The Wickedness of the Unwanted War

Are we the baddies?
-- Mitchell and Webb

The "bomb 'em all" war that trump and his lackeys triggered in Iran last week started with a horrific war crime: the destruction of a school building that killed hundreds including children. Only now are we getting confirmation it was our side doing it (via Merlyn Thomas and Shayan Sardarizadeh with the BBC, through a fact-checking service called BBC Verify): 

A US Tomahawk missile hit a military base near a primary school in southern Iran where Iranian authorities said 168 people, including around 110 children, were killed, expert video analysis shows.

A video published yesterday by Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency, which BBC Verify has confirmed as authentic, shows a missile moments before it struck an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base next to the Shajareh Tayebeh primary school in Minab.

BBC Verify has previously established through satellite imagery, verified videos and expert analysis that the area near the school was hit by a series of strikes.

Experts who have seen this latest video told us the presence of a Tomahawk missile, along with evidence the area was hit with multiple strikes, indicates this was a US operation. Neither Israel nor Iran are known to possess Tomahawks, experts said.

Netanyahu and his Israeli forces are eagerly striking targets across Iran for their own reasons - to end Iran's proxy war through terror groups, and to destabilize the entire Middle East to justify land-grabbing Gaza and the West Bank - but they've dragged in on their side a bomb-happy trump regime that wants "results" through glorified explosions and graphic body counts.

Just look at Secretary of War Assholes Pete Hegseth, out here crowing about ignoring the rules of engagement that our military is supposed to follow to reduce civilian casualties (via Haley Fuller at Military.com):

At a Pentagon briefing on March 2, 2026, War Secretary Pete Hegseth used blunt language about how the United States would fight, saying there would be “no stupid rules of engagement,” “no politically correct wars,” and “no nation-building quagmire.”

Those remarks became a flashpoint because rules of engagement, or ROE, are not “vibes” or slogans. They are a formal control system that ties tactical force decisions to strategy, law, and escalation management. Human Rights Watch responded the same day by warning that dismissing ROE in public can read as minimizing legal constraints that exist to protect civilians and keep operations compliant with the laws of war. 

In U.S. doctrine, ROE start with standing baseline rules and then get tailored by commanders for a mission, geography, and threat picture. The Joint Staff’s Standing Rules of Engagement and Standing Rules for the Use of Force (CJCSI 3121.01B) are the backbone reference that describes how U.S. forces think about self defense, hostile act, hostile intent, and the conditions for using force...

There are well-documented cases where tighter guidance on the use of force improved strategic outcomes by reducing civilian harm and preserving legitimacy with the population. In Afghanistan, ISAF’s 2009 Tactical Directive under Gen. Stanley McChrystal tightened standards for air-to-ground fires and emphasized protecting civilians, explicitly shaping how units used force in populated areas.

U.S. military analysis later described how that directive and related command emphasis drove changes in how airpower was used and contributed to decreased civilian casualties from airpower during that period. That is not a moral victory lap; it is operational logic. Civilian harm can create tactical blowback, degrade intelligence access, and strengthen enemy recruiting. 

Counterinsurgency doctrine makes the same point in more formal language: in COIN, legitimacy and civilian protection are not side quests. They are part of the theory of victory, which means ROE can become an instrument of strategy rather than just a compliance checklist...

In short: we're supposed to be the good guys, and good guys do not blow up schools and kill hundreds of children.

We do that - our US forces go in and commit atrocities across the board - and we signal to the local population we can't be trusted, that we are the demons that the other side keep painting us as. Recruitment for insurgents will go up: Local resistance - if we ever send troops to occupy - will get violent. Regional terrorism within any allied nations - and the likelihood of another terror strike here in the U.S. - will play out. And you get the quagmire Hegseth claims we're not getting dragged into.

But Hegseth doesn't care, he just wants to preen and strut as "a warrior" playing out his Alpha Male fantasies. trump never cared, he wants to satisfy the cruel urges that fill that empty void where a human soul should be.

It's telling that neither man were never truly soldiers. For all of Hegseth's "military" experience in the National Guard, he rode a desk not a tank. None of the actual Code of good soldiering got through that thick skull of his. Hegseth thinks warring is all about killing, and planting a colored flag on a battlefield to claim victory.

He is so wrong about that.

And trump, draft-dodging bone-spur coward that he is... he said far too often to far too many people that soldiering is for losers and suckers.

In the process, Hegseth is pushing our military into committing more and worse war crimes on the scale of My Lai, or Sand Creek. He's hoping - with trump's approval - to turn our troops into mindless trigger-pullers, taking aim at any target he and trump order them to kill.

This may be about the senseless - and criminal - killing of Iranians, and Venezuelans, and South American boaters, and now they're taking aim at Cubans. It's also about trump and the Far Right's desire to get troops to aim their rifles and missiles at other Americans, the ones the Far Right fear and hate the most.

trump wants his war on the part of America that doesn't cower or offer him adoration. Hegseth and the other Republican chickenhawks are willing to help him.

We need to stop these warmongers, not just for the sake of innocent lives across the globe but for the sake of our families, friends, and communities.

trump, Hegseth, and the Far Right want to be the Bad Guys. We shouldn't let them.

How Can Our Own Military Be Running Out of Ammo?

Update: Thanks again to Batocchio for sharing this article at Crooks&Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! And did Italy just beat the US in baseball this week???

As much as the ongoing deaths of civilians and soldiers horrify me as trump pushes the United States into more bombings and more war with more nations, another thing irking me is the revelation that our military is woefully unprepared for most of this, especially in terms of supplies. Susie Madrak over at Crooks & Liars has the details:

Inside the Pentagon, there was deepening concern Sunday that the Iran conflict could spiral out of control, said people familiar with the situation. “The mood here is intense and paranoid,” one person said.

Senior leaders are worried that the fighting will extend for weeks, further stressing limited U.S. air defense stockpiles.

“I don’t think people have fully absorbed yet, like, what that has done with stockpiles,” one source added, noting that it often takes two or three air defense interceptors to ensure that an incoming missile is stopped.

The president’s senior military adviser, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, warned the White House last week that munitions shortfalls and a lack of broad military support from other U.S. allies would raise the risk to any operation in Iran and to the U.S. personnel put in harm’s way.

Granted, the government under Biden has been shipping out a lot of reserve firepower to places like Ukraine, but our own military should have been stockpiling newer gear, ammo, defense systems, tanks, planes, helicopters, and other equipment to fill that void. 

I went digging for information about what's going on with our military manufacturing, and by the looks of it there's hundreds of billions of dollars getting pumped into all that (via Jake Kaufman at Defense and Munitions, a trade magazine):

The President’s FY ’26 National Defense Budget requests $1.01 trillion, a 13% increase from 2025. However, at the moment, Congress has passed $831.5 billion for the Department of War’s Defense's discretionary budget. Outstanding budget considerations going through Congress could bring that final number up toward $893 billion...

You would think $893 billion would pay for a lot of bullets...

The budget includes an additional $1.3 billion for industrial-based supply chain improvements and an additional $2.5 billion for missiles and munitions production expansion. The budget also includes significant new investments of $200 million for automation and artificial intelligence (AI). It breaks down to shipbuilding, munitions and defense supply chains, and air and missile defense alone accounting for 50% of the total enhancements...

