The Reckless Reprisal

Update: Again, thanks to Steve in Manhattan for sharing this article on Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up. Stay safe and abolish ICE, America.

We're going through the turmoil of having donald trump rattle sabers - again - at Iran, using more direct and dangerous language than he used back in 2019 (via Rebecca Rosman and Franco Ordoñez at NPR):

President Trump on Wednesday declined to say whether the United States is moving closer to a decision to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, after Iran's supreme leader warned the U.S. against an attack and rejected Trump's call to surrender.

"You don't seriously think I'm going to answer that question," Trump said when a reporter at the White House asked whether the U.S. would attack Iran. "I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do..."

"We're the only ones that have the capability to do it — but that doesn't mean I'm going to do it," he told reporters in the Oval Office after an unrelated event. The president said he would be meeting in the Situation Room — which he also referred to as the "war room" — about the crisis...

This comes amid nearly a week of fighting between U.S. ally Israel and Iran, and amid signals from U.S. and Israeli officials that Trump could be considering an attack on Iran.

In a string of social media posts on Tuesday, Trump demanded Iran's "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER" and boasted, "We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran," raising speculation that U.S. forces were already more involved than previously acknowledged.

Khamenei responded to the demand in his address Wednesday, his second public appearance since Israel launched strikes on his country last week.

"This is a nation that will never surrender to any form of imposition," he said.

On Tuesday, Trump also issued a direct threat against Khamenei. "We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now."

Again, this could all be the bluster of an overgrown bully that we've seen from trump when he's trying to force a deal on others. However, trump is also impulsive, and currently irritable over how disastrous his birthday parade turned out. he's in a mood to hurt somebody, and dropping bombs on civilians over in the Middle East would seem too easy a move for him to make.

You have to remember what happened during trump's first tenure in the White House: sporadic missile attacks on certain Islamic targets, followed by our Army quitting the battlefield and our regional allies to struggle against Russian-backed Syrians, followed by a targeted attack on a high-ranking Iranian official on Iraqi soil that aggravated regional tensions.

All of this impulsive, unfocused acts of a desperate man trying to pose as an elite Alpha Male on the global stage; with no consideration of the consequences and harm those acts imposed on our nation and whatever allies we have left. Most of this getting imposed on our nation by the only "ally" we are counting on in that region, as Israel - led by a genocidal schemer in Netanyahu who's trying to avoid getting kicked out of power again - is forcing the United States to commit to a military action that will honestly lead into another quagmire for us.

I wrote about this the last time around, back in 2019 when I posed seven reasons we shouldn't invade Iran. All of the arguments I made then are still relevant today, with the added possibility that modern technological boosts to drone warfare will expose our Navy fleets and our regional military bases to potentially disastrous (for us) yet effective (for Iran) ends.

We also have to consider trump's flippant attitude towards our own nuclear stockpile, and that if this situation worsens - and considering how inept our current Defense leadership is, that's likely - trump could well exercise that option. Even one nuke dropped on any place in Iran would kill thousands of civilians and leave literal fallout, while the metaphoric fallout would be the entire world turning the US into a pariah state.

If trump thinks this can push Iran to the negotiating table to hammer out a no-nukes agreement to replace the one he blew up, he's wrong. It won't placate Netanyahu, and the escalation will continue to where we'll be back at the "bomb 'em all" brinksmanship only at a more extreme and irrational level.

This was never going to end well with trump in charge. None of you 77 million voters realized that? /headdesk

The Bleak Parade

Just as donald Shitgibbon trump ruined January 6th in my mind, the bastard is going to ruin June 14th on a personal level as well. 

Where June 14th is officially Flag Day for the United States and the anniversary of the official formation of the Continental Army that evolved into the US Armed Forces 250 years later, it also happens to be trump's birthday.

So we're getting the unwarranted - and in some ways offensive - spectacle of a military parade in front of the White House while trump stands there and revels in it.

If this was going to be a celebration of the Army there were better places to host such an event, like Valley Forge or one of the nearby bases, or a memorial held at Arlington National Cemetery. However, trump is not a fan of cemeteries - unless he's the focus of everything - and considering how he keeps dumping on soldiers as "suckers", he's not about to honor the troops with anything when he's too busy honoring himself.

Let Eliot A. Cohen at the Atlantic spell it out for us (paywalled):

The United States Army deserves a celebration, as do the other armed services during their upcoming birthdays. Tens of millions of Americans have passed through the Army’s ranks, and something close to a million have died in the line of duty, while many more were wounded or taken prisoner, or suffered extraordinary hardships. We owe them a lot.

The administration, however, is orchestrating a parade not to honor service, but to celebrate power. Tanks and infantry fighting vehicles will tear up the capital’s streets as helicopters thrash overhead. Tough-guy stuff, in other words, designed to show the world that we are, in the much-overused word of the secretary of defense, lethal...

Nor is this hardware relevant to the strategic choices the Trump administration has avowed, leaving Europe and the Middle East and focusing on the Indo-Pacific. Tanks will not persuade China to keep the People’s Liberation Army Navy behind the first island chain. This is about preening for the American public and indulging a kind of juvenile fascination with big, noisy armored vehicles...

If the draft-evading president and disgruntled former National Guard major running the Department of Defense better understood the American military, they would know that by sending National Guardsmen (and now Marines) to deal with riots when neither the governor of the state nor the mayor of the city concerned want them, they are courting danger. They would not promise, as Trump has, the use of “heavy force” against protesters. They would not, in other words, anticipate, almost with glee, the prospect of Americans in uniform shooting their fellow citizens. For that matter, they would know that deploying thousands of military personnel to the southern border disrupts training for war, which they supposedly value highly...

All this so a confirmed draft-dodging felon and sex offender can pretend to be an Alpha Male in front of his lackeys.

At the least, we should expect the roads of Washington DC torn up by the heavy tanks and transports rolling up and down the square (the military's promised they reinforced the roads but I doubt it will help), adding millions of wasted dollars being spent to deploy the troops and equipment this way.

At the worst, I'm dreading how trump could turn this parade into a public call of a military takeover (technically an autoglope) and declaring the Constitution suspended while he orders the entire military to join in with ICE's mass deportation pogroms across our major (mostly Democratic) cities. And attack any protests that rise up against him.

No matter what happens, I am making the rather miniscule - hello, ten readers of this blog! - call to my fellow Americans to avoid this bleak trumpian parade at all costs. Just don't be in Washington DC at all. Don't add to the numbers that trump will try to claim as turnout, make it as deserted as his 2017 inauguration.

There's a ton of other places to be this Saturday. There's these No Kings rallies happening by the by that you can register and attend across every state. If you're in Chicago, Da Pope is hosting a livestream mass as a blatant counterpunch to trump's self-indulgence (although I've heard it's sold out). If you're not inclined to protest or pray, you can always go to the beaches (it's a bit of a drive to Virginia Beach but worth it)

Just remember that this parade isn't honoring our Army, it's not for the troops to display their discipline and training, it's not anything honoring America.

This parade is for trump's vanity and his alone, and it will be as vulgar as he can make it.

Paramount

As the ICE persecution of legal migrants/refugees escalated over the past month, more protests have erupted across the nation even in places like Minnesota. A lot of anger and frustration towards trump's thugs who are rounding up moms and children instead of the "criminal gangs" that the Far Right have screamed about for the last 40 years.

The tension made its way to Los Angeles this Friday, where the outrage among the residents - many of them in defense of their neighbors getting rounded up for doing nothing wrong - erupted into the kind of protest that brought out the LAPD and their crowd control of gas, rubber bullets, and batons.

