A Truly Lawless War By a Lawless White House

I can't see how U.S. relations with other countries will ever get better whenever trump and his Republican lackeys are driven from power, as long as this corrupt administration is openly committing war crimes like bombing fishing boats in international waters (via Heather Parton at her Digby blog):

(Quoted from the Task And Purpose website) “Don’t let them make you break the law,” read new digital billboards on expressways near U.S. Southern Command headquarters in Doral, Florida, where the U.S. military’s ongoing operations in the Caribbean Sea are being overseen

The billboards were put up in response to the ongoing military strikes ordered by President Donald Trump’s administration, in what the White House and Pentagon have described as a concerted campaign against “narcoterrorists.”

The strikes are illegal and immoral. They aren’t even war crimes because there is no war. They’re just straight up mass murder.

The veterans behind the billboards at Win Without War and About Face: Veterans Against The War, describe it differently, calling them “ongoing lawless strikes on boats near the South American coasts...” 

It’s even worse than we knew. Per Politico:

Defense Department officials do not know precisely who they have killed in multiple military strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean that have claimed the lives of at least 57 people, according to Democratic lawmakers who attended a classified House briefing on the issue Thursday.

The meeting with members of the House Armed Services Committee — which comes amid bipartisan requests from members of Congress for more legal justification for the deadly strikes — was conducted by department policy officials but no military lawyers, who were pulled from the briefing shortly before it started.

Lawmakers at the briefing said they were not given an explanation for the change and were left frustrated over the lack of clarity on the justifications for the military actions...

They don’t know who they are murdering and they don’t care. And now we know that they’re killing them on the basis of some “connection” to a “terrorist organization or affiliate.” We have no idea how they define any of that. What’s a connection? What’s an affiliate? And what fucking authority allows them to kill people based on any of this???

I’ve seen the government use the U.S. military to do some heinous things in my time, but this may be the most blatantly illegal without even the fig leaf of a believable rationale.

We've had our leaders lie us into wars before - as far back as the Mexican-American War over the Texas border with Mexico - and we're still coping with the dissemblers from the 2003 Iraqi Occupation never held to account for lying about WMDs and then lying about their torture regime. 

But we're at the point where trump and his Far Right warhawks don't care what the facts are regarding anything. All they want is to justify their war on Latino immigrants, by tying it to a 50-year-old War On Drugs that would involve violating other nations' sovereignty - either with illegal missile/bomb strikes across their borders, or escalating further with "regime change" via a ground war - in such ways that even our closest allies in NATO and North America - if any remain by that point - would side against us.

Adding to the madness is how trump is doing this without the constitutional requirements that Congress has to sign off on any extended military action. Even Dubya had to lie to the legislature to get authorization to invade and occupy Iraq. With government officially in Shutdown mode thanks to Republican incompetence (AND arrogance, AND unwillingness to fund SNAP to feed our families, AND terrified of a pending House to release the Epstein Files exposing a lot of trump's sins) trump and his warmongering buddies like Hegseth and Miller believe they can do anything they want with our armed forces.

This is not a good thing if we're heading into war with Venezuela - or Nigeria, or Mexico, or Canada, or Denmark - much like the dangers of going into a war with Iran: Again, our nation is not unified to fight an overseas war (and with the Far Right insisting on absolute loyalty, they will turn violent against any anti-war protests that will rise up); we will not have allies siding with us and in fact will see other nations side against us; and the leadership that will put themselves in control of any planned war are buffoons and idiots who've convinced themselves they're military geniuses when they pretty much can't even plan out parades.

We're being led into an illegal unjust war at this point, where the only thing stopping trump is his own inability to focus on anything at any particular time. But sooner or later, that chaotic bubble he and his lackeys are in will pop, and then everything else will explode.

Gods help us.

Republicans Ruling Over the Ashes: 2025 Edition

Update: Thank you Steve in Manhattan for sharing this article on the Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Just to let you all know, I spotted a church with its parking lot full on a Monday morning. It's a church I drive by all the time going to work, and I've never seen the parking lot full on a Monday morning. It's also a church I know offers a weekly food bank, and my first thought was "is that a run on their food bank?"

I didn't write much about the latest Republican-backed government shutdown during this long month of October, only because it'd be me repeating the same line of "why the fuck do people keep voting in Republican assholes who don't want government to work in the first place?"

Still, what's happened this 2025 has been one of the longest federal government shutdowns in modern times, and at least this time around most Americans know who to blame (via Julianna Bragg at Axios): 

As the government shutdown stretches into its 30th day, more Americans blame President Trump and Republicans than Democrats for the impasse, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll.

Why it matters: More Americans are growing deeply worried about what is now the second-longest government shutdown in U.S. history — one that will soon cut off food stamp benefits and has already left more than a million Americans without a paycheck...

By the numbers: Almost half of Americans — 45% — say Trump and the GOP are responsible for the ongoing shutdown, while 33% blamed Democrats and another 22% say they're not sure who's responsible...

Yes, but: 63% of Americans say they disapprove of Trump's management of the federal government, while only 36% approve...

Context: The Senate failed to advance a bill to end the shutdown for the 13th time Wednesday, even as disruptions impact air travel and hundreds of thousands of federal employees remain furloughed.

As much as the Republican leadership - Speaker Mike Johnson especially - are trying to blame the Democrats for refusing to surrender forever for sticking to their agenda of reducing health care premiums to the ACA, there are enough observers who note that as the Republicans control both the House and the Senate, they could pass their own budget and get around any filibuster the Dems could threaten.

Except the Republicans don't want to. They know damn well that their current fiscal plans will gut social services for their own Red State voters and hurt millions of (White) American families who'll finally realize those trumpian tax cuts for the uber-rich were bad for the rest of the nation their own. So they want the Democrats to "compromise" on a "bipartisan deal" that the Far Right media can blame on Democrats when that "deal" nukes the countryside.

(as a side note, Speaker Johnson doesn't want to reopen the House for business because he'd be forced to seat a newly elected Democrat filling a vacant seat that would put in motion a vote to release the Epstein Files filled with trump's dirty deeds)

As much as we've stumbled through October without major disruptions to the United States' well-being - if only because some of the damage from DOGE gutting our agencies already caused disruptions - we're getting to that point in the GOP Shutdown where the emergency efforts behind the scenes by whatever's left in charge can't keep this house of cards standing. We're getting into the winter holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas, massive economic cycles for our food and retail businesses now starting to see trump's tariffs squeeze them in painful ways. We're getting to the point where the community organizations struggling to fill the gaps in the social safety nets aren't going to keep up. 

We're staring into the dark abyss of a painful unhappy winter season for the United States, all because the Republicans hope to burn it all down so they can rule the ashes.

And yes goddammit, we warned you all this would happen. And the bills for all that cruelty, ignorance,  and greed is coming due - again - faster than you all realize.

The Desecration of America Under trump

Update: Thank you once again to Batocchio for including this article at Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up. I apologize for the mess, I need to vacuum the place.