So the money is there - you would think - for a lot of weapons production and resources getting shipped out to our armed forces. And yet, we're getting warning signs from our own Pentagon officials that things are amiss, that they're not getting all these weapons and material to fight the wars they're being asked to fight.

This is a serious question: Just where the hell is all our defense spending going to these corporations that are supposed to be manufacturing all this shit? What happened to all the resources that are supposed to be pouring into our munitions factories to pump out the missiles and bullets and body armor and helmets and battlefield supplies?

Where's the fucking money, Lockheed Martin???

Blood and Ash the Price We Will All Pay For This

Again, I woke up to war this year. This started around 2:14 AM EST (via Amir-Hussein Radjy at AP News):

Two residents reported hearing the sounds of strikes echoing across the capital. A resident in the area of Mehrabad airport reported the sounds of “two heavy explosions” shaking windows just over half an hour ago. In central Tehran near Vanak, another resident reported the sounds of “blasts and war” coming at almost the same moment.

The more comprehensive AP report by Brian Melley:

The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Saturday in a massive operation that President Donald Trump said killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei while targeting military capabilities and aiming to eliminate the threat of Tehran creating a nuclear weapon.

There was no comment on Khamenei by Tehran, while Trump urged Iranians to seize the moment and “take over.”

In counterattacks, Iran fired drones and missiles at Israel and aimed strikes at U.S. military installations in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar. Exchanges of fire continued into the night. Iranian state media, citing the Red Crescent, on Saturday evening said at least 201 people had been killed and more than 700 injured.

Iran has also been attacking civilian targets in Dubai and other parts of the Arabian Middle East. Iran is threatening to blockade the Strait of Hormuz if they haven't started already, something that can easily cut off a massive amount of oil needed for global energy needs, spiking gas prices here in the U.S. as well as other nations.

At the moment, it doesn't look like trump and his gung-ho war buddies are going to commit any troops to a ground invasion, contenting themselves with a massive bombing campaign alongside Israel to perform "decapitation strikes" to destabilize the regime. Essentially the same thing trump ordered when using the military to capture Venezuela's president a month ago.

Thing is, any serious attempt at regime change is going to NEED boots on the ground and an occupying force to rebuild things. trump may have captured Maduro but all that did was promote Venezuela's Vice President to the top job. If the US bombing did succeed in killing Khamenei - who was 86 and dying anyway - all we've done right now is promote another cleric to the Ayatollah job and that person is hiding in the deepest basement he can find.

And even then, our nation's track record at nation-building after war and occupation hasn't been all that great post World War II. We tried in Afghanistan and failed (trump made sure of that). We tried in Iraq and failed (lying us into war over fake WMDs made sure of that). The biggest - the most horrifying - argument in the halls of power in DC over trump's campaign against Iran is how there's no real plan involved. Tom Nichols at the Atlantic spells out the hazards:

To think about the possible courses of this war, we should start by clearly understanding three realities: First, Iran is a terrible regime that deserves to fall. The regime recently murdered thousands of its own citizens who were seeking freedom from their oppressive rule, and no one should be shedding tears for the mullahs hiding in their bunkers.

Second, “success” is not impossible—if by “success” we mean the fall of the ayatollahs and the rise of a better, more humane, pro-Western government that does not seek to destabilize the Middle East; dominate Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen; and eradicate Israel. But the path to that success is exceedingly narrow and mined with significant hazards. Destroying the regime’s capabilities is relatively easy, but nothing permanent—as Americans learned in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan—is achieved by bouncing rubble and piling up bodies. Destroying the regime itself is a far trickier business; dictatorships have a high pain tolerance, especially when the hapless citizens, not the leaders, bear the brunt of that pain.

Third, the president has not offered a strategy, or identified any conditions that would signal that U.S. goals have been achieved. Yes, he has vowed to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, but beyond that, he seems to be arguing for just inflicting military damage on the regime, on the assumption that enough ordnance on enough targets will weaken the grip of the ayatollahs. Once the theocrats are on the ropes, the thinking seems to go, the people of Iran will finish the job of regime change for us...

America twice had its hands full in Iraq, a nation of 37 million, even with the assistance of several countries. The U.S., France, and Britain managed to subdue tiny Libya, a nation of 7.5 million, and left its dictator to be raped and beaten in the streets. This time, conditions are different and more challenging: The target is two and a half times the size of Iraq, America has exactly one openly declared ally in this enterprise, no serious armed rebel force exists in Iran, and no coalition of nations is assembling to march into Tehran...

In short, the United States and Israel - both driven by neocon fantasies of purging the Middle East in blood and fire - are doubling down on the chaos thinking a shinier better world will emerge. That we will be - yet again - "greeted as liberators" even though we're destroying the village nation in order to save it us. This is in spite of the evidence that we're going in mostly alone, going into a territory and terrain far harsher than we've dealt with before, and with no real clue where the exit doors are when it's time to flee for our lives.

All of these problems were ones I'd pointed out back in 2019, during trump's first reign of error, when it was clear even then that going to war in Iran one way or another was a bad idea. Nothing had changed since then, except for trump's growing dementia, arrogance, and desperation to *win* at something to confirm his own self-worth at everyone else's expense.

Topping all of this is the fact trump's actions are illegal - he does not have authorization from Congress for this - and that we're already getting reports from Iran of high civilian casualties (aka war crimes). There is no other way to say this, America: WE are the bad guys here.

And GODDAMN every media pundit who proclaimed trump 'a dove' while defaming Hillary and Kamala as warmongers. You lied to yourselves as well as to the nation about who the real warmonger has been - and which party (hint, not the Democrats) has profited from these wars ever since 2001.

Without a clear agenda, without true and honest goals, without a sincere desire to do what is right for the poor suffering citizens of Iran - and the other lands that trump and his thugs would desecrate for their own greed and lust - this war that has begun poorly will end much worse, with more suffering and dismay than our own nation will be willing to bear.

Goddamn every one of you bastards who supported trump the last ten years, because the next ten years of blood and ash are the price we're all paying for your fear and rage. 

I Love You More Than Hate Loves War

Last month, Bruce Springsteen released a protest song railing against the violence of trump's thugs towards immigrants and protestors, and it came as part of an early wave of protest songs spreading across the American airwaves as other artists chimed in.

Last week, one of the other bands I follow - U2 - released their own song about the violence in Minneapolis, on an EP (sort of a mini-album) alongside other songs protesting the state of things across the world from Ukraine to Sudan to Iran to Gaza. 

trump and his ilk have operated for years on the belief that their world-view - of greed, of fear, of hating others they can't understand or accept - is the only view that matters, and waged - still waging - a culture war to establish their hate over all of us.

Yet now our American culture - driven by music, by entertainment, by passion and heart and hope - is fighting back, delving into the long-standing traditions of protest songs to spell out where the haters are wrong, and how they're going to lose.

Keep fighting. Keep singing.

We - the communities, the families, the real Americans - shall overcome.

The True State of the Union This 2026

trump is going to lie his ass off at tonight's State of the Union address, so here are the facts as you need to know them.

The state of the Union is strong divided. The polling by most Americans show a lot of us are miserable at the direction our nation is turning. And the disapproval is far higher than it was in trump's first run at misrule:

from the NPR report on trump's bad standing before this SOTU.

