White House Push AI-Altered Images Of Arrested ICE Protesters To Manufacture Cruelty

We are being led by deeply unserious people. Not only that, but people who are manufacturing cruelty upon their very own constituents. That’s how bad this has gotten.

This week, the DOJ arrested three people in Minnesota for protesting ICE’s goonish activity in a local church, where the pastor there also heads up the local ICE field office. Among the three is Nekima Levy Armstrong, former NAACP chapter president and a local activist who the DOJ claims organized the protest and instigated the group going into the church during services. Just how true any of that is is anyone’s guess, since it’s become impossible to believe a single thing this government says about ICE protests. For example:

There was no attack. There was no violence. There were words and chants being voiced in a place of worship. You can find that repugnant, if you like. It’s still not an attack.

The law being cited for the arrest makes Armstrong’s detention dubious at best.

The law Bondi cited in her announcement — 18 U.S. Code § 241 — describes it pertaining to when “two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”

While many in the faith community are obediently clutching their figurative pearls over all of this, I’m struggling to understand how walking into a church that’s open to the public and saying words, even interrupting services, violates that law. I don’t think it does, but then I also laughed out loud when I read Bondi’s claim that this was an “attack.” The plain meaning of words doesn’t appear to matter to these people all that much.

But then the fun really started. The official White House exTwitter account then went on to post a picture of Armstrong being arrested.

But here’s the thing: that picture has been altered by AI. Here is the unaltered picture of Armstrong’s arrest as circulated by the administration’s very own Kristi Noem.

Yes, the White House decided to take an image of law enforcement improperly arresting an American citizen, one of their own constituents, and have AI alter it to make it appear that she is in distress. Oh, and they made her skin tone slightly darker as well. Because they want her to have been in distress. It eats them up inside that she wasn’t crying. That want her to be “blacker” because they want all of their enemies to be people of color. They’re showing you want they want to visit upon American citizens.

And until they are put in check, they will continue to behave like a toddler with unfettered access to the internet and a permanently shitty attitude.

Asked whether the image had been digitally altered, the White House responded by sending a post on X from Kaelan Dorr, the deputy communications director.

“YET AGAIN to the people who feel the need to reflexively defend perpetrators of heinous crimes in our country I share with you this message: Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue. Thank you for your attention to this matter,” he said.

And thank you, Kaelan, for going outside and playing hide and go fuck yourself.

Again, deeply unserious people. Shitposters. Internet trolls. These are the people in charge of the government. The ones sending their goon squads into our cities. The ones threatening to use the military against its own citizens. The ones that believe they are beyond accountability for all they are currently doing.

I worry seriously that the president’s health is such that he won’t be available to stand trial whenever our government returns to sanity and the time for accountability arrives. But the same can’t be said for those beneath him. Bondi, Noem, Dorr, and many others will be held to account for what they are doing in this administration. The ledger will be kept and debts satisfied through the legal system, once actual justice is back on the menu.

For now, the fight against the toddlers continues.