Today, the protests continued in the neighborhood of Paramount, and the violence escalated even more (via Steve Patterson and Dennis Romero at NBC News):

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies deployed tear gas on protesters in Paramount this afternoon as they sought to end the chaotic gathering.

The deployment was preceded by explosive less-lethal rounds and the placement of cinder blocks in the street near a Home Depot where protesters believed federal immigration enforcement agents were conducting a raid. Fireworks also peppered the soundscape.

Sheriff Robert Luna said no immigration raid took place, though there was staging at federal offices adjacent to the Home Depot.

Sheriff's officials ordered the raucous crowd to disperse around 2:30 p.m., though several people remained in the area hours later.

While it's heartening to see Americans rising up against the brutality of trump's - and Stephen Miller's - anti-immigrant campaign, this is unfortunately the response those SOBs were hoping for, because it can justify trump's declaring martial law and assuming dictatorial powers (via Maya Yang and Diana Ramirez-Simon at the Guardian (US)):

The Trump administration will deploy the national guard to immigration protests in Los Angeles, border czar Tom Homan said on Saturday, as an immigration crackdown in the area erupted into mass protests with police in riot gear deploying teargas at bystanders.

“We’re already mobilizing. We’re gonna bring national guard in tonight and we’re gonna continue doing our job. This is about enforcing the law,” Homan said in an interview with Fox News.

US immigration authorities on Saturday extended area raids into Paramount, south-east of Los Angeles, and were met with more protests outside an industrial park.

Border patrol personnel in riot gear and gas masks stood guard outside the park, deploying teargas as bystanders and protesters gathered on medians and across the street, some jeering at authorities while recording the event on smartphones...

Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner and the White House deputy chief of staff, wrote on social media that Friday’s demonstrations were “an insurrection against the laws and sovereignty of the United States”. On Saturday, he described the day’s protests as a “violent insurrection”.

During Friday’s protests at a federal detention facility in downtown LA, David Huerta, the president of the California branch of the Service Employees International Union, was arrested amid a police response that included teargas and flash-bangs.

Huerta, who was injured and detained, released a statement to the Los Angeles Times from the hospital, saying: “What happened to me is not about me. This is about something much bigger.”

“This is about how we as a community stand together and resist the injustice that’s happening. Hard-working people, and members of our family and our community, are being treated like criminals. We all collectively have to object to this madness because this is not justice,” he added.

The reports are that they'll be sending in about 2,000 Guardsmen, but if they're thinking that will subdue a metro of 18 million people covering a geographic area of 400 square miles or so, that isn't going to help. I'm willing to bet they want this deployment to get overwhelmed so trump can justify sending in the US Army to "pacify" all of Los Angeles.

California's governor Newsom is trying to defuse the situation, but it's a question of what he can do to stop his state's National Guard from answering to trump's generals.

LA authorities are able to access law enforcement assistance at a moment’s notice. We are in close coordination with the city and county, and there is currently no unmet need. The Guard has been admirably serving LA throughout recovery. This is the wrong mission and will erode public trust.

— Governor Gavin Newsom (@governor.ca.gov) June 7, 2025 at 8:14 PM

Somewhere in a dark hole, Stephen Miller is enjoying the suffering and chaos he's wanted to inflict on our nation, if the reports are true about his obsession to terrorize Latino communities (via Tom Boggioni at Raw Story):

Following up on her Wednesday report on how Miller and Donald Trump's war on immigrants is "reshaping" the focus of what crimes should be prioritized, NBC's Julia Ainsley told the hosts of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that the abrasive Miller is increasingly angering other members of the administration.

For NBC News she wrote that in May, Miller "berated and threatened to fire senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials if they did not begin detaining 3,000 migrants a day," and has since demanded other agencies help out with his "Operation At Large..."

Noting plans to use members of the National Guard to round up immigrants, Ainsley added, "This comes a week after the infamous, now infamous meeting where Stephen Miller called in the leaders of ICE and screamed at them, yelled at them, threatened to start firing the bottom 10 percent of performers if they didn't get their arrest numbers to 3000 a day."

Anna Giartelli at the Washington Examiner had more details about that rant:

“Miller came in there and eviscerated everyone. ‘You guys aren’t doing a good job. You’re horrible leaders.’ He just ripped into everybody. He had nothing positive to say about anybody, shot morale down,” said the first official, who spoke with those in the room that day.

“Stephen Miller wants everybody arrested. ‘Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?'” the official recited.

One of the ERO officials in attendance stood up and stated that the Department of Homeland Security and the White House had publicly messaged about targeting criminal illegal immigrants, and therefore, ICE was targeting them, and not the general illegal immigration population.

“Miller said, ‘What do you mean you’re going after criminals?’ Miller got into a little bit of a pissing contest. ‘That’s what Tom Homan says every time he’s on TV: ‘We’re going after criminals,'” the ICE official told Miller, according to the first official...

Miller doesn't want gangbangers. He wants Latino families. And he's desperate to shove too many of them into kennels and basements and overflowing prisons.

It's proof that the anti-immigrant forces were never interested in stopping crime. It's proof that these bastards were interested in their racist agenda to purge America of anyone too dark-skinned for their liking.

We have monsters ruling the nation.

We have to defy them. It is paramount that we do so.

Tiananmen Square 2025: You Cannot Wash Away the Blood and Tears

No matter what the Chinese government does to erase the massacre of the democratic protests that fateful June 4, 1989, the world will not forget (via Helen Davidson at the Guardian): 

The world will never forget the Tiananmen Square massacre, the US secretary of state and Taiwan president have said on the 36th anniversary of the crackdown, which China’s government still tries to erase from domestic memory.

There is no official death toll but activists believe hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed by China’s People’s Liberation Army in the streets around Tiananmen Square, Beijing’s central plaza, on 4 June 1989...

The date of 4 June remains one of China’s strictest taboos, and the Chinese government employs extensive and increasingly sophisticated resources to censor any discussion or acknowledgment of it inside China. Internet censors scrub even the most obscure references to the date from online spaces, and activists in China are often put under increased surveillance or sent on enforced “holidays” away from Beijing.

New research from human rights workers has found that the sensitive date also sees heightened transnational repression of Chinese government critics overseas by the government and its proxies.

The report published on Wednesday by Article 19, a human rights research and advocacy group, said that the Chinese government “has engaged in a systematic international campaign of transnational repression targeting protesters critical of the Chinese Communist party,” with Uyghurs, Tibetans and Hongkongers particularly likely to be affected.

There are too many other nations opposed to Chinese interference and bullying ways. There are too many people - like myself - who remembered what happened and refuse to forget.

I'm still hoping I get to meet Tank Guy some day.

Flirtin' with Disaster Once Again: Welcome to the 2025 trump Hurricane Season

Update: Hello again, those of you coming from Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Thanks as always to Batocchio for including this blog to the array of socio-political blogs still out there. Good luck, and stay safe.

In the "What Could Possibly Go Wrong" category of bad news today, Reuters is dropping this particular tidbit about trump's pick to run our federal disaster relief agency (via Leah Douglas, Ted Hesson, and Nathan Layne):

Staff of the Federal Emergency Management Agency were left baffled on Monday after the head of the U.S. disaster agency said during a briefing that he had not been aware the country has a hurricane season, according to four sources familiar with the situation.

Insert every facepalm GIF you can find, folks.

The U.S. hurricane season officially began on Sunday and lasts through November. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast last week that this year's season is expected to bring as many as 10 hurricanes.

The remark was made by David Richardson, who has led FEMA since early May. It was not clear to staff whether he meant it literally, as a joke, or in some other context.