The division in the country is due to trump's heavy-handed immigration policy, as his ICE and Border Patrol thugs are smashing and shooting their way through too many of our cities and states grabbing families and children. The current regime is at open war with our own communities, dragging us into culture war racism and misogyny that tore the United States apart the last time we went down this path.

The division in the country is due to trump's arrogant and violent handling of foreign policy, threatening unwanted wars against allies and enemies alike while committing war crimes that a majority of Americans can't abide. trump's open calls about attacking Iran over the past month - and growing louder by the day - have little support within his own nation even as most of us are mortified we have nobody - cough GOP Congress cough - in a position to stop it.

The division in the country is due to trump's unstoppable obsession with using tariffs and his overall mishandling of our economy. Inflation is still a problem, the job market is unsteady, and far too many of us are struggling with housing, debt, and other costs. The only economic sector that's chugging along are the stock markets, and even they are one bubble burst away from a meltdown that would make the Great Recession look like a hiccup.

If there's any issue a majority of Americans are united, it's that we need to see more of the Epstein Files documents and more accountability of the elites who engaged (and profited from) in sex trafficking of teens. And on that, trump and his lackeys are clearly ignoring the people's demands - openly committing obstruction by hiding (or worse destroying) documents showing trump's culpability - to the detriment of our country.

So that's where we stand, America, on this eve of trump's lie-fest to the Union.

Gods help us.

In trumpworld, the Tariffs Will Increase Until Morale Improves

Update: thanks again to Steve in Manhattan for sharing this article at Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up. Just a reminder, save your sanity by avoiding tonight's SOTU and rely on the poor souls who will annotate it on Bluesky for us.

For all the storm and fury over donald trump's obsession for raising tariffs, there was eventually a reckoning this week when the Supreme Court finally realized they needed to tell trump "No, you CAN'T raise tariffs without congressional approval." (via Scott Horsley at NPR):

The Supreme Court ruled Friday that President Trump overstepped his authority when he ordered tariffs on imports from nearly every country in the world, using a 1970s emergency statute...

The federal government has been collecting about $30 billion in tariffs every month — or about four times as much as it took in before Trump returned to the White House.

Trump has raised tariff rates to their highest level in nearly a century, but import taxes are still a small share of overall government revenue — just over 5% in January...

A working paper from Harvard University professor and former International Monetary Fund economist Gita Gopinath and Brent Neiman of the University of Chicago estimates that nearly all the cost of Trump's tariffs are being paid by U.S. importers, not foreign suppliers as Trump has claimed.

In some cases, importers have absorbed that cost, settling for lower profits. In others, they've passed the additional cost on to customers in the form of higher prices...

Trump promised that imposing the highest tariffs since the Great Depression would spark a renaissance in U.S. manufacturing. But factories have been in a slump for most of the last year, shedding 108,000 jobs in 2025.

No doubt Trump's taxes on foreign imports have allowed some U.S. factories to raise their prices. But the vast majority of factory managers, many of whom rely on foreign components, say tariffs have been a drag on their business.

"Morale is very low across manufacturing in general," one unnamed factory manager told the Institute for Supply Management in December...

So of course, trump being trump he decided to double down on his tariffs obsession (via Kristen Wright, also NPR): 

President Trump on Saturday said he plans to raise global tariffs from 10% to 15%.

"...I, as President of the United States of America, will be, effective immediately, raising the 10% Worldwide Tariff on Countries, many of which have been "ripping" the U.S. off for decades, without retribution (until I came along!), to the fully allowed, and legally tested, 15% level," the president posted on Truth Social.

The announcement was made a day after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the president's sweeping use of emergency powers to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The 6-3 ruling is a major blow to Trump's economic policy agenda.

Trump said his decision to raise taxes on imports to 15% is based on "a thorough, detailed, and complete review of the ridiculous, poorly written, and extraordinarily anti-American decision on Tariffs issued yesterday."

trump is, of course, lying out of his ass about "thorough, detailed, and complete review" of a ruling within 24 hours of getting it dumped on his head. Given the ineptitude of trump's entire administration, there's rarely been ANYthing other than messy, disorganized, poorly reasoned responses.

trump is pushing ahead on his tariffs for - again - various reasons, mostly tied to his raging narcissism. Above all is how trump can never admit he is wrong, or losing in any way. he will double down on his mistakes and his flawed logic whenever possible, and blame the people who stopped him for being "crooked" or wrong (when they're not).

he's still convinced - and not through egotistical stubbornness, but genuine belief - that trade wars work, that tariffs are effective sources of revenue (when it's only five percent of total revenue, that can't be anywhere near correct), and that tariffs give him more control over everyone else. trump wants the power to wield tariffs and the threat of such over foreign nations and local businesses alike, as extortions and shakedowns. 

trump believes he doesn't need to work with Congress in any way - look at how he refused to coordinate with even his fellow Republicans during the first time - and his abuse of the laws regarding trade and tariffs is a big sign of that disregard.

The tariff trump is looking to impose now can well face more legal actions from businesses and groups threatened by how rash and destructive these decisions are. But that more dragging out in courts, meaning the costs of trump's tariffs are going to prolong the economic malaise building under his misrule.

trump doesn't care. he's going to keep lying and keep bullying about how great everything is, until he's convinced we adore him the way he wants.

Which is never going to happen. So the beatings tariffs will continue on...

Punch What Is On the Menu

Violence is not in good taste, but sometimes punch is what's on the menu.
-- Alyssa Cole

Most of today was news about the British government moving forward in their criminal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein's abuse and trafficking of underage girls at a global level... by arresting someone who was at the top of the British government (via Lucy Campbell, Nadeem Badshah, Tom Ambrose, and Taz Ali at The Guardian):

Here’s a brief recap of a shocking and dramatic day that could have profound ramifications for the royal family.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on Thursday morning on suspicion of misconduct in public office by police investigating the former prince’s dealings with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Photographs showed unmarked police cars and plainclothes officers at Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate at about 8am (GMT). They searched the Norfolk property as well as his former home in the Royal Lodge in Great Windsor Park.

Police had been assessing allegations that Mountbatten-Windsor shared sensitive information with Epstein when he was a UK trade envoy. The allegations stem from documents released by the US justice department relating to Epstein and his links to the rich and powerful. Emails released appeared to show Mountbatten-Windsor sharing reports of official visits to Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore. Another email appeared to send Epstein a confidential brief on investment opportunities in the reconstruction of Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Mountbatten-Windsor has always denied any wrongdoing or accusations against him, but has not directly responded to these latest allegations...

There is a painful irony in that Andrew - no longer a prince in the royal family - is facing criminal charges for the financial shenanigans that Epstein and that circle of elites committed over the decades, instead of the sexual abuse charges that deserve greater focus (and hopefully punishment).

But these charges against ex-Prince Randy Andy (yes, that was his nickname) highlight one of the dirty truths regarding everything crooked in Jeffrey Epstein's world. There is a terrifying connection between the powerful elites - those with wealth, those with political office, those with social connections, those with the authority to hide the crimes of others - when it comes to abusing their elite status towards everyone else... especially young women without any power or protection of their own.