With all the madness happening over the past few weeks no make that a month actually it's the whole damn year - from the Republican government shutdown for all the worst reasons, the escalation of bombing fishing boats on the shores of South America, the growing hostility of ICE thugs towards not only legal immigrants now also children and protestors - the one bit really standing out in my current outrage is the wanton (arguably illegal) destruction donald trump is inflicting on the nation's most visible symbol of power The White House (via AP and NPR):

The White House on Monday started tearing down part of the East Wing, the traditional base of operations for the first lady, to build President Trump's $250 million ballroom despite lacking approval for construction from the federal agency that oversees such projects.

Dramatic photos of the demolition work showed construction equipment tearing into the East Wing façade and windows and other building parts in tatters on the ground. Some reporters watched from a park near the Treasury Department, which is next to the East Wing...

The White House has moved ahead with the massive construction project despite not yet having sign-off from the National Capital Planning Commission, which approves construction work and major renovations to government buildings in the Washington area...

It was unclear whether the White House had submitted the ballroom plans for the agency's review and approval. The White House did not respond to a request for comment and the commission's offices are closed because of the government shutdown...

trump's doing this now so that there's no interference from Congress - even from a handful of Republicans who would question the wasteful spending - from indulging in one of his worst vices: his overwhelming need to shove his vulgar tastes in everyone's faces.

Trump insists that presidents have desired such a ballroom for 150 years and that he's adding the massive 90,000-square-foot, glass-walled space because the East Room, which is the largest room in the White House with an approximately 200-person capacity, is too small. He also has said he does not like the idea of hosting kings, queens, presidents and prime ministers in pavilions on the South Lawn.

Given trump's personal obsessions with gaudy oversized architecture, I'm pretty sure he's the only occupant of the White House who'd ever considered getting a massive arena-sized ballroom to indulge his fantasies of having the biggest and brightest things to show off. Adding to the illegality of tearing down the East Wing is how trump plans to pay for all this: through direct contributions of the wealthy elite. A massive public quid pro quo with the billionaires trump wants sucking up to him.

There are other reasons why trump is doing this aside from his love of hideous décor. At the top of that list is trump's personal belief that he's not going anywhere. trump keeps pushing the false idea he can "run" again for the presidency in 2028 in spite of the 22nd Amendment saying "uh uh TWO TERMS IS THE LIMIT." Considering how he's looking to use the Insurrection Act - or some self-declaration of war without congressional approval - to declare a national emergency and suspend every election to usher in his dictatorship, trump wants to turn what's supposed to be a temporary residency for a temporary leader into a garish memorial of his (supposed) eternal rule.

This is trump's way of saying "the White House is MINE now, no one can take it away from me," and he's treating it much like his other properties. trump would love to turn the whole building into Mar-A-Lago North.

In the meantime, this photo is a perfect representation of what trump and his Far Right lackeys are doing to the whole nation:

from the Washington Post

It is going to take generations to undo this destruction.

General Disarray Heading Into October

My paranoia about this next stunt by trump and his lackeys is getting the worst of me this week (via Steve Inskeep and Tom Bowman at NPR):

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has called top military officials from around the world to a meeting in Virginia (this Tuesday). The reason for this unusual gathering isn't known.

INSKEEP: How much do you know?

BOWMAN: Well, again, not too much. We're talking hundreds of generals and admirals who will meet on Tuesday at Marine Base Quantico just outside Washington. The Washington Post was the first to report on this meeting. In a statement, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said, quote, "the secretary of war will be addressing his senior military leaders early next week." And he was using the term secretary of war, which both President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth prefer, instead of defense secretary.

INSKEEP: Have you heard of a meeting like this ever in your decades covering the Pentagon?

BOWMAN: No, absolutely not. This is - on this scale, never. At times, you know, they'll bring in combatant commanders - those who oversee military operations around the world - bring them to the Pentagon for annual meetings. But this is far different in the numbers. Now, Secretary Hegseth has talked about reducing the number of admirals and generals - who stand at more than 800 - reducing that number by 20%. And he talked about that during his confirmation hearing and also put out a video statement back in May once again referring to this...

The rumor mill right after that notification spun in a number of directions, especially at the possibility Hegseth was going to stage a public purge among the flag officers to put the Fear of trump in those remaining. Military analysts believe it's tied into the projected National Defense Strategy where trump's administration will reportedly shift the military focus to "homeland security" meaning "arresting immigrants and civilians - maybe even killing them - on Stephen Miller's whims." 

It later got out that Hegseth plans to give a "motivational speech" about the "warrior ethos" he wants to see in our armed forces: He wants to see more rah-rah blood knight enthusiasm towards committing war crimes "being warriors" wherever the battlefield is set.

Throw into this the last-minute announcement that trump himself is going to attend this "lecture" and a clearer understanding emerges: This is going to be a goddamn staged spectacle of the crassest kind.

As a lot of observers are noting, this whole thing could have been an email. Tom Nichols over at the Atlantic is noticeably vexed:

...I was not, however, a senior officer in charge of a major command, with responsibility for thousands of people and millions of dollars of weaponry. Those folks are busy, which is why the DOD has very advanced—and very expensive—teleconferencing equipment designed to obviate the need to move people around the world for a chat.

But Secretary of Defense/War/Lethality Pete Hegseth isn’t going to use that technology. Instead, he recently decided that some 800 generals and admirals needed to come, in person, from every corner of the planet to a Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, reportedly to listen to their boss, a former TV host, lecture them on the “warrior ethos”—and, for some reason, personal grooming. The Tuesday meeting will feature not only Hegseth but also a last-minute addition: the commander in chief himself.

Hegseth has had a lot of bad ideas, but this one is disruptive and even somewhat dangerous. All of these men and women have real jobs they should be doing. Even if Hegseth is calling this meeting to discuss serious issues of national defense—and so far, the Pentagon has given no such indications—few things are important enough to justify the security risk of putting the entire top U.S. military command, the secretary of defense, and the president all in the same room.

It is possible, of course, that Hegseth is convening this jamboree because something genuinely terrible is afoot. Perhaps he wants all of America’s top officers in the same room when he tells them, for example, that the United States is on the brink of going to war, or that the Pentagon has been deeply compromised by spies and all of our military secrets are now in Moscow or Beijing. But if America is heading into a crisis, then Hegseth’s call for a meeting is even more irresponsible, because in a time of danger all these people should be at their posts, not in an auditorium in Virginia.

The other rumors spinning out there cover some of the fears Nichols points to, especially the part about going to war to serve trump's growing rage towards the rest of the world that won't give him a Peace Prize. There's been a lot of saber-rattling towards Venezuela, especially the unjustified attacks on various boats in international waters that trump's administration keeps claiming were smuggling drugs (but which they also refuse to present evidence to back those claims). trump has been public in his demands to go to literal war against drug cartels, refusing to recognize how that would violate other nations' integrity, and arguably dragging the United States into yet another quagmire that would waste lives and money and end up changing nothing.

No matter what this speech will bring, it's also happening on the eve of yet another Republican-backed government shutdown that's scheduled to implode once October 1st clocks in. Just the logistics of bringing in every general and admiral to one location is a headache: Just imagine what those officers are going to go through if the money isn't there for their transportation back to their command posts? This is another reason why people fear this meeting is going to be a purge, with the shutdown as an excuse to gut the military of its leadership.

