was also done in justifiable and honorable self-defense of Russia and Russians in formerly Russian territories, while Ukrainian fighting for Donbas and Crimea and NATO membership is not, it is an extension of Western Imperialism.  As I said, these calculations can be difficult, but that's the way I see it.  Pure goodness would neither praise nor condemn Russian self defense, but I am not pure goodness and I see Western Imperialism as the ultimate evil of our time and so I praise Russia for resisting it.)

Monday, February 16, 2026

Epstein's Biggest Crime

 In my book, Epstein's #1 crime was that he was a spy for CIA, Mossad, and many uber Zionists.  He ran a honeypot, as well as a friendly concierge service (always willing to help out friends as only a billionaire could do) to help friends of Israel and keep them in the fold.  He was originally set up by an uber Zionist billionaire, Les Wexner, precisely for this purpose. Then later he represented  (officially--he had power of attorney) the Rothschild family (the surname mentioned more than any other in the Epstein Files.  The Rothschild family is so Zionist that the Balfour Declaration itself was a letter written to Lord Rothschild.). There was nobody better better than Epstein at being the speed dial of everyone important or well known.  He'd get you one way or another, and with the photos to prove he did.  This was his most criminal work precisely because Israel is a state of genocide, endless war, and endless global manipulation.  It doesn't get worse than that.  Of course Epstein could never be charged with such a crime in the West which is firmly in the grasp of Zionism.  It would never be a media sensation here.  Well, it got some notice, except they claim he was a Russian Spy.   Anything but CIA and Mossad.   Western Law Enforcement doesn't step on CIA and Mossad.

FAIR has a useful article contrasting how media reports Epstein's ties to Israelis differently than his (far fewer) ties to Russians.

But when I suggest such things, some people rise up and shout, "But what about the sex crimes!"

Contrarian (and now Epstein defender) Michael Tracy is a good read on this.  He's a very careful and nit picking journalist.  I'm not necessarily saying his view is complete, he has many blinders, and we have completely different takes on this overall.  He's written this ostensibly to defend Noam Chomsky, but using that to unwind the sex scandal part of the entire Epstein story in very nit picking precise terms.

I think exaggeration of the sex crimes is key to obscuring Epstein's true role.

Consistently calling him a pedophile*, which has a very well defined meaning which does not actually apply to Epstein, makes him sound like a out-of-control pervert, ie "lone nut."  In reality, he was a very much in-control pimp of minor teenage girls for "massages", as he would have to be to run a honeypot entrapping powerful men over the longest possible period of time.  It is quite possible over time it evolved, and NYTimes describes it, into a concierge service. one way or another, he was a high powered friend and fixer for the friends of Israel.

In 2008, Epstein accepted a plea bargain in which he confessed to having sex with a 17 year old girl on the eve of her 18th birthday.  She  had been giving him $200 massages while he masturbated himself for almost a year, that has always been his standard practice.  His Florida conviction was for Soliciting an Underage Prostitute.  In the light of that one particular crime (many others had been alleged but the government chose not to prosecute) his light sentencing doesn't seem that out of line.  This is the only sex crime Epstein has ever been convicted of.  It's an offensive offense, but it's not incredibly deviant or destructive.  As Noam Chomsky observed, he served time for his offense and has been returned to society a free man.

(Epstein's widely documented as claimed preference was for 14-18 year olds.  Pedophilia is technically attraction to the pre-pubescent.  This is the kind of crime that priests are often accused of.  Epstein's attraction is better described as Ephibophilia.  Attraction to post-pubescent minors 14-19 is called ephibophila, and 13-14 is called Hebephilia, though the latter term is most rarely used.  These could be considered less "deviant," even "normal," in fact there is no mental disorder classification for them.  Meanwhile the Age of Consent is socially defined, and it determines legality of sex with minors.  US States range from 14-18.  In the world at large, 14-16 is the most common range.  In China, it's 14.  In Cuba, it's 12.  This is not to say that what works in Cuba would necessarily work in Florida, where the Age of Consent is 18.  It both is and should be socially defined.  French Existentialists including one Feminist signed a petition to eliminate the Age of Consent entirely in the 1970's.  In principle, for the greatest personal freedom, the age of consent should be as low as possible.  That isn't the only consideration however.  Epstein personally argued it should be 14, which he felt had a historical basis, as it actually does.)

However, unlike Tracy, I have absolutely no problem at all with the final charge that the US Attorney had given Epstein in 2019 and for which he was awaiting prosecution in federal jail.  It fits my model of him (above) completely.*  And it fits completely all the Epstein files we've been allowed to see.  And what was that charge?  Minor Sex Trafficking.