Each release of Epstein files - recently the thousands of emails detailing Epstein's connections to other men who shared the same misogyny and racism - exposes how everything wrong with our society and culture tie into each other. The greed driving our economic inequality, the fear driving the hatred towards immigrants and "the Other", the rage driving the attacks both physical and emotional towards women: All of it tied into this twisted patriarchal sociopathy that demands obedience to whichever wannabe Alpha Male flexes his ego the most.

We need a full release of the Epstein Files: not the names of the victims but the names of the perpetrators, so that we can drive those sons of bitches out of power before they cause more harm (because they are).

The Epstein Elites Kan't Speel

I apologize for not blogging that often this month, I will attempt to get back up to speed, but in the meantime this kid (oh GOD I'm old) Josh Johnson is blowing up YouTube with clips of his stand-up routines skewering the billionaire techbro bastards currently tearing down every aspect of human civilization.

And these illiterate elites are trying to shove their artificial intelligence as though that fakery can compensate for their stupidity. Argh.

I'll check back in soon.

One Bit of Good News (Which Highlights All The Other Bad News)

With the furor over ICE basically kidnapping a 5-year-old from the streets of Minneapolis, the courts thankfully stepped in and said "HELL NO, Send Liam And His Dad Home" (via Sofia Barnett at the Minnesota Star Tribune): 

Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos returned home to Minnesota on Sunday, Feb. 1, with his father, ending a detention that carried the Columbia Heights preschooler hundreds of miles from his school and family and turned him into a national symbol of the human toll of immigration enforcement.

Liam and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, boarded a commercial flight from San Antonio to Minneapolis after spending more than a week in federal custody at a Texas immigration detention center. They were detained Jan. 20 outside their home in Columbia Heights shortly after Liam returned from preschool, according to school officials and witnesses.

Their detention drew national attention after photos circulated of Liam being taken into custody in his driveway, wearing a blue hat with bunny ears and a Spider-Man backpack. In one photo, his face is twisted into a frown as agents lead him toward a vehicle, his small frame swallowed by a bulky flannel, his hands held together in front of him...

Liam’s release followed an emergency order from U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, who directed the government to immediately free the father and son from the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley. The ruling capped days of mounting pressure from lawmakers, school leaders and advocates who warned the detention of the young child had crossed a line.

The good news is that Liam is home, he's in a safe place and he has a chance to recover from the trauma ICE, Stephen Miller, and trump dumped on him.

The bad news? There's still thousands of innocent children being held in cages by trump's thugs (via Holly Yan and Priscilla Alvarez at CNN):.

But the boy’s plight – and his now uncertain future – sparked renewed outrage over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown, which has also ensnared children.

Liam is now the fourth child from his school district to be taken away by ICE in just the past two weeks, Columbia Heights Public Schools said...

Liam, a student in the “PreK 4” program at Valley View Elementary, isn’t the only child from his school district who has been taken away by federal agents. Three other students have also been taken by ICE, school officials said.

Also on Tuesday, a 17-year-old Columbia Heights High School student on the way to school was taken by armed, masked agents, Columbia Heights Public Schools said.

“No parents were present,” the school district said. “The student was removed from their car and taken away.”

Last week, ICE agents entered the apartment of another 17-year-old high school student and her mother. Both were detained, the district said.

And a fourth grader was taken by ICE agents on her way to school with her mother two weeks ago. The 10-year-old is still in a Texas detention center, the school district said on Wednesday...

The current (as of December 2025) estimate on the number of children Homeland Security/ICE are detaining is around 3,800. This could be ranging from newborns to high school teens.

And we're talking CHILDREN here. Not gang-bangers. Not criminals. Children going to school, children trying to learn, trying to grow up in a nation that's supposed to be better than this.

And yet trump and Miller and Koem and nearly every Republican talking head out there are still trying to shill the Narrative that all these brown dark-skinned kids are the bad guys.

THEY'RE CHILDREN.

NONE OF THEM SHOULD BE IN CAGES, YOU MONSTERS.

Send every child back home, goddammit.

A City Aflame Fought Fire and Ice ‘Neath an Occupiers Boots

Just saw on Bluesky that Bruce Springsteen - someone always on the side of truth justice and the American Way - released a protest song honoring the people of Minneapolis for their struggle:

Bruce does not hold back in his lyrics: He names trump and his thugs as the instigators of violence, and even notes that the architects of the violence - Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem - are equally at fault (bit disappointing he didn't include Border Patrol (ex)capo Greg Bovino, but not a lot of words rhyme with 'Bovino' I guess).

He names the two victims - Renee Good and Alex Pretti - left dead at the hands of ICE thugs, ensuring in some way their names and their importance to this fight will not fade from our memories.

The song harkens back to the protest songs that rose up throughout American history, from the anti-war anti-racism songs of the 1960s back to the union songs of the Great Depression (and arguably the anti-slavery tunes of the antebellum era). Springsteen openly admits the influence Pete Seeger has on his music, and this is Bruce paying back his mentor and then some.

So this is what it feels like now. We're in the era of Kent State and Chicago '68 and Matewan and the Strikes of 1910 and the Abolition movement from the 1840s to the Civil War. Welcome to the Rebellion.

We're a nation now under attack by the corrupt powers in high places. Thank God we got the songs to keep us fighting through the tear gas and fire.

Into the Tear Gas

On the streets of Minneapolis where the federal agents are violent and the local citizenry are pissed:

There was a photograph of that man as well.

 

Photo by Theia Chatelle 

Local hero.

We Need To Admit What We're In Now

The anger remains potent even a day after ICE escalated the Republican War on America. (via Cheryl W. Thompson with NPR)

A man shot Saturday morning by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis has died, federal and local officials said.

The man was identified by state officials as Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse and Minneapolis resident.

The incident marks the third shooting involving federal immigration agents in Minneapolis this month.

"Today, federal agents beat and then shot multiple times and killed 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a U.S. citizen, a Minneapolis resident, and a V.A. nurse," U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said in a news conference this afternoon. "Eyewitness video shows, once again, reckless, violent, and dangerous federal agents taking the life of a Minnesotan."

The anger stems from the near-immediate evidence from eyewitnesses and video recordings that Pretti wasn't even resisting the agents when they ganged up on him and shot him in the back (follow-up from Jennifer Ludden and Liz Baker with NPR):

Minnesota officials are pushing to ensure they can help investigate the shocking fatal shooting of 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti. After a late night court filing a federal judge granted them a temporary restraining order, ruling that no Homeland Security officer can destroy or alter evidence related to the death Saturday morning. Federal investigators have refused to allow access to the scene, despite the state obtaining a search warrant for public areas.

It's the second fatal shooting in Minneapolis by immigration agents this month, and once again Trump administration officials immediately defended the action as self-defense while blaming the victim — in this case claiming he was a "domestic terrorist" intending to "massacre" officers.

Multiple bystander videos and witness testimony contradict that. Pretti can be seen holding only a phone in his hand before at least six officers tackle him, pinning him face down on the ground and shooting him in the back, firing what sounds like 10 shots. One eyewitness said in a court document that Pretti was not even facing agents when they grabbed him. "It didn't look like he was trying to resist, just trying to help [a] woman up," they wrote.