Every foreign power aligned against us - not only China and Iran but also Russia (so eager to watch a rival superpower collapse into civil war) - have got to be laughing at the United States tonight, and drawing up a number of plans to cause chaos while our military leaders are stuck in an auditorium listening to maniacs scream at them and demand utter obedience. 

No matter what, this is not going to be a fun week.

Quick Observation About That Disastrous trump Speech to the UN

Update: Thanks again to Batocchio for including this blog in the Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Roundup! P.S. So far the AI traffic has reduced but I need to take the next step in blocking the scavengers. Alas, this is what corporate obsession with technological shortcuts brought us to...

You know, that speech where trump goes up to the podium and basically insults every nation, lies about the United States' financial status, demands he be awarded the Peace Prize for wars and border clashes that haven't ended or were calmed by their own people, while threatening more tariffs and mocking climate change renewable energy agendas as a "con job". 

My observation is this: How the hell didn't every other nation at that UN assembly just pack up and recall every ambassador to end diplomatic relations with the United States, as well as ending every trade talk with us, and also issuing travel boycotts and financial sanctions on banks and corporations still trying to do business with us?

I know stuff like that would cause global economic chaos. But... I mean, goddamn, how bad does it have to get before whatever's left of our allies and enemies admit in public that trump is a goddamned self-serving idiot who needs to get publicly humiliated every hour of the day?

This is classic trump behavior acting like a bully. Do you know what you do with bullies? You punch him in the nose and get all your friends together to point out he's outnumbered and outclassed.

trump's entire game plan is to get others to cave before he gets exposed as the bankrupted racist sexist asshole he is. You fight back, he and his rolls over. Yes, he'll come back a few months later pushing the same stunt, but you punch him again and make him retreat again.

To the AI Bots Raiding My Blog

In the past few weeks, I've noticed an insane uptick in traffic to this blog. Normally I'd be thrilled that more people are finding my ramblings to be coherent and plausible (yes I'm an influencer at last) except that I have no idea where the traffic is coming from. 

At least until I saw one source was ChatGPT. 

Crap.

The onslaught by our tech overlords to insert their Artificial Intelligence bots into every crevice of the Internet - Gemini on Google, Copilot on Microsoft products, whatever the hell they call it on Apple devices - is creating an environment where anything posted on the Internet can get vacuumed up by these AI bots as use in someone else's work. Without citing sources or providing links to the original work, and in the case of artists and musicians (and even professional writers) failing to pay them for their work. Violating copyright laws left and right.

So let me state here, loud and clear.

I did not give consent, I DO NOT give consent, I WILL NOT GIVE CONSENT TO HAVE MY WRITINGS USED WITHOUT CREDIT TO MY EFFORTS.

I'm not making any money off this blog, so I can't claim loss of revenue. But I do claim my rights as the person who wrote this junk to get cited by others referencing what I've written. These are my thoughts and opinions and I'm damn well entitled to defend them.

What bothers me is how these AI systems could well go after my published writings, the stuff I have as ebooks. THAT is a source of revenue, I should get paid for what's on the market, and if anybody steals "Road Trip to Vegas" or "The Brides of WiFi" I will be very vexed indeed.

I'm reading up now on how to block AI scavengers from this blog. I've gotten as far as "robots.txt" but I have no idea how to apply to a Blogger site. If anyone's got pointers, please help.

And to the Silicon Valley thieves who think they can take everything and leave us with nothing: Please die in a fire. It's the least YOU can do to save the world from your greed.

My Thoughts and Prayers This September 11 2025

I'm going to accept that all of the US flags will be at half-mast this day in memory of the thousands of victims killed by the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, and NOT for that racist misogynist wingnut that died yesterday. 

A Tale of Two Shootings

There were two major shootings today. This one you most likely saw on the news (via Juliana Kim at NPR):

Charlie Kirk, a right-wing activist and an ally of President Trump, died after a shooting at an outdoor speaking event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, according to Kirk's organization Turning Point USA and Trump.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Utah Governor Spencer Cox called Kirk's death a "political assassination."

"This is a dark day for our state. It's a tragic day for our nation," he said.

He added that a "person of interest" was being interviewed and it was not the same person who had been detained, then released earlier in the day. Law enforcement do not believe a second person was involved in the shooting, according to Cox.

Beau Mason, commissioner of the Utah Department of Public Safety, said a single shot was fired around 12:20 p.m. local time at the campus event featuring Kirk. Mason added that Kirk was quickly taken to a hospital, where he later died.

The suspected shooter was dressed in "all dark clothing" and fired from a long distance, potentially on a roof, according to Mason. He added that investigators are reviewing closed circuit TV footage.

I may have mentioned Kirk at this blog once or twice, noting primarily how he was an agitator calling for violence towards other Americans who leaned Left-Liberal on the political spectrum. Kirk was often defending the spread - like a plague - of guns across America as "our" price "we" have to pay for the Far Right's power to shoot anybody they want uphold a twisted understanding of the Second Amendment.

Speaking of the Far Right, they're using Kirk's assassination to paint the entire Democratic party as "the party of murder" even though far too many Republican wingnuts are killing Democrats and threatening more violence towards their objects of fear/hate on a near-daily basis.

In the meantime, here's the other major shooting you're likely not seeing on the major networks (via  Yesenia Robles and Alejandro A. Alonso Galva with Colorado Public Radio):

A shooting at Evergreen High School this afternoon hospitalized four students — three with gunshot wounds, including the suspected shooter.

The students with gunshot wounds were treated at CommonSpirit St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood. After treatment, two of the three — one being the suspect — are still in critical condition.

The third victim has non-life-threatening injuries.

The sheriff's office confirmed in an evening update that the suspected shooter sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

We as a nation are now numb to the near-constant gun violence happening at our schools, in our public places, across our communities. In any other sane nation, we'd have done something to stop the easy access of firearms, to reduce the daily count of the dying and wounded. But we're not sane, are we?

We're held hostage by an extremist ideology of the Far Right obsessing over their right - no one else's - to own enough firepower to overthrow any agency, execute any political opponent, to doom an entire nation to suffer to their hates and fears. And with this gun violence now claiming one of their own, they're bound to get worse.

The cycle of violence and stochastic terrorism being inflicted on America - and this isn't new, we've been drowning in this bloodshed since the 1850s - will spiral deeper into the pit until we are in open warfare against each other.

Gods help us. Seriously.

Brief Thoughts About Hegseth's Craven Urge to Rename the Department of Defense

Update: Thanks again to Steve In Manhattan for including my blog on the Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up. 

P.S. I am noticing an insane uptick in visits to my blog even though I can't see where the traffic is coming from. I'm worried the new traffic is coming from AI vacuuming up all Internet content. Anyone got suggestions on how to block that AI? Please comment below or skeet me at Bluesky @paulwartenberg.bsky.social

Hegseth and trump - and other chickenhawk Republicans - want to rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War mostly because the Ministry of Peace (MiniPax) was already copyrighted.