(*Of course the FBI also "found" that no other men were involved.  In effect, denying it was a honeypot, or could even be.  Well, since the honeypot involved CIA and Mossad, of course they would do that.  I take the FBI denial, amidst all the circumstantial evidence to believe he was doing just that, as proof.  This is how I differ from Michael Tracy above, he lacks imagination to see how CIA and Mossad would operate, and the FBI will steer clear of anything involving them, and the mainstream media would forward the FBI denials unquestioned.  We can see in the Epstein Files at least one Confidential Human Source who concluded precisely that Epstein was operating an intelligence honeypot.  Tracy also denies hidden cameras, and virtually everything Virginia Giuffre said--indeed FBI concluded she was unreliable and never relied on her and she has herself had even officially retracted some stories.  But there is much more evidence of hidden cameras than just the words of at least occasionally perjurious Giuffre.  And the fact that there is no evidence of the Kompromat...of course, that would always be whisked away immediately to its sponsors, and even if some did fall into FBI hands they could be demanded to disavow it by CIA.  Tracy just doesn't seem to get how it works.)

There is no evidence that Epstein used physical force.  His primary tool was offers of money and modeling jobs.  There is perhaps only one claim, never heard in court, that Epstein made a threat (Jane Doe # 2).  But since minors are involved, any transportation with the intent of doing prostitution automatically becomes Trafficking even without physical force or threats.

Now, this is not to say at all what it was like with other men Epstein and Maxwell provided to other mean for "massages."  This whole enterprise wasn't merely to gratify Epstein, he was generally masturbating himself anyway, but to entrap other rich and powerful men, and it was exactly at the right level of criminality to be extremely embarrassing and beyond the pale (admittedly large) of the people on top.  

See the level of outrage at Prince Andrew for (allegedly--an absurdly thin pretext here as there were many gold diggers after Epstein too) observing, along with many others, some 6-7 yo girl get shocked by UK grand madame Ghislaine Maxwell...now his actual arrest cites financial manipulation--that might be more easily established).   Or better yet, the outrage at many many people who nobody accuses of engaging in sex related activities with, for merely associating with that horrible "pedophile" Epstein, who was a very rich and generous philanthropist and helper to his friends, concierge to the ruling Zionist class and leading friendly celebrities.

Most sources say he and his assistants (mostly Ghislaine Maxwell) recruited girls as young as 14, which is consistent with Epstein's stated beliefs that sex with teenage girls 14 and up was not immoral. 

Did Israel let Epstein go?  If they did, it proves nothing, perhaps he'd become inconvenient from too much exposure, perhaps he was even stepping slightly out of bounds.  He'd also backed the wrong horse with Ehud Barak, who was (superficially anyway) conciliatory towards Palestinians compared to Netanyahu.  Netanyahu takes this as proof Barak was working for Russia, though Barak once served as Netanyahu's Defense Minister during the era of Mowing the Lawn in Gaza.

We've seen what happened to a series of people who had been solid Zionists but stepped slightly out of bounds, including JFK, Paul Wellstone, and Charlie Kirk.  If Epstein did no such thing, then it's possible he was rescued and replaced with a dead body double rather than suicided, and he could be still alive and well in Israel today.  All we can be fairly certain of is that he didn't kill himself.  Why should he?  That wouldn't be like him at all.  He was a high flying fixer who solved every problem.  This missing prison video is just enough to explain either hypothesis.  It's not at all surprising he should come to either of these ends.


Thursday, February 5, 2026

Who was Epstein working for?

Epstein was obviously working for Israeli and US intelligence.  So it's not surprising that the increasingly irrelevant western mainstream media--owned and operated by US intelligence and big money zionists--is now trying to pin it on Russia.  This misinformation reaches an older generation, mostly over 60 now, that refuses to believe anything else for news.

Alon Misrahi gives a great synopsis here.  And here.

If Epstein had any dealings with Russia, and he tried, they related to helping western backed opponents to Putin, one of whom we know Epstein was friends with.  Epstein had to struggle to get a Russian visa.  His friend Mandelson tried but failed to get a Russian visa for him.

Meanwhile, Epstein's friends were all Zionists, mostly with Israeli dual citizenship.  Ehud Barak was one of his best friends.  Alan Dershowitz was another.  Epstein stated he represented the Rothschilds.  He helped to mediate deals for Israel.  Epstein frequently used the word Goyum to refer to anti-Zionists.

Wexner, who made Epstein rich, was an uber Zionist who ran a big Zionist lobbying operation.  Epstein's wife was daughter of Israeli superspy Robert Maxwell.