Richardson said during the briefing that there would be no changes to the agency's disaster response plans despite having told staff to expect a new plan in May, the sources told Reuters.

Richardson's comments come amid widespread concern that the departures of a raft of top FEMA officials, staff cuts and reductions in hurricane preparations will leave the agency ill-prepared for a storm season forecast to be above normal.

Hurricanes kill dozens of people and cost hundreds of millions of dollars annually across a swath of U.S. states every year. The storms have become increasingly more destructive and costly due to the effects of climate change...

Richardson, who has no disaster response experience, said during Monday's briefing, a daily all-hands meeting held by phone and videoconference, that he will not be issuing a new disaster plan because he does not want to make changes that might counter the FEMA Review Council, the sources said.

President Donald Trump created the council to evaluate FEMA. Its members include DHS head Kristi Noem, governors and other officials.

trump, of course, would like to use that "council" to make recommendations to gut that relief agency - and anything that would highlight the reality that climate change is happening - altogether. When you consider how trump is refusing to send aid to states like North Carolina still recovering from last year's hurricane season, we are facing a grim situation that when the storms do slam into the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts that our federal government is not going to lift one damn finger to help even if the heavily Republican-controlled states getting hit are screaming to high heaven.

Add to this how trump is denying aid to the midwestern states getting hit by tornadoes, and we're talking about an administration that doesn't give a damn about the lives on the ground. 

And so YES, Red state America. Every single one of you who voted for trump this 2024 you are getting exactly what you voted for: Cruelty and denial.

We are so royally fucked (again).

All Apologies

I know I haven't been keeping up with blogging at this site the last couple months. 

A lot of it has to do with the overwhelming bullshit flooding the zone as donald trump and his MAGA lackeys shred every last element of our constitutional norms. Every day, something new and horrifying happens, with almost no pushback or outrage from the mainstream media still stuck in their "both-siderism" mindset.

Everything I could write here would be merely reactions, my expressions of dismay and anger which doesn't do my spirit or anyone reading this site any favors.

At best, you all should keep following the news sites and blogs that I track: 

NPR,

AP News, 

Crooks & Liars, 

Balloon Juice, 

Emptywheel, 

Raw Story, 

Talking Points Memo, 

Salon, 

Slate, 

Vox,

The Atlantic.

Some of these are paywalled, alas.

Update: I should add a few more of the blogs I keep up with:

No More Mister Nice Blog

Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I

Bark Bark Woof Woof

Mahablog

Digby's Hullabaloo

And why do I keep forgetting about Mock Paper Scissors?

In the meantime, there are actions you and I can take like supporting the No Kings protests getting planned for June 14th. Unless you're Catholic, in which case you'll wanna go to Chicago to livestream Da Pope.

In the meantime, to everyone who voted for trump and the Republican Party across the board this 2024, I hope the leopards enjoy eating your faces. /rage

trump Violating Humanity

As feared, trump and his lackeys aren't respecting the courts. They're still shipping people overseas (via Ximena Bustillo and Jasmine Garsd at NPR):

A federal judge on Wednesday said the Trump administration violated his court order to not deport migrants to countries where they have no ties without giving them sufficient due process to contest their removals.

Judge Brian Murphy in Massachusetts said the Department of Homeland Security's rapid removal of eight migrants abroad went against his April preliminary injunction preventing such deportations. Lawyers for at least one of the men on board say the flight landed in South Sudan; the government hasn't disclosed the destination, saying it's classified.

Murphy left open the possibility of holding the government in contempt for a criminal obstruction in the future.

Sending migrants to South Sudan is a deliberate attempt by trump and cohort to mock the orders, as it's a place still overwhelmed by civil war and violence. And they're doubling down on the slander and accusations towards migrants as "vicious criminals":

The Trump administration earlier doubled down on its decision to send migrants to countries that aren't their own following a legal challenge. It has aimed to use third-country destinations to remove individuals that cannot be sent back to their home countries for a variety of reasons.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons told reporters earlier on Wednesday that the people on the flight out of the U.S. had been convicted of crimes in the United States and that ICE was not able to return them to their home countries.

"We found a nation who was willing to take custody of these vicious illegal aliens," said Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, about the Asian men on the flight. "Now, a local judge in Massachusetts is trying to force the United States to bring back these uniquely barbaric monsters who present a clear and present threat to the safety of the American people and American victims."

It's a broad and horrifying brush trump's people are using, even as more disciplined organizations like the Cato Institute are doing their own research and finding a sizable number of these deported migrants were law-abiding and didn't break any immigration laws. McLaughlin, trump, Stephen Miller, all of them are attacking these people with the most vile accusations without specific proofs or cases to back such claims.

trump's been out there defaming Kilmar Abrego Garcia - who at least has been confirmed still alive, but shipped over to another El Salvadoran prison - and yet refusing to obey court orders to have Abrego Garcia brought back, denying the man the opportunity of due process to contest trump's accusations and retain his legal status.

Our government is lying to us, lying to themselves, all to persecute immigrants - even the ones here legally - out of a racist agenda that has a nasty history of destroying everything it touches.

And this will all get worse before we even see an inkling of sanity and justice to restore our better angels. /rage

  

The Far Right's One True Plan

There's a simple reason why trump's lawyers couldn't answer this question about their fight over birthright citizenship before the Supreme Court (via Amanda Frost at the Atlantic (paywalled)):

Forty-six minutes into the Supreme Court’s oral argument in the birthright-citizenship litigation, Solicitor General D. John Sauer got a question he couldn’t answer. Arguing on behalf of the government, Sauer wants the Court to prohibit nationwide injunctions, allowing President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship—along with many of his other policies—to go into effect. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, wanted to know how, exactly, the government would administer a rule denying citizenship to potentially hundreds of thousands of babies every year.

“On the day after it goes into effect,” Kavanaugh asked, “how’s it going to work—what do hospitals do with a newborn? What do states do with a newborn?”

“We don’t know,” Sauer candidly told the Court, saying that “federal officials will have to figure that out.” Later, he added, “Hopefully, they will do so.”

Really? With this one exchange, Sauer inadvertently revealed why nationwide injunctions are at times the only way to protect the public. The administration has no workable plan for its unconstitutional order, yet it wants to take away the best legal pathway for those affected to challenge the government’s action.

The Trump administration has had plenty of time to prepare for this moment. During his first administration, Trump claimed authority to end birthright citizenship by executive order. Last year, he repeated that threat at rallies across the nation. His campaign website prominently featured a video in which he personally pledged to end birthright citizenship on “day one” of his presidency.

On January 20, 2025, Trump delivered on that promise, signing an executive order denying citizenship to all children of undocumented immigrants, as well as all children of immigrants with temporary legal status, who are born after February 19, 2025.

That order is at odds with the clear text of the Fourteenth Amendment, the original understanding, long-standing judicial interpretation, and multiple federal statutes. And it would destabilize the citizenship of many of the 3.6 million babies born, on average, in the United States every year—including those born to U.S. citizens. According to the executive order, a birth certificate alone would no longer demonstrate citizenship. All of those parents would have to somehow prove their own citizenship or immigration status before their child could be recognized as a citizen. Additionally, even babies born to lawful temporary immigrants—including temporary workers and students who have been living in the United States for years—would be denied citizenship, losing access to Medicaid, SNAP, and other federal and state benefits. Those children would be born undocumented, some stateless, all at risk of being deported on the first day of their life.

Yet Sauer conceded that the Trump administration does not have a plan—does not even have a concept of a plan—to implement this radical change in U.S. law and policy...