As Tom Nichols at the Altantic notes, this is all ego-stroking and a waste of time (paywalled):

Last month, when the plan was still just a hypothetical, the president was asked why he favored it. He said that Department of War “just sounded better” and that it would be a callback to the name under which U.S. forces fought in the two world wars. But the change is also a reflection of how much Trump and Secretary of Defense (his title for now) Pete Hegseth think of themselves as tough guys, real fighters who will no longer trifle with silly names about “defending” things. Hegseth in particular is obsessed with “warfighters”—a clunky Pentagon term that’s been around for far too long—who will engage in “warfighting” with great “lethality.”

Both men seem to think that wimps cower and defend, but real men go on the offensive and whack the bad guys...

It is almost impossible to overstate the inanity of this move. The United States has a Department of Defense for a reason. It was called the “War” Department until 1947, when the dictates of a new and more dangerous world required the creation of a much larger military organization than any in American history...

These leaders understood that America could no longer afford the isolationist luxury of militarizing itself during times of threat and then making soldiers train with wooden sticks when the storm clouds passed. Now, they knew, the security of the country would be a daily undertaking, a matter of ongoing national defense, in which the actual exercise of military force would be only part of preserving the freedom and independence of the United States and its allies.

Defense is a serious job for a nation to uphold, and these clowns can't accept it. Gods help us.

Update: Ron Filipkowski knows exactly why Hegseth is so giddy about being a warmonger.

And there it is …

[image or embed]

— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) September 5, 2025 at 6:09 PM

We are being led by five-year-olds eager to throw punches at the world and making us take the body blows. Considering the recent violation of international waters and the ongoing harassment of nations over tariffs and bullying Denmark over Greenland, we're going to be in a shooting war sooner rather than later. And the US military is going to get mismanaged into disaster after disaster.

I keep saying this: We are royally fucking screwed. 

State of Plague

Just when you think things can't get any dumber in the Sunshine State, the crazed Republican leadership that's been pretty much in charge since 1999 prove they can dumb down even further.

The GOP Morans are playing to their conspiracy-driven anti-vax MAGA base by deciding to end vaccine mandates for public schools (via Greg Allen at NPR): 

Florida's governor said he'll be asking the state Legislature to repeal a statute that requires children to receive vaccines for polio, diphtheria, measles and mumps before entering school. If it passes, Florida will be the first in the nation to eliminate all vaccine mandates for children and adults.

Other vaccines, including those for chickenpox, hepatitis B and strep infections, are mandated by the state health department, as opposed to Florida's Legislature. The state's Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said his department will soon issue rules repealing those requirements too.

"People have a right to make their own decisions," said Ladapo, who joined Gov. Ron DeSantis for the announcement on Wednesday. "If you don't want to put whatever vaccines in your body, God bless you. And I hope you make an informed decision. And that's how it should be."

These are, by the by, the same assholes whose anti-abortion stance is to take away all health care choices by women period, so where the "make their own decisions" defense then you bastards.

Public health and child health professionals condemned the move. Dr. Aileen Marty, an infectious disease expert at Florida International University, said, "This will cause havoc."

"It will cause problems for funding free vaccines for the impoverished and issues with vaccines to the rest of us due to insurance-related issues," Marty said. "It is clearly against empirical evidence of what is safest for individual children."

It's more than just the children at risk. It will be the teachers, the parents, the communities at large. Schools can be super-spreaders, which we saw happen during the beginnings of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

And here's the thing: COVID is not over. It's still out there, and not just in Florida.

And it's not just COVID, or "regular" influenza.

We're seeing the re-emergence of measles as an infectious threat after decades of thinking our nation had finally seen an end to it. But after all those decades of our medical and scientific leaders successfully promoting and encouraging vaccinations to reduce the risks, we're now in an age when medical frauds are in charge of our nation's health care and are actively shutting down every agency and means to combat infectious diseases.

It is factual to declare that Robert Kennedy Jr., that sonofabitch, is on the side of the viruses making us sick or dead.

And Florida's elected leaders like DeSantis are happy to assist RFK Jr and the other anti-vax frauds to wage war on our children and families all because their anti-science ideology convinces them their ignorance is superior to decades if not centuries of proven medical practice.

Republicans would rather have thousands of Floridians die than admit their anti-vax stances was poor pandering to their conspiracy-driven MAGA base. We're all going to pay for inept, insane leadership by a party that won't lead towards honest-to-God better health and safety for our communities.

Observations of the Occupation

During my emotional break(down) away from political blogging for most of this month, trump declaring a "crime emergency" in Washington DC to abuse presidential powers pretty much dominated the news traffic I read.

Deploying various National Guard units and other federal agencies to take over the metro's local law enforcement, trump issued lie after lie justifying his power grab that for all intents is his first big step into authoritarian rule that he will never leave (via Daniel Dale at CNN Politics):

President Donald Trump delivered a barrage of false claims about crime in Washington, DC, during a series of Monday comments defending his takeover of the police force and deployment of the National Guard in the nation’s capital.

Touting an ongoing 11-day period with no reported murders in Washington, Trump falsely claimed it had been “many years” since the city had previously had a murder-free stretch of even a week; in fact, Washington had three such periods since late February of this year, one of them 16 days long. Trump falsely claimed Washington now has not only no murders but “no crime” at all; while reported crime is down during his takeover, there have still been hundreds of offenses. (personal note: including the illegal use of a sandwich, but we'll talk about that a bit later)

Trump falsely claimed Washington had been at an “all-time” high in crime at the end of the Biden administration; in fact, it had been nowhere close to the violent peaks of the early 1990s. And Trump wildly overstated Washington residents’ support for the takeover, baselessly putting it at “95%” even after a poll showed overwhelming local opposition...

It's during this crisis that I look back at the window of opportunity that the Democrats had between 2021 and 2023 when they controlled the House and Senate and the Presidency to where Biden could have pushed for statehood to DC (and Puerto Rico) to avoid these kinds of abuse the federal government can inflict on the locals. Statehood is a serious thing for what is one of our nation's biggest population centers suffering under an outdated fear of the nation's capitol being under attack by its own residents. trump's own attempt at insurrection on January 6th proved it's not the locals that's the problem, it's the partisan agitators from the Republican Party side of things.

And it's still the Republicans pandering to their worst fears and biases, aimed at "urban" metros that Fox Not-News and other Far Right media outlets depict as wretched hives of minorities and liberals. You'll notice all the media attacks aimed at DC, New York City, and Chicago while the metros in Republican-controlled states like Houston and Memphis TN are suffering higher crime rates (per 100,000 people as of 2024). Speaker Mike Johnson can't admit the main city in his Louisiana district - Shreveport - has a higher crime rate than DC.

In the meantime, with all the federal officers and National Guard units deployed across the city the biggest observation is that these extra law enforcement people are... just standing there (via Benjamin Wittes at Lawfare):

I can’t say I found them threatening, though I am admittedly not an undocumented immigrant living in fear of ICE. While a few were armed, they weren’t arresting anyone or pursuing anyone or, actually, doing much of anything. They were all, well, just standing around. 