And during Epstein's career, what did Russia get from it?  Russia has only sunk into pariah status in the west while Israel has become more and more untouchable even by the media even during a historic genocide which continues today.

Epstein's mission was accomplished and handed off to Palantir which keeps track of special people.

Western media is more and more proving itself to be a laughing stock.  And that is good, because they've been doing this kind of misdirection for a long time and I hope others will see that more and more.  Such as the fake 'Russiagate' scandals, and all manner of the like, going back 100 years or more, many of which "Liberals" and even "Conservatives" in most cases still take as inerrant truths.  If Russia were as powerful inside the US as Israel, there'd be laws against such knee jerk Russophobia, people would get kicked out of jobs in government and education, etc.

It may be worthy of note that Epstein's "conviction" for pedophilia is rather thin.  His one and only one conviction, part of a plea deal, was with regards to a 17 year old girl who had been working for him for about a year.  She had consensual sex with Epstein just once and on the eve of her 18th birthday.  She did not want to be involved in his prosecution and has never sued Epstein.  Florida is one of only a few US States that has an age of consent at 18, most states put the age of consent at 16 or 17, and most countries in the world set it between 14 and 16.  

Nothing else like this has ever been established in court.  All of those who have sued Epstein admit to having misrepresented their ages to him (which is not a legal defense, but often serves as a deterrent to successful prosecution so authorities usually look for "easier" cases not involving misrepresentation).  Girls coached other girls to lie to him about their age precisely because Epstein himself did not want to be having sex with underage girls (bad for his business) and he asked their ages.

Now, Epstein himself, actually operating a Mossad Honeypot to initiate and entrap western elites, would likely have been more careful than many of his friends.  Merely operating such a "massage" service for elites with flown in minors would have been highly illegal even if Epstein himself never enjoyed the benefits.  Many others, we might well guess, could have.

But I see Epstein's greatest criminality as more being Zionist spy and kingpin than pedophile.  Zionism is Genocidal, that's an absolute, while Age of Consent is socially relative.  And without all the bogus religious moral-speak, when and if it is devoid of other crimes Prostitution is merely another form of Wage Slavery that reactionary societies, as ours is, have made illegal rather than properly regulate.

I feel that same way as I do about Chomsky toward other Epstein friends who were not part of his sex club, like Woody Allen.  Their greater crime was not being friends with a pedophile, which isn't a crime by itself at all, but being part of a central Zionist influence and control network through which Israel supporters have kept policy on track for some time, at least 1964 or so, and now increasingly speech too. 

In Chomsky's case, further denying that Zionists or the Israel Lobby are important in western politics, US policy being only determined by US military and economic needs, he endlessly intoned.  It all becomes very suspicious now.

He's smart enough to know what he was doing here.  That's how he got "universal" recognition as west's greatest intellectual, even in the New York Times, which did shun him for awhile.  By deflecting away from Zionist networks, dismissing conspiracy theories in general (which tend to tilt more towards Zionists nowadays) including JFK's assassination, as well as heaping ire on many of empire's enemies (such as Gaddafi and Assad).   He ultimately served elite interests, while condemning them at the same time, by steering clear of certain things.  Especially Zionists, by moving the blame to the US military and weapons gifts and sales (needless to say, we should be maximally protesting that, as it is "our" responsibility, he was right about that, but keeping our eyes open is important too).  Chomsky was also very anti-Communist.*


By being friends with Epstein, Chomsky shows us he was part of the club.  And he was allowed to be the West's Leading Intellectual precisely because he was right at the edge of the permitted spectrum of opinion, with many he got ideas from being beyond that edge and who are more suppressed.  No one was necessarily telling Chomsky what to think, but he rose in stature and exposure as he continued to tell a cooperative story, with just enough deflections.  Not surprisingly, Epstein did him many favors.

And so on, for all the Epstein friends.  By being his friend, doors were opened for them, and cameras entertained for Epstein, and tapes sent to Mossad.  Not to mention files accumulated by FBI, including prepared by Confidential Human Sources who concluded Epstein was a Spy working for Israel.