Pretti was a U.S. citizen with no known criminal record. DHS says he was armed, and the city's police chief confirmed he had a lawful permit to carry. There has been no evidence that NPR has verified of Pretti brandishing his handgun at any time during the encounter with federal agents. One video appears to show an officer take away his gun just before another shoots him.

Even the so-called Second Amendment right to bear arms is meaningless against the Far Right culture war on everything America - civil rights, peace protests, protecting our communities and loved ones - ought to represent.

Even with trump's administration and every major figure in Homeland Security trying to demonize Pretti, they cannot lie their way out of this one. There's too much video evidence, and too many witnesses. And yet, they'll continue to lie and they'll continue to escalate the violence because this is what they want.

This is what decades - if not centuries when you consider this is all fallout from the first Civil War - of drum beating by the conservative wingnuts towards other Americans have led us to. Demonizing Blacks, demonizing women, demonizing Asians, demonizing gays and lesbians and trans, demonizing everyone not of "their" tribe. I keep saying this:

This Republican-pushed Culture War is one not based on facts: It is a war based on grievance of privileges lost (or about to lose), based on fear determined by racism and sexism towards ethnic minorities and women. It's a war based on fantasies derived from Atlas Shrugged and Turner Diaries, where "manly Christian men" rise up against emasculating Godless librul elites to destroy the corrupt world in order to build a new Utopia on the ashes of the old.

It's been going on since before Black Lives Matter, before Ferguson, before Obama's election triggered angry Whites, before the War on Terror, before Pat Buchanan's Culture War speech call to arms, before the Civil Rights laws of the 1960s pushed conservatism further into racist demagoguery. You can arguably trace all this rage and fear back to 1865 when the defeated Confederates refused to accept the freedom of Blacks and waged a terror campaign well through the Jim Crow Era. 

We can't hide from this fact anymore: We are at war.

We Americans are at war against each other, driven by racism, by fear, by ignorance, by the willingness of those corrupt powers in high places to turn our anxieties towards ourselves instead of them. The vast majority of Americans aren't like that, thankfully. But there are enough of them among the angry, the fear-driven, the ones who bought into the Far Right Narrative of "liberals are pinko commie traitors who aren't REAL Americans" to where violence in our own cities - not from protestors but from government thugs - is a given.

None of this needed to happen. Alas, it has. And now every American has to make the moral decision to stand with courage against the tyranny of trump and his lackeys... or let the violence drown us all.

Stay safe, America.

From Kingdom Come, illustrated by Alex Ross

This Was Horrifying the First Time

Update: thanks again to Steve in Manhattan for including this article at Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up. Stay safe, everyone, and read up on how to wash out tear gas.

Back in the first term of the Darkest Timeline, we had a serious problem of trump's administration detaining entire families and separating the kids for maximum trauma. This was in 2018: 

Offensive above all is how - seemingly beginning under trump's misrule - the Border Patrol and ICE agents are intentionally splitting up families "in order to send a message". This message just happens to be "Hey, Mexico and Central America! The United States is now led by a group of rampaging assholes!"

'Cause only assholes would take a baby getting nursed by her mother.

The situation has gotten enough attention - especially after a reporter did a recent tour of a detention facility (converted from an empty Wal-Mart, how's THAT for symbolic?) - to where the DC Press Corps tried asking the White House Press Room about what was going on.

The answers they got? Shut up and don't question your government overlords...

And here we are deep into trump's second term as History's Greatest Monster, and he and his anti-immigrant allies like Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem are back attacking families and children without any moral constraint. They have ICE and Border agents basically kidnapping children (via Sam Levin at the Guardian (US)):

Liam Ramos, a preschooler, and his father were taken into custody while in their driveway, the superintendent of the school district in Columbia Heights, a Minneapolis suburb, said at a press conference on Wednesday. Liam, who had recently turned five, is one of four children in the school district who have been detained by federal immigration agents during the Trump administration’s enforcement surge in the region over the last two weeks, the district said.

Liam and his father had just arrived home when they were detained, according to Zena Stenvik, the superintendent, who said she drove to the home when she learned of the detentions.

When she arrived, Stenvik said the father’s car was still running and the father and son had already been apprehended. An agent had taken Liam out of the car, led the boy to his front door and directed him to knock on the door asking to be let in, “in order to see if anyone else was home – essentially using a five-year-old as bait”, the superintendent said in a statement.

Remember how trump and the Far Right described their anti-immigrant effort as "going after the bad hombres" like gangs and drug dealers and such? The truth of their anti-immigrant campaign is that they are going after families, working class people, those who came to this country legally and were following the rules to make new lives here.

The truth is that trump's racist regime is arresting five-year-olds. Does this child look like a ganger?

photo from Columbia Heights Public Schools
the school superintendent arrived at the scene and took the picture

And the agents tried to use the boy to bait more people to come out and get arrested by them. The sadists.

Stenvik said another adult living in the home was outside during the encounter and had pleaded to take care of Liam so the boy could avoid detention, but was denied. Liam’s older brother, a middle schooler, came home 20 minutes later to find his father and brother missing, Stenvik said. Two school principals from the district also arrived at the home to offer support.

Marc Prokosch, an attorney representing the family, said the family had an active asylum case and shared paperwork showing the father and son had arrived to the US at a port of entry, meaning an official crossing point.

“The family did everything they were supposed to in accordance with how the rules have been set out,” he said. “They did not come here illegally. They are not criminals.” He said there was no order of deportation against them and he believes the father and son have remained together in detention...

“Why detain a five-year-old? You cannot tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal,” Stenvik said.

It doesn't matter to Miller, Noem, trump, or anybody else eagerly volunteering to serve in the ICE brute squad. Liam Ramos, his father, and thousands of other migrants getting shipped off to detention camps are seen as criminals by the racist Far Right simply for existing.

And Liam isn't the only one. That Guardian article references a number of other children and teens getting grabbed and shipped off to god-knows-where. And even after the immediate outrage that Liam's "arrest" created, the ICE thugs doubled-down on their cruelty towards children (via Matt Lavietes with NBC News):

A 2-year-old girl and her father were taken by ICE on Thursday, according to a Minneapolis council member. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed it has detained the father, who was with a child at the time.

Elvis Joel Tipan-Echeverria and his 2-year-old daughter Chloe Renata Tipan Villacis were taken in south Minneapolis on their way home from the grocery store, Minneapolis City Council member Jason Chavez said on Instagram.

A spokesperson for DHS confirmed that Tipan-Echeverria was taken into custody and that he was driving with a child when he was stopped. The agency did not identify the child’s name, age or gender.

“A suspicious vehicle followed her father’s vehicle home, broke his window and kidnapped them,” Chavez wrote with the post. “No judicial warrant was provided.” In a brief interview with NBC News, he confirmed that they had been taken and added that he met with the father and daughter’s family on Thursday evening.

Why arrest a TWO YEAR OLD? Because they can. Because that two year old offends them just by being here. the Homeland Security spokespeople are claiming "no mother arrived to take care of the child" but the report suggests the mother wasn't even contacted. The agents didn't even try.

Never forget this fact with trump and his wingnut allies: The Cruelty Is the Point. The more vicious they can behave towards families and children, the more the wingnuts believe they can generate obedience through fear.

trump wants the round-up of families and children to continue. he WANTS violent confrontation with the groups in America - the ones defending not only the rights of immigrants but the rights of everyone - he despises to justify triggering the Insurrection Act and suspending all laws to his desire of being dictator. And the Republicans will back his play because - as their conservative ideology compels them - they want all the power for themselves.