I am not the only one who has captured photographs of this deployment of National Guard being really boring.

A friend, jogging on the Mall today, noticed this gaggle of them at the World War II Memorial. Notice all the crimes they are not stopping...

The common theme here is that this deployment isn’t really about doing anything. It’s not going to do anything about D.C.’s crime problem, though I’m sure the president will make up whatever numbers he needs to to claim otherwise. And while I’m sure it is creating fear among Washingtonians who have reason to worry about immigration detention and deportation, I don’t think it’s really about that either...

The answer, I think, is nothing more or less than chest-thumping machismo. It’s a dog and fire hydrant thing. Putting troops on the streets, even bored troops who aren’t doing anything except helping people navigate public maps, is a form of dominance...

This is part of the Far Right obsession with Alpha Male status, of using power not to affect change or improvements but just to show off how manly - even the conservative women that love to pose with guns and brag about killing puppies - they are. This is vice signaling to their racist MAGA voting bloc that they are "owning the libs" and making life miserable for all the Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and "deviants" they fear existing in our major cities.

In the meantime, the Real Americans serving in our Guards are stuck outside in DC during the hot and humid month of August picking up trash because they're not really doing anything else except play to trump's dictatorial fantasies.

Even the DC residents - the ones who would be most affected if there were actual crimes taking place - know the whole thing is a staged act, and arguably violations of their own civil liberties while the "crackdown" imposes more curfews and limitations of their rights. The locals are doing what they can with civil protests, but also with more direct efforts to give trump's Justice Department lackeys serious headaches (via Quinta Jurecic at the Atlantic (paywalled)):

It’s rare for grand juries to refuse to indict. It’s even rarer for grand juries to refuse to indict multiple times in a single month—in significant part because prosecutors usually know better than to present shaky cases that might not gain jurors’ approval.

But Donald Trump’s desire to crack down on crime in Washington, D.C., seems to have come at the cost of that good judgment. Over the past month, federal prosecutors in D.C. have failed at least five times to persuade a grand jury to indict a D.C. resident for allegedly attacking federal law enforcement. These are not the only embarrassments suffered recently by federal prosecutors in the District, and judges have begun to lose their patience over missteps and sloppy cases. Despite the president’s promise to “take our capital back,” his law-enforcement surge is struggling in court.

The most recent rebuke by a grand jury involves the case of Alvin Summers, who allegedly scuffled with a U.S. Park Police officer after driving his car onto the Mall. Before that came a grand jury’s refusal to indict Sean Charles Dunn, the man now memorialized as “Sandwich Guy,” who hurled a salami sub at a Customs and Border Protection agent early in Trump’s federal deployment across the capital. The three grand-jury refusals before that all came in a single case: that of Sidney Lori Reid, whom prosecutors charged with a felony—potentially punishable by eight years in prison—over a tangle with FBI and ICE agents while Reid was protesting an immigration arrest. The agents pushed Reid up against a wall, they said, and the resulting scuffle produced a few scrapes to an FBI agent’s hand.

Even the common people who make up these juries know damn well that a Subway BMT footlong is not a lethal weapon (well, unless the gluten count is too high). The infamous saying of "a grand jury can indict a ham sandwich" now has a notable exception.

These juries know this all isn't about "cracking down on crime." They know this is all about the conservative urge to inflict cruelty on the Outsider groups they fear and hate, that this is all performative political bullshit on trump's part to justify his iron-fisted rule from the White House. They see the minor infractions getting enlarged to federal felonies and refuse to play along. They know who's inflicting the harm here - trump's street thugs - and won't accept trump and his lackeys' excuses.

What happens from here depends on the courts - at the district and appellate levels going against trump's power grabs - and on a Republican-controlled Congress now facing the growing discontent of a majority of Americans - even in their own states - who are not enjoying the preening and posing of trump as a strongman while issuing more economic hardships with inflation and disappearing jobs.

While trump is only supposed to issue these "emergencies" as temporary powers, you can see him and his legal cohorts arguing to keep such powers permanent... and to spread such powers further out across America to Blue States and Blue Cities in violation of the Constitution. It's not going to stop with Los Angeles, not with DC, not with what he's planning to do to Chicago next. There is hope that the courts can and will overturn these efforts and rein in trump's abuses... except for the fact that the Roberts Supreme Court have demonstrated they are willing to roll over and beg for anything trump wants to do to the rest of us.

This won't end until trump is out of power and all of his handlers and minions are sitting in jail cells for all the crimes they're committing in his name (at this point, I doubt trump will ever see the inside of a prison ever, goddamn him).

Keep fighting, America. It's not exaggerating to say everything is at stake here.

Fighting the Fear in Florida

It's hard to keep track of all the atrocities trump and his thugs are inflicting on the United States, but this one back in June really stood out as they were pulling this shit in my backyard: 

Pandering to the harsh anti-immigrant war on our American communities, Governor DeSantis and his cronies are fast-tracking a migrant detention center in South Florida (via Rachel Treisman at NPR):

Despite resistance, Florida officials are turning an airfield in the Everglades into a migrant detention center, which they've nicknamed "Alligator Alcatraz" due to its proximity to the apex predators.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier proposed the project last week, saying in a video posted to X that, in support of the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had asked state leaders to identify places for temporary detention facilities.

"I think this is the best one, as I call it: Alligator Alcatraz," Uthmeier said, referencing the infamous prison island in San Francisco Bay...

If anyone's paying attention to the overwhelmed ICE "detention facilities" right now, there are serious overcrowding, food availability, and wellness problems to where people are dying in custody. Even this horrific attempt to alleviate crowding at existing facilities won't stop this new prison - it's not a detention center, trust me - from being overcrowded itself. Stephen Miller wants his fucking quotas filled, and doesn't give a damn about treating his and ICE's victims with any basic decency or civil rights.

From what people can see happening at the airfield - there are already protestors gathering, bless them - it's looking like a bunch of portable classrooms getting converted into barracks, which I guarantee you will not be adequately air-conditioned. I doubt there will be any serviceable water or sewage considering that abandoned airfield would need months of dedicated construction efforts to make it genuinely livable.

This isn't going to be a safe or healthy place to get imprisoned...

And it turns out I - and the environmental and civil rights activists as well - was right about that hellhole being unsafe, unsound, and inhuman. Last week, federal judge Kathleen Williams gutted the anti-immigrant bastards for their sins (via AP News / NPR):

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams' injunction formalized a temporary halt she had ordered two weeks ago as witnesses continued to testify in a multiday hearing to determine whether construction should end until the ultimate resolution of the case...

The judge said she expected the population of the facility to decline within 60 days through the transferring of the detainees to other facilities, and once that happened, fencing, lighting and generators should be removed. She wrote the state and federal defendants can't bring anyone other than those who are already being detained at the facility onto the property. The order does not prohibit modification or repairs to existing facilities, "which are solely for the purpose of increasing safety or mitigating environmental or other risks at the site.,"

The preliminary injunction includes "those who are in active concert or participation with" the state of Florida or federal defendants or their officers, agents, employees," the judge wrote in an 82-page order.