Who is the new Epstein?  Funny you should ask.  Epstein himself was prosecuted, incarcerated, and suicided under his first Administration.  That's how mob rule works.  How did the New Epstein get that position?  Much like the old one, bending over for the right people, especially big money Jewish Zionists like Miriam Adelson, just as Epstein had his Lex Wexner.  There may be some shift in the Means and Methods, but the New Epstein has an even larger circle, which includes his kids.

bernard, the proprietor of the virtual online bar known as Moon of Alabama makes some "clarifications" and "corrections" along the lines of Michael Tracy above in the context of defending Noam Chomsky and blasting his newborn critics.  I agree it is not technically correct to call Epstein a Pedophile and especially not a Convicted Pedophile.  His conviction, for which he served a short prison sentence in which he was notoriously allowed to leave 16 hours a day, was for Soliciting Prostitution from someone under 18 (with a separate count of Soliciting Prostitution, which is something I don't feel should be illegal at all, just regulated).  The girl involved had worked for him since she was 17, giving him massages while he masturbated, but never actually having sex with him.  The actual sex occurred on the eve of her 18th birthday, and it was consensual, and she never wanted to testify against him (though I might also note that it sounds exactly like statutory rape, of which he of course was not convicted, this being a plea deal he accepted).  These offenses were nothing like "pedophilia."  In these individual acts, Epstein was a law breaker, but not a "monster" or "pedophlle."

The monstrosity creeps in in the incredibly large scale of sex trafficking, which nearly everyone believes happened, and included many world leaders (though at various times the FBI said there was "no evidence" of a honeypot for world leaders, and it seems Michael Tracy believes the FBI on this, but others ask why should they should believe the FBI on this when they often don't believe the FBI on a lot of things, and it's reasonable to believe FBI steers clear of anything that smells like CIA or Mossad work, and various people even in the files and elsewhere have said as much).

So, a correct term would be Alleged Sex Trafficker and I see the more punctilious media use similar terminology.  THAT was what Epstein was ultimately charged with in 2019, and which he never stood trial for, by either being shuttled away into permanent hiding somewhere out of touch like Israel by Mossad agents, or suicidedNOBODY believes he took his own life, though in JFK Assassination style, none of the mainstream media will confess to that, they all parrot that official story.  But surely by 2019, FBI had enough documentation and will (under his onetime-best-friend-now-enemy President Trump) to go with it, and we are seeing much of it right now, so saying Alleged is almost just a formality.  So I'm ok with calling him a Sex Trafficker without the Alleged.  BTW, Epstein could have served life in prison for this.  The same is true for Ghislaine Maxwell, who in many accounts was the key director of this whole operation, finding and coaching girls and testing enjoying them herself.

And Sex Trafficking of underage minors is not a good thing, there being power imbalance and all that, even if it's fairly remote from the immoral grotesquerie of Pedophilia.  But notably, having underage prostitutes is still something bad enough to destroy the reputation of any person with great social stature.  Not all are wrapped in unstainable Teflon as Trump seems to be among his base.  So it's at the perfect level of criminality for a long running Honeypot (which the FBI continues to say there isn't evidence for, and of course they do).

(*Chomsky was opposed to Marxism-Leninism, the defining view of capital C Communism.  This is the declared view of the USSR (of course) and also China, Cuba, and Vietnam.  Chomskyians would prefer to describe his position being opposed to Stalinism, of course it was Stalin who coined the term Marxism-Leninism to describe the principles of the USSR and what he adhered to, by pulling the correct bits of Marx or Lenin for any occasion.  But Communists like Michael Parenti claimed Chomskians opposed really existing revolutions and resistance to empire, while demanding impossible ideals he freely admitted were not achieved in USA.  Chomsky mostly described himself as Anarchist the idea that the state is the mother of all crimes and we'd be better off without states...which happens to be the end goal of Marxism-Leninism as well...but in the meantime we have Communism in a few Countries.  In the forseeable future anarchism is usually either useless violence, useless passivity, or romantic idealism.  I see Chomsky as romantic idealist both with regards to Anarchism and his original conception of Zionism, which certainly could not have been reasonable in hoping for a Palestinian/Jew stateless paradise in Palestine in 1953, and especially one that would arise other than by Marxism-Leninism.  Romantic Idealism is the perfect basis for gatekeeping on the left end of the political spectrum.  Also true of Trotskyism, ISO, and similar movements, who have often served as left gatekeepers keeping as many as possible away from Marxism-Leninism--which basically the revolutionary practices which actually work.  More often than not, Social Democratic states have slipped backwards into Neoliberalism, the dominant economic paradigm of the capitalists states today.  Only Communist states are immune to abusive Finance Capitalism.  All it really takes is running the banking system in the public interest, as China does now, and not abolishing everything private.  Lenin had that vision too, and he famously said the people should control the Commanding Heights.)