For one thing - as an aside - trump and his anti-immigrant allies especially Stephen Miller likely do a have in place. They just didn't want to admit it in open court, knowing full well that on-the-fence Justices like Roberts, Gorsuch, Barrett, and maybe even Kavanaugh would recoil from it.

Because the real answer - not even part of what Kavanaugh asked - is that the Republicans led by trump and by a score of Far Right sycophants who've spent decades railing against their culture war enemies want to go farther than just denying citizenship rights to newborns.

This has always been about the hardcore Conservatives of the Far Right wanting the power to take away citizenship rights of everybody else.

Remember what Frank Wilhoit spelled out: 

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

By taking away a person's citizenship here in the United States, you're taking away any legal protections they may have to things like Due Process, property rights, voting rights, employment rights, the right to their own bodies for God's sake. We're seeing part of that now as trump and his ICE brigands are rounding up every documented migrant - even the ones who have legal rights to be here in the US - and loading them into planes to ship them to overseas prisons, ignoring every judicial order to uphold Due Process and maintaining their rights as human beings.

Unspoken in all of this right now is how these acts can lead to American citizens - even those who can trace their lineages back well before the turn of the 20th Century - losing their rights as well. Because if birthright citizenship can be taken away by the Executive branch on the President's orders for any contrived excuse, that birth certificate you think protects you becomes a worthless piece of paper.

This has been an issue among the Far Right well before trump showed up on the political stage: I noticed this back in 2010, and it was worrisome then: 

See, one of the ongoing issues with the crazed Far Right Wingnut crowd is how... emphatic they are about going after those they oppose.  Anyone who makes the Republican Party looks bad gets personally demolished by the next FOX Not-News cycle.  Anyone questioning the efforts of Republicans to lower taxes for the super-rich and deregulate every industry to the point that nothing will be safe or reliable will get demonized as SOCIALIST ZOMG.  And above all, the best way they can dismiss, ignore or invalidate anyone that wants to debate them?  All they have to do is point a finger and accuse their opponents of being "Un-American."

What could happen then in a world where Citizenship is not an automatic given based on birth but instead vulnerable to the whims and interests of whichever political party is in charge of Congress, the White House, and the Courts?  Nowadays the Republicans can call you "Un-American" and that would be just another insult.  If the 14th Amendment were gone... A Republican With Authority can call you "Un-American" and mean it... which would also mean no rights under the law, no protection from immediate arrest, no Habeas, no home, no life...  This is the true danger of what the Republicans are proposing to do by getting rid of the 14th Amendment.  They claim it'll be to get rid of unwanted Illegals... but also consider that the Republicans have no love of Muslims right now, and not much love for Blacks, and very little love for Liberals... and so on, and more, and also...  Repeal the 14th Amendment and NO ONE would be safe from the charge of being "Un-American."

When we're talking about a Republican Party controlled by Far Right extremists obsessed with denying rights to Blacks, Women, Gays/Lesbians/Trans, college students, anybody they deem a "Pinko-Commie Agitator" and how the Far Right would LOVE to take away their rights to vote, work, even live in their own homes... We're talking about purges of entire populations from every legal protection we're supposed to have.

We went through this kind of nightmare before, during the McCarthyist era of "Commie" witch hunts going after anyone the Republicans deemed "Un-American." Back then, there was still a 14th Amendment in place that protected their victims' Due Process rights and overall status as citizens. People still lost jobs and livelihoods and spent decades under hostile surveillance, alas.

But if trump and his cohort can ignore the 14th Amendment when it comes to defining WHO is a citizen, they will happily take away those rights for every one of trump's perceived enemies as well as everyone on the GOP Shit List since 1972. We'll be getting McCarthyism on steroids, where not only will people lose jobs, lose homes, lose families, they'll lose any chance to fight back in the courts.

The reason we HAVE birthright citizenship in the 14th Amendment comes from the fallout from the odious Dred Scott decision, where the conservative (slave-owning or slavery-friendly) Justices like Chief Justice Taney ruled that not only did Black slaves have no rights under the law, neither did the freeborn Blacks in Free Soil states. It took a Civil War and that amendment to undo the damage of Dred Scott, but the goddamned Far Right want to bring that power to deny citizenship to any group they deem a lesser class. 

Only this time, they're looking to take away citizenship from everyone not in their own ranks, not genuflecting to trump, or not offering up their worship and their fear to the Far Right Gods of Hate and Violence.

I am praying to the better Gods of Sanity and Hope that our current Supreme Court sees the dangers of what will happen in a trumpworld devoid of the Rule Of Law for all citizens and residents of the United States.

Because if trump gets his way, if the wingnut Republicans get their way... Every Black, every Woman, every Latino, every Gay/Lesbian/Trans, every Democrat, every anti-trumper will suffer. And we'll be deep into another bloody civil war cleaning up the mess of racism and hate we didn't resolve the first time.

The Unqualified Are Taking Over Thanks to trump

Update: Many thanks to Steve in Manhattan for including this article to Crooks and Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Please remember to order an excessive supply of Lucky Charms Marshmallows to tide you over as the trump tariffs disrupt our cereal industry, that is all...

I mentioned last article there's a ton of things to catch up on, but trump is just overwhelming me with assholery aimed at my own profession so I got to respond to this bullshit (yes I am pissed over this). 

This past weekend, trump went and fired the head Librarian of Congress - is that even something he could do? - over "complaints" that she was too woke and for the most absurd reasons (via Kara Yorio at School Library Journal):

President Donald Trump fired Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden in a terse, two-sentence email sent on Thursday night...

"This is unprecedented, and unnecessary; Dr. Hayden has served Congress and the American people with integrity and distinction,” EveryLibrary executive director John Chrastka said in a statement. “This is a purely political move. And coming as it does right after the Preliminary Injunction and TRO reopening IMLS, it is hard not to see it that way. Congress should be outraged at this overreach."

EveryLibrary has launched a petition asking the public to signal their support to stop the attacks on the Library of Congress.

Hayden was nominated to lead the Library of Congress by President Barack Obama and sworn in for a 10-year term in September 2016. She was the first woman and the first African American to serve in the position.

AP reported that Hayden had been targeted by a conservative group, American Accountability Foundation, which tweeted on Thursday: “The current #LibrarianOfCongress Carla Hayden is woke, anti-Trump, and promotes trans-ing kids. It’s time to get her OUT and hire a new guy for the job!”

Her removal is the latest for the administration that is stripping federal agencies of women, people of color, and anyone whose work is believed to be in opposition to Trump's agenda...

In a later press briefing, the White House accused Hayden of being "woke" and including "inappropriate books" in the library collection, completely ignorant of HOW the Library of Congress actually functions (via Kerry Pickett at Washington Times):

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Carla Hayden was fired as librarian of Congress because she promoted DEI and pushed “inappropriate books” for children...

“We felt she did not fit the needs of the American people,” Ms. Leavitt told reporters at the White House. “There were quite concerning things that she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI and putting inappropriate books in the library for children.”

And we don’t believe that she was serving the interests of the American taxpayer well. So, she has been removed from her position, and the President is well within his rights to do that.”

Leavitt - and everybody else in that press room - doesn't understand that the Library of Congress has a mandate to include every professionally published book securing its Copyright - by that I mean books from established large and mid-sized publishers, including university presses: they do NOT take self-published books, trust me - so that Congressional staff and elected members have access to research materials (and even fictional entertainment). Hayden couldn't stop getting LGBTQ+ books if she wanted to. 