The judge said state officials never sufficiently explained why the facility needed to be in the middle of the Florida Everglades. "What is apparent, however, is that in their haste to construct the detention camp, the State did not consider alternative locations," Williams said...

DeSantis and Uthmeier never explained why they put the concentration camp there because they didn't want to repeat under oath their gleeful desire to "witness alligators eating any detainees trying to escape." Cruelty may play well on Fox Not-News but not in a courtroom.

While the legal ruling focuses mostly on the environmental impact of the camp, it helps stall the ongoing efforts by the Far Right under trump and Stephen Miller to incarcerate every dark-skinned person they can find in majority-Democratic cities/states. With any luck, it'll at least end that tasteless and profane merch industry that sprang up promoting "Alligator Alcatraz" like it was fcking Disney World.

If there's any good news right now, it's that ICE and the Florida AG aren't ignoring this court order: reports are that camp is emptying out and should be cleared in a few more days.

The bad news is: Where the hell are those poor detainees - most of them honest working people, family members, not at all the criminal rot the fearmongers insist upon - going? There is no way these haters are going to give up the targets of their fear/rage: ICE is most likely shipping these people to the other concentration camps they've been setting up in other Red states across the country. 

This is all going to turn into a sick and cruel game of "hot potato": moving immigrant prisoners from state to state dodging the lawsuits that will get filed in response to any legal abuses the Far Right leaders across those states will inflict on their victims.

If only we had a working Congress that would use its' constitutional powers to rein in a lawless, vulgar, monstrous president shitgibbon. 

Keep fighting. Keep protesting. Stop every concentration camp from getting built. Stop these hatemongers.

Time for More Woodstock Reminiscing As the World Burns

Yeah, I'm still here. Struggling to focus on any particular outrage at the moment, so I'm going to think of happy thoughts instead.

Edit: Thank you Steve in Manhattan for sharing this at Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up. And to the National Guard people getting shipped away from their families and work in order to invade DC on the Shitgibbon's orders, you always have the option to quit the Guard so you won't attack your fellow Americans.

Ever since I learned of Woodstock as a lad, I remained intrigued at the confluence of events, the tiny miracles, the realization that for the most part the people who attended were in good spirits and enjoyed the experience. I found a YouTuber sharing slides where they had attended in person:

 

The music was a key part of the festival, but the people who were there made it historic.

...okay enough said, here's more Santana!

The One Crook Who Didn't Go To Jail

At least in Brazil they know what to do with corrupt ex-presidents who stage insurrections to stop elections (via Tiago Rogero and Tom Phillips with Guardian US): 

A Brazilian supreme court judge has ordered the house arrest of former president Jair Bolsonaro for allegedly breaching “preventative measures” which were imposed amid concerns the far-right leader might abscond to avoid punishment over an alleged coup attempt.

According to the ruling on Monday by Justice Alexandre de Moraes, Bolsonaro breached a ban on using social media which was imposed last month, when he was also ordered to wear an electronic ankle tag.

Moraes wrote that as demonstrators took to the streets in several cities across the country on Sunday in support of the former president, Bolsonaro used the social media accounts of allies to share messages containing “clear encouragement and incitement to attack the Supreme Federal Court, and overt support for foreign intervention in Brazil’s judiciary”.

“There is no doubt the precautionary measure was breached,” Moraes wrote...

The arrest order is part of an ongoing supreme court case in which Bolsonaro is accused of leading a plot to overturn the results of the last election, in which current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated the former army captain.

The trial is expected to conclude later this year, with Bolsonaro facing a potential sentence of more than 40 years in prison.

Many of those protesters urged the US president Donald Trump – who recently hit Brazil with 50% tariffs in retribution for the alleged “witch hunt” against Bolsonaro – to take further action to help save their embattled leader...

Of course trump would attempt to bully the Brazilian people in order to get a fellow corrupt bastard out of legal hot water. trump admires the dictators across the globe as the only humans he'll ever respect. That he's disrupting any foreign relations not just with Brazil but with the rest of South (and Central) America doesn't matter to him and his America First cronies.

trump should have answered for what he did - stirring up rioters to storm Congress and disrupt the electoral count on January 6th - in a court of law, but Biden and his attorney general didn't understand the urgency and took their time, allowing trump's lawyers to delay delay delay until the 2024 election, during which he and his allies in the mainstream media lied and bluffed their way back into the White House and negating any chance of justice.

It remains frustrating to me and millions of others who knew trump was a monster and did everything we could to keep him out of power and yet too many other Americans didn't care - or worse didn't care to know - and made the monster president (again).

What the hell, America. And now the whole world is paying for the crook we wouldn't put in jail.

Another Real Life Matter

I haven't blogged in a while, and I'm not really in the mood right now. There's been a couple of emotional hits I've taken since April, and I need to take a break from this place for another week or two.

Just remember to defend your rights, protect your communities, stop ICE, stop trump, stop evil.

And hug your cats. A lot.

Four For the Fourth: At Least We Have This to Enjoy This July

(This is the fourth article, going Four For the Fourth on the 4th of July, hope you read the others) 

Thank God there's a decent-looking Superman movie on the horizon:

In terms of technical skill, the Snyder Man Of Steel/DCU movies were okay, but too grim and dark for the more aspirational, brightly lit world of Superman. It may have worked for Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy as Batman is meant for the shadows and moral compromises, but not for a hero who represents Hope. Well, along with Truth and Justice. Just not "the American Way," because in these trumpian times the American Way is sadistic and cruel.

Four For the Fourth: We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident...

(This is the third article for my Four For the Fourth blogging run. Do check out the previous articles!)

Here's a copy of the Declaration of Independence, America's most sacred text:

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

--

These were all grievances aimed at George III - some of it the fault of Parliament's legislation, due to the UK's own in-fighting between Crown and the governed - but can you tell which ones in the Declaration our current occupant of the White House - I will not call him 'president' - has violated?

They have listed trump's crimes over at Reason (by Ilya Somin):

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands (through trump's war on immigrants, even the naturalized legal immigrants).

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent (trump's excessive and arbitrary tariffs wars with other nations, without Congressional input).

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences (trump's unjustified and cruel attempts to ship detained migrants - many of them innocent of actual crimes - to overseas prisons, where abuse and death are / will be rampant).

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures (trump's actions deploying the National Guard may fall into a gray area, but sending Marines into L.A. and using them as border guards are clear violations).

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us (JANUARY 6th RING A BELL???).

Those are just the five Somin counts. For myself, I'm also looking at trump "Taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments" and "For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever" through his DOGE purges of our federal agencies and refusal to abide by the laws set by Congress. There's also "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury" as he and his cronies at the DOJ operate without honoring the legal rights of Due Process.

trump and his Republican allies are currently committing about half of all the crimes we documented against a British king 249 years ago.

When the hell do we honest, law-abiding Americans issue our own Declaration against trump's crimes?

Four For the Fourth: Friction In the Air

(Here's the second article in this 2025 Four For the Fourth)

You say you want a revolution?

You want to stand up against the growing fascism of the trumpian regime?

