At one point, Miller told the assembled local police officers, “I see the guns and badges in this room. You are unleashed. The handcuffs you’re carrying, they’re not on you anymore, they’re on the criminals. And whatever you need to get it done, we’re gonna get it done.”

The 40-year-old stated that they had deployed over 13 government agencies, including the FBI, DEA, ATF, ICE, and the Department of Defense, which Hegseth has since rebranded as the “Department of War.”

“The gangbangers that you deal with, they think that they’re ruthless, they have no idea how ruthless we are,” Miller added.

“They think they’re tough, they have no idea how tough we are. They think that they’re hardcore, we are so much more hardcore than they are, and we have the entire weight of the United States government behind us. What do they have? They have nothing behind them. So we are gonna win, they’re gonna lose.”

At the Wednesday appearance, Hegseth thanked the assembled Memphis law officers for working in dangerous places “where politicians spend a lot of time second guessing… the impossible decisions that you have to make that they will never understand.”

Hegseth, Bondi and Miller spent around an hour in the Shelby County Office of Preparedness and left via the rear entrance, according to WREG TV.

Bondi said on X that 53 arrests had been made and 20 illegal firearms seized in the first two days of the Memphis Safe Task Force.

  • resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    He doesn’t understand how the game is played.

    You’re supposed to pretend to help people while actually oppressing them.

    Saying the quiet part out loud gives the game away.

  • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
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    7 hours ago

    [Miller] "They have nothing behind them. So we are gonna win, they’re gonna lose.”

    “They” live in a city of over 600,000 people in a nation that hates you, with access to hundreds of millions of firearms. YOU’VE got your adorable little 50 arrests, 20 confiscated firearms and a steady supply of “let’s kill em all bullsh*t” You haven’t thought this through.

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    5 hours ago

    Problem is maggots are useful…for example they can be used to remove dead flesh…they won’t eat living flesh which can’t be guaranteed by Miller

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    8 hours ago

    This dude is only 40? That’s a rough 40! Im older than him, and my stress is huge, yet I look 20 years younger than him.

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    10 hours ago

    I’m in my positive future phase today, so I’m imagining how people like Peter Thiel, pretty old by then, reminisce about the biggest mistakes of their lives past:

    “So yeah, at first we thought it was a genius idea - my idea btw - to put raving media pundits in positions of power. Who could’ve foreseen it would all end like that.”

    Maybe even with a nostalgic tear for long-diseased Uncle Donny, everybody loved him, he wasn’t even the worst of the monsters now, was he.

  • RFKJrsBrainworm@sh.itjust.works
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    6 hours ago

    Fair enough… I’m not sure there is something I look down on enough to properly call him cuz he’s quite frankly the worst there ever was

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    18 hours ago

    They think that they’re hardcore, we are so much more hardcore than they are

    This bald Nazi wannabe talks big, but I bet he would collapse on his knees and cry for mommy if he found himself being mugged in an alleyway.

    What the fuck is wrong with this psycho? Was he bullied at school or something?

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      17 hours ago

      He almost cried and ended up shouting like a child when a reporter confronted him on if he believed Maduro’s crime stats.

      He will definitely cry if he’s mugged.

        • Typhoon@lemmy.ca
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          11 hours ago

          That’s amazing that he refers to children being raped over and over again in that clip, and then says Trump will be elected to fix it.

          He claimed Donald Trump, who is in the Epstein Files, will stop children being raped.

        • Cassanderer@thelemmy.club
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          11 hours ago

          He has interviews from the first term where he is clearly all coked up and shouting over the interviewers and accusing them. Reporters need to cut them off when they shout over them and abuse them on camera.

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          10 hours ago

          His bald pate is glistening more and more throughout.

          These clowns have clearly forgotten what proper journalism is all about.

      • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
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        10 hours ago

        Cheesus. Did his elementary school teacher really talk about him pouring glue on his forearm, letting it dry, peeling it off and eating it?

          • A_norny_mousse@feddit.org
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            5 hours ago

            Political leaning & income are only (possibly less than) half of the story.

            I know plenty of people who are totally OK in every other respect but incredibly shitty parents.

            Though the older I grow the more I appreciate being a good parent as a defining characteristic.

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      17 hours ago

      I bet he feels uncomfortable anytime he walks the city streets. Probably much more at home in the sewers

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      No. Generally the kids who get bullied go on to have great lives. Bullies generally pick on those that are better than them.

      Removed the bullied from the environment that binds them to the bullies (I.E, high school ends), and suddenly the former bullied thrive in the real world.

      This guy was probably a bully who’s learned nothing.

      • giantripdrop@piefed.social
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        16 hours ago

        No, this dude was not a bully. He’s a sociopath (maybe psychopath) who has had always had the means to overcome his antisocial disorder.