As I was typing this, even more discouraging - and heartbreaking - news is coming out of Minneapolis. The downward spiral of state-sanctioned violence is getting worse.

Stay safe, people. But stand your ground as well. We cannot let these bastards win.

A Wounded Narcissist Leading Us to Ruin

If there's any solid evidence that the United States as a nation, as a global power, as a beacon of political stability is no more, the recent letter from donald trump to Norway's prime minister should be the big fucking clue we've finally gone over the cliffs (via Robbie Griffiths at NPR): 

President Trump says his controversial push for U.S. control of Greenland comes after he failed to win the Nobel Peace Prize last year, adding he no longer feels obliged to think only of peace.

In a message to Norway's prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre on Sunday night, Trump criticized the European country for not giving him the prize.

"Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America," Trump said in the message.

"The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland," Trump added. The message was reported by PBS NewsHour, and was later confirmed by Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in a statement.

Gahr Støre said he received the message on Sunday in response to a text he and Finland's President Alexander Stubb had sent to Trump, in which they had conveyed opposition to Trump's proposed tariff increases on eight European countries over the recent Greenland dispute.

There are images floating around of a physical letter, but I fear they are mock-ups instead of the real thing so I'm not going to post it here. But given how too many reputable news outlets have verified the contents of that letter, we should expect the messaging is correct... and clear.

For all of trump's bluster that Greenland is necessary for America's national security, the truth is that trump wants Greenland to satisfy his own broken ego. The truth is that the current occupant of the White House - I refuse to identify him otherwise - is a bratty five-year-old throwing a tantrum and lashing out in anger towards everyone he feels has insulted him.

As Anne Applebaum clarifies at the Atlantic:

One could observe many things about this document. One is the childish grammar, including the strange capitalizations (“Complete and Total Control”). Another is the loose grasp of history. Donald Trump did not end eight wars. Greenland has been Danish territory for centuries. Its residents are Danish citizens who vote in Danish elections. There are many “written documents” establishing Danish sovereignty in Greenland, including some signed by the United States. In his second term, Trump has done nothing for NATO—an organization that the U.S. created and theoretically leads, and that has only ever been used in defense of American interests. If the European members of NATO have begun spending more on their own defense (budgets to which the U.S. never contributed), that’s because of the threat they feel from Russia.

Yet what matters isn’t the specific phrases, but the overall message: Donald Trump now genuinely lives in a different reality, one in which neither grammar nor history nor the normal rules of human interaction now affect him. Also, he really is maniacally, unhealthily obsessive about the Nobel Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, not the Norwegian government and certainly not the Danish government, determines the winner of that prize. Yet Trump now not only blames Norway for failing to give it to him, but is using it as a justification for an invasion of Greenland.

For the past year, American allies around the world have tried very hard to find a theory that explains Trump’s behavior. Isolationism, neo-imperialism, and patrimonialism are all words that have been thrown around. But in the end, the president himself defeats all attempts to describe a “Trump doctrine.” He is locked into a world of his own, determined to “win” every encounter, whether in an imaginary competition for the Nobel Peace Prize or a protest from the mother of small children objecting to his masked, armed paramilitary in Minneapolis. These contests matter more to him than any long-term strategy. And of course, the need to appear victorious matters much more than Americans’ prosperity and well-being...

This is nothing new, by the way. Any rational observer of trump's world-view since 2016 saw this kind of self-serving mania coming. I remember what Adam L. Silverman wrote back then, and how it applies now:

...More than that, however, is that the Trump Doctrine is really the animating force or theme of the entire Trump campaign. The other candidates had better treat Donald Trump fairly, the Republican National Committee better treat Donald Trump fairly, the Republican establishment better treat Donald Trump fairly, the media better treat Donald Trump fairly, the state level parties that handle the primaries and all the delegates chosen better treat Donald Trump fairly. And Donald Trump will make them treat him fairly! And the only candidate, nay the only person in America who can ensure that you are treated fairly is Donald Trump. And if he isn’t treated fairly or the US isn’t treated fairly, then he will get even...!

It's not that America gets treated fairly - by whatever measurement anyone would use - it's that TRUMP gets treated fairly. And trump's idea of fair treatment is "Give me everything you have and worship me like a god."

trump doesn't get a Nobel Peace Prize? he'll force the soccer organization FIFA to create a brand-new Peace Award in order to keep the planned 2026 World Cup in the U.S. going. Even if everyone else on the planet saw it as the ego-boosting it was and mocked the award. Try to get the actual award winner María Corina Machado to gift trump the physical award as though he won it? The Nobel committee will go public with the reminder that the Peace Prize once given cannot be traded away.

We've seen this ever since trump stormed the public stage back in the 1980s: Denied any public display of success, trump had / is / will lash out however he can.

And with the powers of the office at his disposal, lashing out is arguably the only sadistic enjoyment he can feel.

The problem with this kind of absolutist leadership - the sins of tyrants and mad kings - is that it alienates far too many allies our nation relies relied on to remain a superpower. trump and his handlers haven't really thought this through: trump's threats to tariff most of Europe can backlash with those nations pulling out their investments in US Bonds and other financial markers. We're seeing another drop in the value of the dollar. The calls to relocate the World Cup away from the United States are increasing.

Even if trump pulls back on the tariffs threat, if he does follow through on sending US armed forces to seize Greenland any time soon (gods help us, it might be this week depending on where these airborne troops go) it will not only trigger the collapse of NATO - which benefits only Putin - but also turn far too many nations against us at one time. The US had a hard enough time fighting a War on Terror on two fronts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Trigger this kind of war and we're counting at least eight nations - including the bordering Canada - cutting off our overseas bases, shutting down our logistic capabilities, and arguably going toe-to-toe on a battlefield in multiple locations.

The Far Right - and a lot of the Alpha Male wannabes in trump's world drooling at the fantasy of war - may think we have the world's greatest military and we can take all comers, but they're dragging the rest of the nation into a fight that most Americans - even other Republicans - don't want. Our military may be the best-trained, the best-supplied, the best period, but even we have limits on both manpower and resources. Fighting most of NATO - which may drag in Mexico and various South American nations already pissed at trump, and with the likelihood of our Asian allies like Japan and Philippines refusing to side with us - is not going to be easy.

Everything the United States did over the decades to rise to become a global superpower is getting demolished and firebombed into ash all because of one man's demented ego, this hollow man donald trump who struts upon the stage like an unsatisfied fool.

The only way this ends well is if someone in a position to do anything - a cowering Republican Congress, a military command structure wary of pulling a coup that would still harbinger an end to the constitutional order - steps up and forces trump to step down.

The odds of that happening are less than the odds that trump will drive us into a ruinous war.

Stay safe, everyone.

The Bully Circus

There was a time when Teddy Roosevelt declared the presidency as a kind of "bully pulpit," a means of preaching and advocating for issues that mattered. As Taegan Goddard notes at his Political Dictionary site:

The bully pulpit in Roosevelt’s mind wasn’t about pummeling legislators with presidential authority; rather, he believed the president could encourage the public to push their legislators on behalf of his agenda.