You might want to watch Star Wars Andor series to get in the proper mindset then (via Derek Pharr at Nerdist):

Andor doesn’t just sideline the Jedi, it reframes the entire rebellion without them. There’s no Force and no Midichlorians. No elegant solutions from a more civilized age. Just people. Flawed, desperate, courageous people, who decide that enough is enough. The result is the most grounded, morally complex, and weirdly hopeful take on resistance the franchise has ever given us. Andor isn’t just “what if Star Wars was prestige TV?” It’s a reevaluation of who actually fought the Empire and a reminder that revolutions are won by the people who show up, not the ones meditating about it...

Let’s start with an uncomfortable truth: the Jedi failed. Not metaphorically. Not in a “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” way. They were spectacularly bad at their jobs. While Palpatine engineered a fascist takeover in broad daylight, the Jedi were too busy pontificating about balance to notice the galaxy was slipping into totalitarianism. Their detachment wasn’t just a quirk of their order. It was their fatal flaw.

Andor doesn’t waste time pointing fingers at them. It simply moves on. The Jedi aren’t mentioned, and frankly they aren’t missed. What replaces them isn’t another elite class of heroes. Instead, it’s working-class people, loners, bureaucrats, and ex-cons who decide to resist in whatever way they can. There’s no talk of prophecy or destiny in Andor. No one’s “the chosen one.” They’re just the ones who showed up.

Through two seasons, the show set up the path of Cassian Andor from youthful dispossessed jungle child into one of the Rebel Alliance fighters who uncover the secret plans that reveal the (engineered) weak spot of the dreaded superweapon Death Star. While the movie Rogue One already spelled out Cassian's fate, the show takes the time to show how and why he stood up against a massive Empire in spite of the overwhelming odds.

Cassian evolves from regular thief stealing Imperial ship parts in a way the government's intelligence agency - the ISB - couldn't identify with any pattern, into a minor participant of a bank robbery to fund the fledging Alliance that sparks an ISB crackdown on galactic civil liberties that underscores the banal cruelty of that regime. Cassian gets imprisoned and forced into a labor facility understaffed and overtly brutal, making it clear how evil and sadistic the Empire is (the side story of Cassian's friends getting tortured and killed adds to that sadism). Aiding in a mass breakout of the prison, Cassian makes his way back to his Alliance handlers and - after listening to an earnest and meaningful manifesto from an early Rebel intellectual (one who died in that bank robbery and ironically so minor a figure in the Alliance even the ISB can't identify him) - actively signs on to the fight.

Interwoven into Andor's narrative are the characters many Star Wars know will be major players in the Rebellion - Senator Mom Mothma for example, destined to denounce the Emperor's cruelty on the Senate Floor and the pure leader around which the Alliance will form - underscoring how the tides of history against oppression are inevitable. Intermixed are incredibly moving monologue's - Nemik's Manifesto is just the first - from others drawn into the fight - like Kino Loy's call to fight to break open the Imperial prisons and Luthen Rael's speech about his emotional sacrifices "I fight to make a sunrise I know I will never see" - that could stir any soul into rebellion.

Towards the end of Season Two, another major Star Wars player gets a monologue of his own, when Saw Guerra - a resistance fighter from the Clone Wars turned violent insurrectionist - explains his motivations to a new recruit (Cassian's young friend from Season One Wilmon). It's one of the most stirring and unsettling calls to fight in television history.

Saw Gerrera: There it is.

(Approaches rhydonium fumes and inhales)

Wilmon: (horrified) What are you doing?

Gerrera: (to the fumes) I have always loved you.

Wilmon: How can you do that?

Gerrera: (turns to face Wilmon) Because I understand it. Because she's my sister, rhydo, and she loves me. That itch... that burn... You feel how badly she wants to explode? (taps Wilmon's shoulders) Remember this. Remember this moment! This... perfect night. 

(Pauses, sees Wilmon's terror)

Gerrera: You think I'm crazy. (smiles) Yes, I am. Revolution is not for the sane. Look at us: Unloved, hunted, cannon fodder. We'll all be dead before the Republic is back and yet... here we are. 

(Pauses again, grabs Wilmon's shoulders harder) 

Gerrera: Where are you, boy? You're here. You're not with Luthen, you're here! You're RIGHT HERE and you're READY to fight!

(Wilmon's eyes go from fear to understanding. He willingly removes his mask to inhale the fumes, breathes deeply, coughing)

Gerrera: We're the ryhdo, kid. We're the fuel. We're the thing that explodes when there's too much friction in the air. 

(Wilmon's gasps and chokes as he accepts his fate with the Rebellion)

Gerrera: Let it in, boy. That's freedom calling! (laughing mad) Let it in! Let it RUN! Let it run WILD!

If you've watched the whole Star Wars storyline from the prequels to the Clone Wars animated series to here, you'll know Gerrera's backstory and how he lost his sanity: fighting first the Separatists that enslaved him and killed his sister, and then the Empire when the Republic fell. And yes if you're wondering, Saw Gerrera talks and acts a lot like his real-world model Che Guevara because the series storyrunners wanted a more violent yet charismatic rebel leader to highlight the more nobler goals of the main Alliance the fans already recognized. 

In that speech, Gerrera speaks to the revolutionary as an unloved fighter, romanticized as Margaret Killjoy puts it in her blog: 

I think a lot about the romanticization of suffering. When I lived in a van, it wasn’t because I wanted hashtag vanlife, it was because I had almost no money and I wanted somewhere dry to sleep and a way to get from place to place to keep doing activist work. I hated the romanticization of van life, the pristine photos of perfect beaches and fifty thousand dollar vans...

Eventually, after years, I moved into an off-grid barn, and slowly saved up the money to build a 12x12’ A-frame off-grid cabin on my friend’s property. From vanlife to tiny house. All the things you’re supposed to romanticize.

A tiny house is only an improvement if you’re coming from no-house, if you ask me. Most people are not happier living off grid. Most people are not happier living in their vehicles.

But if it’s what you have, it’s useful to find beauty in it. It’s useful to romanticize it. Some nights in the van, with the wind whipping through the trees, I was happy. Some summer days in the hammock in front of my cabin, I was happy.

When two revolutionaries, caught up in the ethical imperative to overthrow the galactic empire, start huffing fumes and waxing poetic about their perfect night of crime, they are making the right decision. If you’re going to die before you see your revolution succeed, might as well make the most of it. Might as well fill your brief life with as much meaning as you can possibly cram into it...

There’s this old book, Catechism of a Revolutionary, from 1869. It’s by this Russian nihilist named Sergey Nechayev. People get pretty hooked on this book sometimes. It’s intoxicating. The revolutionary is a doomed man, it says, right in its first sentence... 

According to the catechism, essentially anything is justifiable in the name of revolution. It was written in a time of tsars, less than a decade after the end of serfdom, and during a period where a lot of people were trying awfully hard to find a way to turn the tsar from one full-size person into a bunch of tiny little pieces of person, generally through the application of explosives. Which is, of course, a reasonable thing to do to autocrats.