Also, these are NOT books that circulate or even go into Interlibrary Loan: NO CHILDREN are going to get their hands on these books through LOC, let alone people from outside of Congress (there is a reading room where visitors can borrow a book if available but they can't leave it with, and threats to cutting / stealing pages prevent anybody from walking out with one). Every excuse trump and his fellow book-burners anti-woke mob are tossing out there are lies. It wasn't the taxpayers she was serving, it was Congress (and researchers able to visit in-person). If Hayden was doing anything, she was acting as Archivist for the printed works of human knowledge stretching back to the 1800s, with the Library of Congress as one of the world's largest holdings of the modern era (if not all of human history, bigger than the famed Library of Alexandria). And that is something the anti-woke mob cannot abide.

This morning, trump added onto the bullshit by appointing Todd Blanche - as white a name you can get - acting Librarian, in spite of the fact Blanche has no work history or experience as a librarian period (via Hillel Italie at AP News):

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who represented Donald Trump during his 2024 criminal trial, has been appointed acting Librarian of Congress, the Justice Department said Monday.

Blanche replaces longtime librarian Carla Hayden, whom the White House fired last week amid criticism from some conservatives that she was advancing a “woke” agenda. She was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama in 2015.

Blanche was named the number two Justice Department official after serving as a criminal defense attorney defending Trump against two cases brought by the Justice Department during the Biden administration. Blanche is a former federal prosecutor who was a key figure on Trump’s defense team in his New York hush money trial, which ended in a conviction on 34 felony counts.

There is NOTHING on this guy's resume that even hints he did time as a paralegal working a law library for research projects. I doubt Todd can tell you the difference between DDC, LC, and SUDOC (I've studied and worked all three, by the by).

The ONLY thing that qualifies this guy is his utter loyalty to trump, and a likely willingness to purge the entire Library of Congress - which is supposed to belong to CONGRESS - of every "woke" "DEI" "climate change" book in the collection. 

Do you understand the severity of what is about to happen if Blanche - an unqualified white boy hire - is able to weed out thousands of now-rare, hard-to-find books - some titles so old and out-of-print that even large research libraries like Harvard and Yale don't own them - all because they offend the racist/sexist/evangelical/ignorant sensibilities of the Far Right fringe? 

The book burnings of the Reich are about the most recent equivalence you can match that to. The destruction of the ancient Library of Alexandria would be the closest poetic example, except that destruction honestly took centuries of fires big and small to wipe it out. Trump and Blanche and the entire MAGA fringe are capable of wiping out the Library of Congress in weeks if not days.

What the absolute hell, America. If even one rare book from 1860 gets destroyed, our nation will regret it forever.

Call your congresscritters. DEMAND they defend their own Library!

This incident, by the by, is a perfect distillation of the damage trump and his Republican cohorts are inflicting on our federal government. Purging our agencies of effective, qualified personnel, and replacing them with idiotic, toadying nobodies clinging to trump out of loyalty and self-interest. What's happening to the Library of Congress is happening to CDC, to the IRS, to Social Security Administration, to offices of Veterans Affairs, to our national parks, to even our Defense and Justice Departments. We're getting the worst government led by the worst people, and Americans are going to suffer for this for generations to come.

Update: Just finding out now trump fired the head of the Copyright Office at LOC, arguably over a published report about AI's ineffectiveness and potential to destroy copyright protections for authors, artists, and musicians. This is going to get worse.

Revision to the Update: Got pointed out on Bluesky that there's more to what trump is doing with the Library of Congress. he and his lackeys are trying to gain access to the personal data of congressmembers and their staffs, especially any legal questions/research requests that are supposed to remain confidential. Basically, trump is looking for his own kompromat on both his opponents and allies to compel them to submit to his rule.

Holy Forking Shirtballs, We Got Ourselves a Pope Guy

There's a ton of stuff going on that I need to catch up on, from previous posts that need updates currently happening in the news.

The easiest thing to report on is that the Cardinals elected a new Pope on the second day of conclave, some considered it unusually fast but the results were just as fast for the last three elections or so, nothing shocking about that. What was shocking is that the smoke didn't come out purple (Prince, why hast thou abandoned us), and that the new Pope is a guy from Chicago (!):

And he's from the South Side of Chicago, home of the beleaguered White Sox, the Daley political dynasty and, until they decamped for Washington and eventually the White House, Michelle and Barack Obama.

The new pope, who has spent much of his career ministering in Peru and leading the Vatican’s powerful office of bishops, was born Robert Francis Prevost on Sept. 14, 1955, at what was then called Mercy Hospital, at the corner of South Prairie Avenue and 34th Street.

But while Prevost made his debut in Chicago, his parents and two older brothers were already living just south of the sprawling city in a working-class suburb called Dolton...

Prevost's father, Louis Prevost, served in the Navy during World War II and worked as a superintendent of schools in the south suburbs of Chicago.

The future pope's mother, Mildred Martinez Prevost, was a librarian with a master's degree in education and two sisters who were nuns.

His mom was a librarian?! (respectful grumbling noises)

The rest of the bio at the NBC News article details Prevost's education, heading to Villanova to get a degree in math before joining a Catholic Order - for St. Augustine - getting another degree in theology and then a doctorate for Canon Law in Rome itself. His career in the church was balanced between work in Peru - to where he got naturalized as a citizen there - and overseeing the Augustinian order as an admin.

The bad news? Prevost got involved in the cover-ups of various sex abuse scandals both the American Midwest and in Peru. While he himself hasn't been accused of the acts, he failed to report the matters or failed to remove the culprits from their positions. It can be argued that the church's bureaucracy was corrupt enough that Prevost couldn't do any other, but it remains shameful that he didn't do more to protect the victims and work to prevent any future ones.

The good news? Prevost's taking the name Leo (the XIV, that's 14 in Latin) as symbolic of what role he wants to perform as pontiff: Reformer. In particular, carrying on his predecessor Leo XIII who stood for workers' rights, better wages, and social justice for the poor on a global level. Leo's already attacking the Artificial Intelligence movement, how it threatens human dignity and labor rights.

There is also the huge implications of the Catholic Church promoting an American-born to the Papacy and how it's a huge rebuke to trump's regime (via Francis (no relation) X. Rocca at the Atlantic (paywalled)):

...the conclave that concluded today in Rome has chosen the first American pope in the history of the Catholic Church: Robert Francis Prevost. Making the milestone even more remarkable is that Prevost was chosen on just the second day of voting by the most geographically diverse body of papal electors in history. Perhaps most surprising of all is that the Church’s first-ever American pope was selected during Donald Trump’s presidency, as Washington assumes a more contentious stance toward the rest of the world...

Many observers are likely to cast Leo as anti-Trump, a role that Francis was often cast in himself. In February, a profile on X apparently belonging to Leo reposted an article criticizing J. D. Vance, who had argued that Catholics should prioritize their family and neighbors over foreigners. And indeed, it seems likely that the new pope will continue policies—such as advocacy for migrants and environmental protection—that his immediate predecessor embraced and that the current U.S. administration largely opposes. But almost any of the 133 men voting in the Sistine Chapel today would have done the same had he been chosen pope... By taking the name Leo, the new pope is clearly signaling an intention to highlight modern Catholic social teaching, a tradition that began with Leo XIII, who reigned from 1878 to 1903.

That the new Pope is going to come out swinging for workers' rights is happening just as trump and his oligarch billionaire buddies like Elon Musk are gutting federal workplaces and causing havoc with our trade / tourism industries to where large-scale unemployment is unavoidable.

Leo's position on immigration - similar to Pope Francis' - already puts him in conflict with trump and the sadists in trump's administration (via Ali Bianco and Gregory Svirnovskiy at Politico):

A social media account under the pope’s name repeatedly criticized the Trump administration — and especially Vice President JD Vance — in the months and years before assuming the papacy.