In these times, however, bullying means something darker. Under donald trump, the bullying is a means to treat people not in his circle of power with cruel, insulting, threatening, and aggressive actions.

trump's assaults on Venezuela - not only killing boat crews on dubious accusations, but also seizing oil tankers and running an illegal military operation to capture that nation's president - is but one example of the aggression trump wants to inflict on others.

Here at home, trump's pumped-up immigration police in ICE/Border Patrol under the aegis of "Homeland Security" are committing acts of violence and attempts at intimidation towards the cities of DC, Los Angeles, Portland OR, Chicago, and lately Minneapolis-St. Paul where the escalation has turned bloody (via Edith Olmsted at New Republic):

Following the news that Minnesota and the Twin Cities were suing to stop the Trump administration’s “Operation Metro Surge,” the president took to Truth Social to air his frustration with his besieged constituents.

“Do the people of Minnesota really want to live in a community in which there are thousands of already convicted murderers, drug dealers and addicts, rapists, violent released and escaped prisoners, dangerous people from foreign mental institutions and insane asylums, and other deadly criminals too dangerous to even mention,” Trump wrote. (note: trump is gaslighting again to fearmonger to his flock) 

He claimed that all the “patriots of ICE” wanted was to “remove” these individuals. But last week, the residents of Minneapolis saw something entirely different: an ICE agent senselessly killed a U.S. citizen, Renee Good, and was then defended by every level of government.

Good’s death sparked civil unrest in Minneapolis (and nationwide), as well as requests for federal immigration forces to take their leave. But the Trump administration has doubled down on its occupation, deploying roughly 1,000 more U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers.

Instead of toning down on the rhetoric - the agent who shot Good was caught on his own body cam calling her a "f-cking b-tch" - and violence towards our own communities, the government thugs are crowing and acting worse (from Ashley Vega at People (yes, they're covering this)):

A Minneapolis pastor said he was detained by ICE after heading toward protests near his church. Pastor Kenny Callaghan of All God’s Children MCC shared his account with Fox 9 Minneapolis, saying the encounter unfolded on the morning of Wednesday, Jan. 7.

Callaghan told the outlet he realized something was happening nearby when he heard whistles and car horns outside. He said he grabbed his own whistles and moved toward the commotion, only for the situation to escalate quickly.

He told Fox 9 he managed to take a few photos as the vehicle drove down Portland Avenue before pocketing his phone when he noticed agents surrounding a “brown-skinned woman.”

Callaghan said he joined in as a crowd chanted, “We are not afraid,” and tried to redirect attention toward himself, telling the agents to arrest him instead of the woman they were surrounding.

“Before I knew it, they were putting handcuffs on my arms and they asked me, ‘Are you afraid now?’ ” he recalled.

He said he answered, “No, I am not,” as agents continued detaining him. Callaghan told Fox 9 he was held in the SUV with two other detainees as agents returned multiple times to question him.

Callaghan said the message stayed the same during those check-ins, with agents repeatedly asking if he was afraid. He also said they asked for his ID and his phone while he remained in the back of the vehicle.

At one point, Callaghan said he asked whether he was under arrest and was left alone for a period of time afterward. He also told Fox 9 that an agent allegedly waved a gun in his face, and while fear flickered for a moment, it was quickly overtaken by outrage.

“And then they came back the last time and they said, ‘Are you afraid yet?’ ” he said. “And I said, ‘No.’”

Meanwhile, the ICE and Border thugs are firing tear gas canisters in nearly every crowd and sometimes right in people's faces.

This is what they want, what trump wants, what the Far Right has wanted for decades. They want the thrill and elation of making the rest of us terrified of them, of their authority and their potential for violence.

trump wants the violence to escalate: it will justify any plans he has of suspending the Constitution under "emergency powers" and make himself Dear Leader For Life. While the protesters will do everything proper and avoid conflict whenever possible, expect the armed and body-armored ICE gangs to reenact the worst of police violence that would make Chicago 1968 seem like a block party.

And this all happening here in the U.S. Outside our borders, trump is busy waving his big stick towards Iran (again), Syria, Cuba, and worst of all Denmark in a brazen attempt to seize Greenland from one of our NATO allies. If we do invade Greenland, it would break that alliance and drive Europe - already coping with a belligerent and desperate Russia - into chaos.

Instead of a bully pulpit, what we have is a bully circus. trump and his Far Right allies are running amok behaving like Alpha Male Wannabes, mistaking arrogance for leadership and violence for success. The problem is they don't show any genuine thought or planning into what they're actually doing. They kidnaped Maduro from Venezuela from the looks of things thinking it would immediately collapse that government. Instead, Maduro's party promoted his veep Delcy Rodríguez into acting presidency leaving trump on the outside threatening more attacks and demanding she bend to his will.

If trump thinks there won't be any consequences if he sends an invasion force into Greenland, he's ignoring the reality that the end of NATO would end our military presence across most of Europe: Our extensive overseas base network is a major reason why our logistics and military effectiveness is the best in the world, and if that goes so too goes our military dominance.

Instead of projecting themselves as Alpha Males, trump and his lackeys are posing as clowns... albeit clowns armed with assault weapons, flashbang grenades, and long-range missiles that can ruin anybody's day.

The world tonight is a circus of fear, stained with the blood of innocent lives and propped up by the violent fantasies of an aging, addled narcissist. 

Stay safe, America. Stay safe, people of Venezuela and Greenland and Iran and everywhere else trump is bullying us all.

Five Years Later: It Was STILL An Insurrection

I hate that January 6th is now known for the trump-led rioting at the nation's capitol, and won't be forgotten any time soon.

The damage done - engraving into a section of the American conspiracy mindset that "trump's victory was stolen" - still hasn't gone away, even after trump issued a blanket pardon his first day back in the White House, and even as the arc of time is proving trump's lie for what it is (via Alan Feuer and Dan Barrya through gift link to the New York Times): 

The pardon proclamation saved them, opening prison doors and ending all of the criminal prosecutions related to the Capitol attack. Even more, it gave a presidential stamp of approval to their inverted vision of Jan. 6, 2021: that those who assaulted the police and vandalized the historic building that day were victims, and those who spent the next four years using the criminal justice system to hold them accountable were villains.

But nearly a year after Mr. Trump’s sweeping proclamation asserted that he had cleared the way for “a process of national reconciliation,” many recipients of his clemency remain consumed by conspiracy theories, angry at the Trump administration for not validating their insistence that the Capitol attack was a deep-state setup and haunted by problems from both before and after the riot...

A lot of the rioters were "promised" some level of validation for their fear and hatred of the dirty libruls "ruining" their lives. And it didn't help a number of them were already troubled, criminally-minded bastards in the first place:

In the five years since the Capitol was stormed, no new facts have emerged to undermine the basic findings of congressional and Justice Department investigators that many of the rioters acted in the misguided belief, pushed relentlessly by Mr. Trump, that he had been robbed of victory in 2020 — and that in attacking the Capitol they not only injured about 140 police officers but also struck at a cornerstone of American democracy: the peaceful transfer of presidential power.

Even so, Mr. Trump has long maintained that the rioters endured horrible, even illegal, mistreatment during their prosecutions.