But it’s worth understanding that the guy who wrote this book, Nechayev, was a piece of shit. That’s the technical term for it I think. Not just “he was so devoted to revolution that he was callous with people,” but just aggressively a bad person who, by my read, was rather detrimental to the movement he claimed to love...

I don’t have a high opinion of Catechism of a Revolutionary, nor of its author. It seems written to excuse a man doing whatever he wants (including imprisoning the woman who turned him down).

Yet when Saw Gerrera talks about “this perfect night,” I think about the pure beauty that can be found in an anti-police riot, when you and others make it clear that you will not accept to be ruled by unaccountable men with guns. Sometimes, you need to shout “fuck you” at the bastards and mean it. You need to shout “you are my enemies” and mean it. Sometimes you need to say “what are you going to do, kill me?” and know that they might, well, kill you, but that it needed to be said anyway.

You don't have to be as violent or terrible as the likes of Saw, or Che, or Nechayev. As much as they speak to the spirit of revolution, the power of pure resistance is more attainable. 

Be that fuel, that friction in the air. Just keep the struggle going. Be the signal, the call to action. Be free in the perfect moments.

Try.

Four For the Fourth 2025: As Usual, What the Hell Republicans?

(This is the first of four articles I write on this blog in honor of the 4th of July, although this 2025 trumpian dystopia is going to make it hard to be a pleasant Fourth)

I once noticed how presidential candidate Mitt Romney had "massive tax cuts for the rich" as his "ever-fixed mark," the one campaign pledge he never flipped against. I should have noted how that massive tax cut was a core belief of the modern (Reagan Era) Republican Party, because even after 2012 the goddamn GOP kept pursuing their massive tax cut plans in order to placate their overlords at the Club For Greed and other SuperPACs.

When the Republicans held control of the federal government back in 2017, one of the few agenda items they were able to pull off was that massive tax cut for the rich, alongside shifting the tax burden more onto lower income brackets to "balance" the shifts in revenue. Even then, it didn't work: Deficits went up and the national debt went up. But the Republican congresscritters didn't care because - under the sway of the minority power of the uber-rich billionaires and mega corps - they honestly don't represent their congressional and state interests anymore.

Which is why this week - again in control of the federal government this 2025 - Congress went and passed an even bigger tax cut for the rich at the expense of the rest of America (via Elena Moore, Claudia Grisales, and Deirdre Walsh at NPR):

President Trump's massive spending and tax cut bill is on the way to his desk for a signature. The bill passed Thursday after Republican leaders in the House of Representatives convinced holdouts in their own party to get in line behind the controversial legislation.

House Republicans passed the bill by a vote of 218 to 214, nearly entirely along party lines. All 212 Democrats voted in unison against the bill, and they were joined by two Republicans, Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. Leaders were forced to work all night to win the votes necessary to pass the bill and meet Trump's demand to sign the bill by July 4.

All so donald trump can hold a photo op signing event on the 4th of July, hijacking the symbolism of independence for "independence from taxes" even though that's not going to happen for most Americans. Our taxes - yes my bracket is affected - are going to go up (via David Morgan at Reuters):

Several independent analyses conclude that the bill now before the Senate would effectively transfer money from poor Americans to the rich.

The Penn Wharton Budget Model, for example, found it would reduce after-tax income by $1,500 for families earning less than $22,000 per year, and boost income by $104,000 for those earning more than $5.2 million. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reached a similar conclusion...

House Republicans say the bill would provide the typical family with a $1,300 tax cut and that business tax breaks would lead to higher wages for workers.

Which is a lie: All the previous massive tax cuts for businesses NEVER turned into higher wages for employees. Tax cuts for the wealthy never balanced budgets and never improved the middle or lower classes. Those families with $5.2 million annual income don't NEED $104k extra pocket change, but that family (or individual) on $22,000 a year WILL NEED that $1,500 for bills, bills, and staying out of massive debt.

And those massive tax cuts are not what a sizable plurality of this nation are asking for, if this Pew Research 2025 report from Andy Cerda and Andrew Daniller is accurate: 

Far more Americans oppose the legislation than favor it. Nearly half (49%) oppose it, while 29% favor it. Another 21% are not sure.

A narrow majority says the legislation would have a negative impact on the country. While 54% say it would have a mostly negative effect on the country in the coming years, 30% say it would have a mostly positive effect. Another 12% think it would not have much of an impact.

About half (51%) expect the bill to increase the budget deficit. Just 18% of Americans say the bill would cut the deficit, and 27% say it would not have much of an effect...

You would think congressional Republicans would be intelligent enough - or at least aware of the polling - to understand their budget bill is going to hurt their support back home. And you'd be right: A number of GOP congresscritters were begging everyone else to stop them (via Bill Scher at Washington Monthly):

Soon after Senator Lisa Murkowski coughed up the 50th vote for the Senate version of the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, she told reporters what was wrong with it. 

“I struggled mightily with the impact on the most vulnerable in this country, when you look to Medicaid and SNAP,” she said, referring to the bill’s deep cuts to health care and food assistance. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the bill’s onerous provisions would directly strip health coverage from 11.8 million people by 2034, and the omission of any extension for Joe Biden-era health-care tax credits would deny coverage for another 5.1 million, for a total of 16.9 million. And according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities,  “more than 5 million people—about 1 in 8 SNAP participants…would be at risk of losing at least some of their food assistance”  because of the Republican “red-tape-laden, ineffective work requirement. ” For its part, the Congressional Budget Office predicts 2 million people will lose SNAP benefits altogether because of the work requirement...

And yet, Murkowski, you fucking voted for it. You had the power and ability to say NO for the benefit of your constituents of Alaska - and the nation - and yet...

Opinions differ regarding the potential consequences of historically high post-World War II federal debt levels, and whatever those consequences are, they won’t be felt by households as immediately and acutely as the loss of Medicaid and SNAP coverage will be felt. Many Republicans agree with Senator Johnson that our debt level should be declining. Yet, they continue to support legislation that piles on more debt by cutting taxes far more deeply than cutting spending, and in the process, rewarding high-income households and punishing low-income households. Johnson is one of them. He told NPR that Trump “satisfied my requirement, which was a commitment to a reasonable, pre-pandemic level of spending and a process to achieve and maintain it.” A hollower commitment would be impossible to make...

The modern Republican Party is caught in a fantasy of their own making: Pushed by deep-pocket campaign funders who want to keep their greed expanding at the expense of everyone else (damn you, Citizens United ruling), pressured by anti-government ideologues who want to starve the federal government and drown it in Grover's bathtub, and convinced that their incumbent - and gerrymandered - status makes them protected from voter outrage; the Far Right keep buying into the lie of trickle-down in order to justify their cruelty and disdain towards the lower classes.

The Republicans - with trump hosting his horrific photo op today - are going to be celebrating a bill they know is destructive and harmful to the national well-being - especially the Medicaid cuts that will force far too many rural hospitals and nursing homes even in deep Republican Red states to close - but they hope won't affect their re-election hopes for 2026 and 2028.

If trump lets us have fair elections any more, that is.

Goddamn these Far Right bastards.