Update:  Epstein nominally worked for the people who Israel was created for (the Balfour Agreement was written for Lord Rothschild).

https://candeloro.substack.com/p/the-name-that-appears-12000-times

Wednesday, February 4, 2026

The Iranian "Protests"

I was disappointed to discover that my most favorite blogger, Tony Greenstein, has accepted the "protests" in Iran as mostly legitimate and the Iranian government crackdown against it unjustified and terrible.

I have seen accounts of the death and damage caused by these "protests" and concluded they aren't protests at all, riots would be a better term, but perhaps better yet is a terrorist insurgency led, backed, and funded by US and Israel.  I take as my key piece of evidence the Iranian seizure of 50,000 Starlink terminals used by the foreign backed insurgency to communicate with their foreign handlers.  A key way that Iran stopped the terrorism was by blocking Starlink reception, thanks to on the spot help by Russia.

Tony rants against Max Blumenthal (of Grayzone) and David Miller, from whom I've learned these stories, both of whom I esteem highly, now more than Tony himself perhaps (though Tony is indispensable too).  Tony seems to be from an older generation, like David Silverstein (of Tikkun Olam), who still like to criticize the targets of Empire like Russia and Iran as terrible, instead of seeing them correctly as the victims and targets of Empire, and the Really Existing resistance to Empire.  And I wouldn't believe a word said against the Really Existing resistance countries here either, because we're living in an echo chamber of propaganda even from supposedly independent sources.  Nor is it my job to criticize the Really Existing resistance countries--I refrain from doing that knowing full well that it manufactures consent for US war, the most terrible outcome of all, which is why the Western media won't stop doing so, and making more and more exaggerated claims (Tony buys into some earlier ones, which could be close to the truth, but I see them as the predictable response to western backed proxy terrorism).  Finally, even if the Islamic Republic isn't perfect, it's entirely none of my business.  It is to the people in Iran to deal with it and without any foreign interference, which sadly will never happen, and that is the real core of the problem.

Tony even dismisses the Israeli admission that they are deeply involved as braggadocio.  I'd be as inclined to believe it understatement.


Friday, January 30, 2026

ICE

ICE was created by laws enacted in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.  The laws that many people said had been cooked up in advance, and 9/11 provided the emergency* to get them passed.  ICE was a key part of the new Department of Home Security.  

Previously, INS handled both immigration services and immigration enforcement.  Originally INS had been (most appropriately?) part of Department of Labor, before it became part of the Department of Justice.

So effectively the creation of DHS and ICE was a way of creating a quasi military "security" force devoted to immigration** and get it away from the more broadly focused Department of Justice (DOJ) which might actually be concerned about civil rights, etc.  The FBI is part of the DOJ and has a better reputation for professionalism than ICE.

No less than the American Friends Service Committee calls for the Abolition of ICE on those grounds.

On January 30, 2026 was the congressional move to separate ICE funding (a mind boggling $170 Billion) from the rest of the budget a good strategy for reforming or abolishing ICE, or a strategy for face saving of top Democrats who have in fact long favored big ICE funding increases themselves?  I don't know, I've seen both opinions.

Who are the undocumented immigrants in the US?  They come from any countries which used to be led by Mexico, though recently more Mexicans have been leaving the US than coming to it.  More recently undocumented immigration has been dominated by influx from broken Central American countries, which the US had a large hand in breaking.

When did these immigrants come to the US?  Most undocumented immigrants in the US came here a long time ago.  The undocumented population of the US grew from 3.5 million in 1990 on a steady ramp upwards through the Presidencies of Bill Clinton and GW Bush peaking before the Global Financial Crisis at 12.2 million then slowly falling during the Obama administration (who did record numbers of deporations) to 10.2 million, then gradually rising with an extra boost of Central Americans in 2023 to about 13 million.  I would call this trajectory basically horizontal since 2008, and while buffeted by external events shows no consistent differences between Democrat and Republican Presidents.

The states that most undocumented immigrants go to is also neither Blue nor Red States but both.  California and Illinois and two leading Blue states for undocumented immigrants, as are Red states Texas and Florida.  Hardly any undocumented immigrants go to most states.

(*Count me among those who believe that the 9/11 was not carried out by government agents as 9/11 Truthers assert, but allowed to happen both through the evil designs of necons like Dick Cheney and GW Bush, and the incompetence of appointees like Donald Rumsfeld.  This makes me doubly suspicious of any laws that were inspired by it, like the infamous Patriot Act which is well known to have long been in the works, just like the War in Iraq.)

(**Supposedly devoted to immigration anyway.  They seem to have taken up an unspoken political mission of quashing dissent to the fascist politics of President Trump, operating something like Gestapo or Brown Shirts.)