A series of posts under an account for Robert Prevost — now the Bishop of Rome and newly anointed as Pope Leo XIV — shows the Chicago-born Cardinal reposting an op-ed criticizing Vance on his interpretation of his faith, and the strict immigration policies that Vance along with President Donald Trump have touted.

The account in mid-April reposted someone else’s rebuke to Trump’s meeting in the Oval Office with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, and pointed to an op-ed by auxiliary Catholic Bishop Evelio Menjivar of Washington, D.C., highlighting the suffering of migrants summarily deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador.

“Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed?” the op-ed that Prevost reposted reads.

In a more pointed example, the account in February posted an opinion piece from the National Catholic Reporter, a liberal-leaning Catholic newspaper, titled: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”

It's telling that the rabid MAGA base are livid about Leo XIV being the head of the largest American Christian denomination (via Greg Sargent at the New Republic (paywalled)): 

Right after the news broke that Robert Francis Prevost was elected as the new pope of the Roman Catholic Church, the internet produced lots of evidence that he has promoted articles critical of JD Vance and Donald Trump, and even expressed sympathy for George Floyd. That prompted MAGA figures to erupt in anger. They attacked the new pope as anti-Trump, pro–open borders, a Marxist, and soft on thugs and drug dealers, as Media Matters documented...

In a podcast with Matt McManus (a contributor to Commonweal) Sargent covers some of the attacks (via transcript):

McManus: Well, I’m sure we’re going to learn a lot more about the new pope’s views over the next couple days as people scour everything he is ever written and everything that he is ever said. The choice of the name Leo is itself significant. Pope Leo was widely regarded as the “People’s Pope” or the “Workers’ Pope” because he is one of the founders of Catholic social teaching. Now, to be clear, the O.G. Pope Leo was by no means a socialist or a Marxist, the way they, say Laura Loomer, is trying to imply that the current Pope Leo is a Marxist. But he did stress that there were significant problems with capitalism that led to the emergence of things like atheistic socialism and atheistic Marxism and called for a conciliation between workers and capitalists that would favor the workers—or at least better their conditions. So I think that in itself is telling about the direction that he is planning on going in.

But if you look at some of the stuff he said over the past couple years, he is very clearly pro-immigrant. Back in 2015, he stated that he was opposed to the death penalty. He spent a long time in Peru, by all accounts living in quite modest circumstances and demonstrating an unusual level of concern for the poor. So that’s all a positive sign.

Sargent: Well, MAGA is not happy about any of it. Charlie Kirk accused the pope of “retweeting George Floyd propaganda.” Laura Loomer erupted over the idea that the Pope seemed to endorse the need to pray for Floyd, calling him a “career criminal” and “drug addict.” MAGA figure Sean Davis called the Pope anti-Trump and pro–open borders...

If you are known by your enemies, then we know Leo XIV is going to be someone standing up for the immigrant, the impoverished, and the "what the hell happened to our jobs" citizenry.

It's still early, but there ought to be a betting line in the UK on how quickly the Pope is going to excommunicate JD Vance, and for whichever sadistic stance Vance will take in defense of trump's crimes.

In the meantime, just be aware the new Pope is a White Sox fan (the first known pontiff to attend a World Series!), an eater of Chicago-style hot dogs and tavern pizza (not sure about deep dish, alas), and now comes with his own Power-Up music intro.

Just as long as Bobby... uh, Pope Leo remembers this one key thing from the Blues Brothers:

Boys, you gotta learn not to talk to nuns that way.

If The Smoke Comes Out Turquoise, I Think That Means They Ordered Mexican For Dinner (Ow Stop Hitting Me)

In what are very dark times indeed, I know I shouldn't be snarking on stuff but the whole "Elect a New Pope" thing is just open for humor. 

For example, the news report that the Vatican had to re-install the smokestack they use to announce to the crowds if they elected a new pope or not (via Clare Marie Schneider at NPR):

Throughout this secretive, locked-door affair, the recently installed chimney will be the only indication to the public about how the process is going. After a ceremony within the Sistine Chapel is held to mark the beginning of the conclave, the doors are locked, Bry Jensen, host of the long-running Pontifacts podcast, told NPR.

That's when "the verbal and communicative gates go down," Jensen said. "There is no further communication until a pope has been elected, aside from smoke."

As the cardinals deliberate, they vote until they reach a two-thirds majority agreement on who to elect. With each vote, they burn their ballots in a stove installed in the Sistine Chapel for this purpose. If black smoke plumes from the chimney, the cardinals aren't in agreement and will need to vote again. Once white smoke can be seen from the chimney, it signals to the public that the Roman Catholic Church has a new leader. The process relies on chemicals to produce the desired color...

When that article popped up on Bluesky, I just HAD to Reply Guy with this:

This time, it's been set to provide a vast array of colored smoke: Black = no pope Blue = the pancakes were soggy Red = they've decided on watching "Sinners" Green = they've found the hidden stash of Irish whiskey Pink = it's Roan Chappell! Purple = Prince has returned! White = pope

— Witty Librarian Resistance (@paulwartenberg.bsky.social) May 4, 2025 at 9:21 PM

(I'm Unitarian. I'm *allowed* this amount of levity towards my Catholic brethren. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it)

That said, there's a few more colored smokes that the cardinals can send to signal their intents:

• Violet = They've agreed to buy for Janis Joplin her Mercedes Benz
• Beige = They've narrowed the selection of Pope down to a White guy
• Taupe = They've narrowed the selection of Pope down to a Latino guy
• Onyx = They've narrowed the selection of Pope down to a Black guy
• Fuchsia = They're just messing with us. Seriously, is fuchsia even a real word?
• Olo = How are there even new colors to be found? Don't we have a full palette of 256 blends and tints and gods know how many options to choose from in the RGB chart?

There will be no Orange smoke. There is no way the cardinals will vote in trump after his ill-humored and tone-deaf mockery of their papacy.

That all said, to the cardinals getting locked in with each other over the next couple of days - they rarely elect a pope on the first go, there's too many candidates and factions to winnow down thanks to the two-thirds majority requirement, and I doubt one of them will get over 50 percent the first round - and we're all praying they select a new Pope who does look to the future, towards the more positive virtues of faith such as charity, humility, love of others, and grace.

One Sentence Observation About the Escalating Conflict Between India and Pakistan This 2025

Considering both nations have nuclear warheads aimed at each other, and decades of near-insane levels of hostility towards each other that would make the Hatfields and McCoys look like a genteel wine and cheese party, FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF------

...India has launched strikes on several parts of Pakistan and Pakistan-controlled territory, in a dramatic escalation of tensions between the two nuclear-armed rivals...

In an assault India dubbed "Operation Sindoor," the Indian military said it struck nine sites in "Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed."

The Indian Defense Ministry said the strikes were in response to a militant attack that killed 26 people in India-administered Kashmir last month.

Tensions have been on the rise between India and Pakistan since April 22, when gunmen killed at least 26 tourists and injured a dozen others in India-administered Kashmir. India accused Pakistan of having a connection to the attack — the worst aimed at Indian civilians in more than a decade...

The U.N. secretary-general's office called for "maximum military restraint" from both India and Pakistan, saying the world cannot afford a war between them.

---FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFfffffffffffffffffffffffffff (runs for the bomb shelter)

Between The Rock and The Dumb Place

With all of the unsettling things donald trump is doing to our international trade, our global standing, our farmers, and our tourism industry, it's the deeply insane shit he's posting on social media that distracts just a bit. But there may be something darker in trump's latest brain-fart to re-open the infamous Alcatraz prison as a holding place for the worst criminals the most defiant opponents (via Bill Chappell at NPR):

President Trump says he is ordering federal agencies to rebuild and reopen Alcatraz — the notorious maximum security prison that closed more than 60 years ago.