And yet if that is true, some pardoned rioters are now asking, then why haven’t their persecutors been thrown in jail? And if the rioters are martyrs to a righteous cause, as the president and his allies have often said, then why haven’t they been made whole through financial reparations?...

What J6ers rarely seem to acknowledge is the possibility that Mr. Trump’s government has failed to reveal the hidden truth about Jan. 6 because there is no hidden truth, no deep-state conspiracy, and therefore no legal reason to bring further charges related to the riot...

By feeding a steady diet of unfounded conspiracy theories not only to the J6ers but also to others in their base, Mr. Trump and his allies have spawned what some experts have likened to a zombie army of followers. And now, by failing to follow these theories to their logical conclusions, they are seeing that army begin to turn on them.

“When you’re told day after day that you’re a victim — when you’re told that for four years straight — it sinks in,” said Jon Lewis, a research fellow with the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. “They’ve become conspiratorial-minded people looking for the next thing to mobilize for...”

For many Jan. 6 defendants, clemency was not enough. From the moment Mr. Trump issued his proclamation, there came demands for more: deep-state actors held accountable, hidden truths revealed and reparations — some form of monetary apology — paid.

Nearly two months after Mr. Trump’s decree, lawyers representing Jan. 6 offenders were making plans to sue the Justice Department. They intended to argue that the cases stemming from the Capitol attack amounted to malicious prosecution and that many rioters had been grievously harmed by their own government.

Two lawyers were behind the effort: Mark McCloskey, known for brandishing a semiautomatic rifle in 2020 as Black Lives Matter protesters paraded past his home in St. Louis, and Peter Ticktin, a friend of Mr. Trump since their teenage years at the New York Military Academy.

The men had reason for hope. Asked in the spring about possible compensation for the rioters in an interview on the right-wing news channel Newsmax, Mr. Trump gave a typically opaque answer...

But there is a yawning chasm between talk and action — especially in Washington. And recognizing the hurdles to winning lawsuits against the government, Mr. McCloskey began pitching top Justice Department officials on a more audacious plan, establishing a panel to award damages to the rioters, similar to the special master who distributed money to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks...

But as the first year of Mr. Trump’s second term drew to a close, Mr. McCloskey’s proposal was in limbo. It was not lost on many pardoned rioters that Mr. Trump himself had demanded that the Justice Department pay him up to $230 million in similar claims for the criminal inquiries it conducted into him...

The conspiracies all work only if trump is the one getting paid, understand? Anyone else thinking they're going to earn a windfall from a settlement payout isn't going to see a wooden nickel (because pennies are no longer minted).

It's not helping the case of the rioters that a number of their own who were pardoned are turning back up in prison on unrelated charges ranging from sexual child abuse to homicide. You all were troubled souls joining up for trump's rampage against law and order, and you all are going to get in trouble again because most of you still see yourselves above the law like your golden idol.

This is not a good anniversary for anyone. But at least these rioters are in a hell of their own making.

Waking Up to A War

trump just dialed up international outrage to 11 during last night (via Carrie Kahn and Scott Neuman at NPR): 

President Trump claimed overnight that the United States carried out airstrikes in Venezuela and "captured" President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, following a series of explosions and fires reported around Caracas in the early hours of the morning.

In a post on Truth Social published early Saturday morning, Trump said the U.S. had "successfully carried out a large-scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro," adding that Maduro and his wife had been "captured" and flown out of the country. Trump said the operation was conducted "in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement" and announced a news conference for 11 a.m. EST at Mar-a-Lago.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X that Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been indicted in the Southern District of New York on drug, arms and conspiracy charges...

The Venezuelan government swiftly accused the U.S. of launching what it called a "grave military aggression" against the country. In a statement posted on Telegram, the government said U.S. forces targeted civilian and military locations in Caracas as well as in the nearby states of Miranda, Aragua, and La Guaira, calling the attacks a "flagrant violation" of the United Nations Charter.

On state television, Venezuela's Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said government and military officials had been killed by U.S. strikes across Venezuela. She added the government does not know the whereabouts of President Maduro and his wife and demanded proof of life...

Many Venezuelans have been sharing videos — which NPR has not independently verified — showing multiple explosions across the metropolitan area, including near a military base close to the presidential palace, Miraflores.

This is a major escalation from the ongoing bombing strikes of various civilian boats over the past months where trump and his administration were claiming - but couldn't prove - as drug smugglers operating out of Venezuela.

This is a direct attack on another nation's soil, going against any number of treaties with our allies in the region if not the whole world. It's a legal gray area at best, at worst it's a signal to other dictators and warmongers - like say China towards Taiwan - that it's open season on anybody they want to "arrest".

This is a violation of our own Constitution, which specifically set the power to declare acts of war - and the capture of "enemy combatants" - to Congress under Article I Section 8:  To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water.

This is, above all, causing greater tension between a belligerent United States and the rest of Central and South America that trump keeping bullying. Colombia's president Gustav Pedro had earlier accused trump and his thugs of illegal strikes on his nation's fishermen, and is calling for an emergency UN session now to bring international pressure against the United States. Brazil's president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is on record that this attack "crosses an unacceptable line" violating Venezuela's sovereignty.

This is also yet another black mark on the United States' long and troubled history of meddling, interfering, outright destroying the rights and protections of our southern neighbors ever since the Monroe Doctrine gave us an excuse to do all that. 

This is also something a majority of Americans didn't want. Politico back in December reported on a Quinnipiac poll showing 63 percent didn't want any military action even as trump's administration beat the war drums and bombed fishing boats (via Gregory Svirnovskiy):

Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to military action in Venezuela, according to a Quinnipiac poll published on Wednesday amid an escalation of U.S. pressure on President Nicolás Maduro.

Sixty-three percent of respondents told Quinnipiac they are against military action against Caracas, which President Donald Trump has repeatedly declined to rule out, with just 25 percent expressing support. And 53 percent of respondents said they opposed the administration’s use of military strikes to kill alleged drug smugglers in international waters...

Americans also expressed concern with the president’s expanded executive authority, with 54 percent saying he has gone too far in wielding the power of the presidency, 37 percent saying he is handling it about right and 7 percent saying he has not been aggressive enough. The results were split along partisan lines: 96 percent of Democrats and only 11 percent of Republicans reported concerns regarding the president’s power.

If trump and his Republican buddies think that sparking an unwanted war is going to make most Americans line up and accept all the flag-waving and patriotic fervor, they're wrong. If anything this will divide the nation further, and spiral the Far Right demagogues into further anti-Latino hatred.

There are several reasons trump is doing is, not of them good (or lawful). This is trump doubling down on a questionable - and self-destructive - War On Drugs that's been in operation since the 1970s and solving nothing about our nation's drug habits; This is trump demonizing Latinos as criminals to justify escalating a mass deportation scheme that the courts keep finding as inhumane and illegal; This is trump seeking personal gratification as a "great military leader" to salve his wounded ego.

There is no sign that trump or his pro-war allies on this - Hegseth, Rubio, Miller, other chickenhawks among the GOP elite - have really thought out the long-term ramifications of this, of the global chaos this act of war will unleash and make worse.

Gods help us. Seriously. I know I keep saying this, but this is NOT GOING TO END WELL.