        You can see it in his responses, he feigns emotion. He acts in a way that he believes others perceive as confidence or authority but it just “feels” wrong as the other. Dead facial expressions followed by forced pauses for fake introspection which extremely animated facial expressions, then right back to dead face.

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          12 hours ago

          I concur. I think it is telling that he didn’t choose to just stonewall the reporter with “No further comment.” He has a malevolent drive to push that narrative

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        Generally the kids who get bullied go on to have great lives

        That depends on measuring sticks and how much actual healing has been done, not so much six visits of CBT designed to get one merely functional. Look at all the depression/anxiety/anger posts by high achievers.

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    “The gangbangers that you deal with, they think that they’re ruthless, they have no idea how ruthless we are,” Miller added.

    “They think they’re tough, they have no idea how tough we are. They think that they’re hardcore, we are so much more hardcore than they are, and we have the entire weight of the United States government behind us. What do they have? They have nothing behind them. So we are gonna win, they’re gonna lose.”

    This reads like edgy fan fiction. Like, I would fully expect to hear this exact dialogue coming from Shadow the Hedgehog in some weird cop AU

    • Cassanderer@thelemmy.club
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      It is melodramatic for sure. They are playing the public, with everything, arrogant in so many believing them or pretending to.

    • alaphic@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      Great, now I just keep imagining Miller crying alone in the dark while singing along to his Korn/Three Days Grace “xXmegamiXx” on Spotify at full volume in front of God and everybody like it’s still 2002 or something

  • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.worksOP
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    17 hours ago

    They are harassing and intimidating the entire city for no fucking reason other than to harass and intimidate.

    From the Memphis subreddit tonight: They are pulling EVERYONE over looking for warrants. Get yo 💩right

    Can the helicopters please stop circling?! I do not feel safer…

    Not only warrents…this is an opportunity to visually search your car. If the interior of your car is a dumpster…clean it and vacume it. A clean car reflects on the driver, plus gives John Law less time in your car. This action isn’t about curtailing crime as much as intimadating lawful citizens into submission. For many it’s going to be a test. Is standing up for your rights worth a night in jail.

    The helicopters are definitely being using as a means to intimidate large portions of the population at once.

    Saw armored trucks, black vans, and so many state troopers. 6-7 people pulled over

    This is not normal. This is rising fascism at work. Do not forget that.

    • Cassanderer@thelemmy.club
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      Food is often mistaken for drugs. Roadside tests of drugs have high false positives especially when they are not done correctly. As reported in propublica and elsewhere.

      That ziploc that had a sandwich or bread crumb could get you locked up, with no end in sight if you can’t bail out, but you can get out right away if you plead.

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    And in their haste to prove how “hard core” they really are, some jackass with the task force has already managed to roll his vehicle on top of another vehicle that was just sitting at a red light, and put some poor kid in the hospital.

    I hope he sues the state and federal government.

    Unmarked car involved in crash, ends up on top of vehicle in Frayser, witnesses say

    Witnesses told WREG Wednesday evening that the unmarked vehicle was chasing the other car when it was hit going through an intersection at Frayser Boulevard and Watkins Street.

    The unmarked vehicle had its blue lights on but did not have sirens on when it entered the intersection, witnesses said.

    Who needs sirens during a chase? People should just expect you to come barrelling through an intersection any moment.

    Witnesses said that the woman driving down Watkins Street collided with an unmarked vehicle that was chasing another car on Frayser Boulevard.

    A witness reported that the collision caused the unmarked car to become airborne and land on top of another vehicle at a red light.

    This is so fucking dumb and infuriating. Straight out of Idiocracy. Day 2 and you’ve already almost killed someone’s child who happened to be in the way of your airborne vehicle.

    “And let me be very clear. I am a career prosecutor. If you touch a law enforcement officer, it is a crime and you are going to jail. We are arresting anyone who touches any of you,” said Bondi.

    Honesty expecting Bondi to claim that kid was with antifa.

  • VeryVito@lemmy.ml
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    17 hours ago

    53 arrests in two days… in a city the size of Memphis. How many millions of our taxes went into each arrest?

    This whole gang of idiots is more pathetic than I ever knew a human could be. This is what happens when your parents hate you.

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      We could be thankful they are coming off half cocked but seeing as the opposition is so weak and our institutions so rotted and captured it probably will not make a difference. They are trying to set precedent now so they can declare martial law later, 2028 in mind. The election.

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      And we’ll see how many of those actually stick. In DC a ton of the charges were just dismissed once they reached a courtroom.

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        It really will depend on how they run the trials. If they do get a jury of their peers, people from Memphis, the prosecutors will dismiss most of the bullshit. If they manage to get the trial set out in the Sticks they will make it stick and most of the cases. DC is kind of a special case because the jury pool is rather well informed.

  • hperrin@lemmy.ca
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    17 hours ago

    They’re trying desperately to turn the US into a totalitarian police state. Not that it wasn’t before, but man they really hate freedom.