"I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America's most ruthless and violent Offenders," Trump said in a post on Truth Social...

Trump's message suggests he wants to restore Alcatraz to its original dual purpose. The twin goals for building the original prison, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, were "to deal with the most incorrigible inmates in Federal prisons, and to show the law-abiding public that the Federal Government was serious" about stopping rampant crime in the 1920s and 1930s..."

Trump did not provide details about a timeline for reopening the prison. And the National Park Service did not reply to NPR's request for comment about the president's new plan for Alcatraz before this story published.

But enacting Trump's proposal would come with a steep price tag, both for constructing and operating a new prison facility on an island whose most plentiful natural resource is sandstone.

Alcatraz was shuttered "because the institution was too expensive to continue operating," according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It said operating the island prison was nearly three times more expensive than any other federal prison at the time.

"This isolation meant that everything (food, supplies, water, fuel...) had to be brought to Alcatraz by boat," the bureau says. "For example, the island had no source of fresh water, so nearly one million gallons of water had to be barged to the island each week."

I remembered my travel to San Francisco for a librarian convention in June 2001 (right before 9/11, before air travel required 108 checkpoints and hoops to jump through) and saved the photos here and there on my computers. I made a visit out to the place in-between convention meetings and such.

Welcome to The Rock! - Sean Connery

I'm a librarian. OF COURSE I TOOK A PICTURE OF
ALCATRAZ'S LIBRARY!

I was 31 at the time. I had more hair back then.

(I'm not including the photos of my foray to Colma to pay my respects to Emperor Norton. Then again, Norton would be a far wiser and saner leader for America at this point)

I remember what the tour guide said about Alcatraz as a prison: The costs of shipping everything across the bay made it impractical, they couldn't install pipelines for water or fuel, and they had no way to add facilities like desalination plants. It also didn't help that by sitting in the middle of a saltwater bay, they dealt with serious corrosion of the steel and concrete that made it harder to maintain as a prison (this is what Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers took advantage of). I saw someone post on Bluesky how back in 1963 it cost the government three times what a normal prison cost, and held fewer prisoners. We're making more money out of Alcatraz as a tourist attraction than as a prison.

So why is trump suddenly fixated on converting an abandoned prison that would cost wasteful hundreds of millions of dollars to restore? (Other than trump being a brain-dead idiot that is)

We need to look closely at trump's Truth Social rant (well, to read someone else's screenshot, let's not login to that place shall we). Here's a screenshot from Bluesky via John Brooks  :

Yes, I agree, 8 years of you is indeed far too long

[image or embed]

— John Brooks (@johnbrooks.bsky.social) May 4, 2025 at 8:42 PM

Beneath the opening rants of using the prison to house "the dregs of society," and threatening to throw "violent offenders" into Alcatraz, trump is including "judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came to our country illegally." One of these things is not like the others... 

Don't forgot, right now trump is locked into a legal fight with federal judges who are refusing to bend to trump's agenda to ship without due process a number of criminal migrants but also too many honest legal migrants that trump's ICE thugs are rounding up under false pretenses and unproven allegations. We're close to the point where these judges are going to hold trump's DOJ lawyers in full contempt of their courts, and we're already in a constitutional crisis over trump's refusal to respect the Writ of Habeas Corpus and the Rule of Law.

Obviously frustrated with these legal barriers to his ambition to rule without restraint, trump is breaking out the bullying threats by telling everyone he's willing to jail these judges if they keep protecting the rights of those trump and his wingnut ilk condemned (without proof) as "criminals". But why threaten to send these judges to places like Leavenworth or Florence Supermax - places most Americans might not recognize - when he can threaten them with Alcatraz, one of the most infamous prisons in modern history (it defines a whole Trope, after all)? Everyone knows Alcatraz, even if they've never been to San Francisco to see it in person (and you can see it - once the bay fog lifts - pretty clearly along the bay shore).

All trump thinks they need to do is splash the prison with a new coat of paint, install some modern cots, put his name in large gold letters outside the main gate, and viola! Instant place of intimidation to his foes and allies alike.

And like all things trump thinks about, he honestly didn't think this through. The judges are going to ignore his threats because they're more concerned about upholding the Rule of Law (without that, judges lose all power and they know it). trump's already threatening migrants - especially the legal residents and their children - so yet another prison threat is no different than threatening them with shipping to El Salvador. And arguing to open such an expensive location for what is clearly an ego-driven fantasy undercuts every claim trump makes that he's "cutting costs" and saving us money.

We could laugh away trump's obsession with re-opening such a relic, but don't laugh away the underlying threat to it all. trump wants to break the judges against him, he wants to destroy every aspect of the Rule of Law.

In this, we need to stand firm. Like a Rock.

(yes, simile intended)

It's Cinco De Mayo Time 2025!

Just a quick note or three about CINCO DE MAYO this 2025:

Find yourself in sunny Minot North Dakota!!

Head out to Herbert's Taco Hut!

Get yourself a taco!

Aim both middle fingers in the general direction of donald Racist Orange Shitgibbon trump!

And Celebrate the Battle of Puebla as General Zaragoza intended!!!

P.S. more blogging to follow this Monday. brb.

This Remake Isn't Any Better

There's a thing about the first 100 days of a presidential administration that's supposed to signify the successes - and failures - pointing towards how that presidency is going to turn out.

I'd like to refer to Maha - who's also quoting a few other observers - over at her blog to describe just how badly trump's second go at driving America over the cliffs is going: 

Okay, so where was I? Much of the news over the past few days has been about Trump’s falling poll numbers. He’s not just historically unpopular; with the exception of “border security” his “policies” are underwater as well. The majority do not like his handling of the economy, or of immigrants, or anything else. Yet  he’s not getting the message. Jennifer Rubin writes that Trump is doubling down rather than backing off.

Whether it is court decisions, nominees, or taxing everyday American consumers, Trump seems so wedded to boneheaded ideas that he might continue insisting on upping the ante rather than cutting his losses. In doing so, he will likely wipe out a table of Republicans who have stood by him but will soon have to stand for reelection.

It’s becoming increasingly easy to understand how he bankrupted all those casinos.

Josh Marshall writes that Trump has already lost.

I see the signs all around. He’s doubling down on things people don’t like. He’s fomenting a growing political backlash. The more signs we see of the limits of Trump’s power, the more people show signs of bucking that power. All power is unitary. We see signs of it everywhere. You simply cannot impose an autocracy if a clear majority of the country opposes what you are trying to do at the outset, when you are trying to do it.

They are now reacting to initial resistance by doubling down on things that are not popular. They appear to be upset that they’ve managed to have fewer deportations during Trump’s first hundred days in office than Biden had in his last hundred. Now they’re going to crack down on local officials and are threatening more indictments of judges and other officials who get in their way.

Good luck getting 12 jurors to convict any of these people. 

Nobody is saying that the administration is going to collapse soon. It’s going to be a couple of months before the effects of the tariffs hit the retail stores, and consumers...

Not surprisingly the U.S. economy shrank in the first quarter. Not surprisingly, Trump blamed Joe Biden.

“This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s,” Trump posted to his Truth Social platform after the economic news dropped, and markets braced to open lower.

“I didn’t take over until January 20th. Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers.

“Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden ‘Overhang.’ This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!”

But most economists are telling us there is no way the economy will get better as long as Trump refuses to completely change course. It’s probably not too late to salvage a decent economy out of the mess, but Trump is unlikely to let that happen.

So there we are...

I've noticed some of these things already. When confronted with the facts his actions aren't working, are unpopular, or both, trump will refuse to admit his mistakes and double down on them until someone with the power to tell him no steps up and stops him... at which point he'll blame everyone else - including the ones who stopped him - for the screwups.

Always remember this about trump: trump views the world as made up of Winners and Suckers/Losers, and he must never admit to being a Loser.

As trump's tariff wars keep starting and delaying - except for the ones on China, which are now taking effect - he refuses to admit how his chaotic actions are unsettling the global economy to where he's triggered the start of a world-wide recession, and he's threatening to keep up with that chaos until he gets the trade deals with other nations - which they won't cooperate bending towards - he wants.

As trump's anti-immigration policies are scaring away legitimate tourists and college students, he doesn't want to admit the warrantless overkill arresting law-abiding migrants and students is breaking any laws, and he's insisting everyone he's shipping - illegally - to El Salvador are hardened gang members by flouting manufactured "proof" nobody else can take serious.

trump can never admit he's wrong... which is why the things he's doing wrong will get worse.

It'd be pretty to think that the end result of this would be a broken, mostly dead Far Right Republican power base that can never rise again to any political control of the United States. But that should have happened the FIRST TIME AROUND, when trump's failures and the GOP's inability to rein him in should have ruined their reputation with a majority of voters and doomed them for a generation or three. Instead, this miasma of disinformation and short-term memory failure - and the Democrats' refusal to throw trump and his lackeys into a courtroom for guilty verdicts and prison cells - allowed trump to come roaring back into office where his greed, rage, fearmongering, and idiocy would doom us again.

Only this time, he's been granted more power than before, and there's NOBODY in a position to delay his obsessive agenda to burn it all down - so he can rule the ashes - or else cushion the damage getting done.

A lot of people are going to lose their livelihoods - their lives - because this trump sequel is darker and dumber than the plotline that came before. And there's a serious question if we're going to recover anything out of what's to come.

O Canada! (Thank God)

God exists, and She's Canadian (yes this is a Gen X Dogma reference).

Canada held their national elections this Monday, facing down a potential conservative flip the way most other western liberal nations were facing in the post-COVID reactionary world. However, thanks to one unavoidable factor - donald MOTHERFUCKING trump, out here hitting their nation with high tariffs and taunting them with threats to make them "the 51st state" - affecting the overall mood of the Canadian electorate, the results are favoring the liberal party under new-ish leadership to continue their fight against trump's bullying ways.

Ed Kilgore over at New York's Intelligencer site took note of how trump screwed it up for himself and his wingnut conservative allies in the Great White North (paywalled):

...The bookmark at the end of the month was Monday’s national election in Canada, which Donald Trump worked hard to make a referendum on his various threats to our most important trading partner’s economy, independence, and even integrity. Elections are rarely defined by a single issue, but there’s not much doubt north of the border that Trump personally turned a certain victory for his Conservative counterparts into a stunning win for the left-for-dead Liberals. The ruling party made mobilizing the country against Trump’s various provocations the successful formula (personal edit: search for #ElbowsUp, kids!) for a fourth consecutive national win under the leadership of recently appointed prime minister Mark Carney, who is sort of the Kamala Harris of Canada, given long-time leader Justin Trudeau’s handoff to him in January.

Despite clear signals he was putting Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre in an impossible spot, Trump never let up, issuing this especially provocative bit of advice to Canadians on Truth Social on Election Day itself:

Good luck to the Great people of Canada. Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half, increase your military power, for free, to the highest level in the World, have your Car, Steel, Aluminum, Lumber, Energy, and all other businesses, QUADRUPLE in size, WITH ZERO TARIFFS OR TAXES, if Canada becomes the cherished 51st. State of the United States of America. No more artificially drawn line from many years ago. Look how beautiful this land mass would be. Free access with NO BORDER. ALL POSITIVES WITH NO NEGATIVES. IT WAS MEANT TO BE! America can no longer subsidize Canada with the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year that we have been spending in the past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a State!

Trump was essentially offering to displace the entire Canadian election system and extinguish that country’s sovereignty in exchange for his benevolent rule from Washington.

So Trump has produced a revived government in Ottawa with a distinct mandate to fight him tooth and nail. But that’s not the only way he was a loser on Monday. It’s not at all unusual for politicians to rally domestic support by picking a fight with other countries; it’s a jingoistic political tale as old as time. In this case, there is zero evidence (outside the hardest core of MAGA loyalists) that Americans have rallied to Trump’s Canada-bashing cause. Au contraire, as they might say in Quebec. An April 22 Washington Post–ABC–Ipsos poll showed Americans opposing a takeover of Canada by an astounding 86 percent to 13 percent. Even Republicans opposed it, 71 percent to 27 percent. Yes, many of them viewed this “idea” as a classic example of Trump just trolling the world. But if that’s what it was (and he has denied he’s trolling at all), he’s taken the joke far beyond the point where anyone in Canada is laughing, making himself a bit of a laughing stock in the process...

Somewhere in trump's aging, dementia-addled brain, he's gotten the notion that he can coax, bully, and/or harass the entire nation of Canada into succumbing to his will and joining the United States as one huge state (never mind the geographic, logistical, political, and cultural nightmares that would all cause). He clearly flunked out of 19th Century U.S. history, which would have taught him that Canada resisted even American military invasions during the War of 1812. Hell, that resistance developed their own rise of nationalism and pride in having defended themselves against our arrogance. They view the Battle of Queenston Heights the way Americans view Yorktown, or Gettysburg, or D-Day.

For trump to keep insisting that "it'll be better" for them to surrender to trump's annexation pleas is a huge ongoing insult to Canada. If he's doing it to intentionally troll them, to get them to roll over in his tariff negotiation tactics, he horribly miscalculated. He's made it so that anything even indirectly related to trumpism such as the conservatives in Canada - who probably made hourly phone calls to their American buddies begging them to get trump to shut up for even a day - got the Elbows Up treatment. It's telling that the leader of the national Conservatives Pierre Poilievre lost his own seat, a humiliation even UK Tories leader Sunak never endured (via Promit Mukherjee at Reuters):

Canada's main opposition leader Pierre Poilievre lost his seat in Monday's general election, results from Elections Canada showed, as the Conservatives were beaten by the incumbent Liberal Party.

Poilievre, 45, failed to retain his seat in the Ontario district of Carleton, losing it to Liberal Bruce Fanjoy...

Poilievre, a career politician, looked set to become Canada's next prime minister at the start of the year as he pitched himself as a change from former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who had led the Liberals since 2015.

Poilievre rode an anti-Trudeau wave and his sharp one-liners resonated with the public.

But as U.S. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Canada and often mused about making it his country's 51st state, opinions shifted in favor of Carney over Poilievre...

Poilievre tried to deflect any anti-trumpism by loudly decrying trump's tariffs and calling on national pride, but his own rhetoric style and decades of attacking liberalism made Poilievre the one target Canadians could punish. They couldn't punch trump - safe behind our border - but they could punch him.

Granted, the Conservatives did gain seats - there is a terrifying trend of young men voting far right in Canada as much as here in the U.S. - but they failed to win the plurality, giving Liberals the opportunity to form another coalition. Poilievre may lose his spot as party leader now that he's ousted from office, but now it's a question of the next party leader and how Far Right they'll be (and how susceptible they'll be to trumpian Far Right ideology takeover).

For the Center-Left in Canada, there is relief. For the Center-Left in America, there is a sliver of hope.

For the ongoing trade and border wars trump is threatening to escalate...