No One Is Safe

Posted: April 15, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

“Nur für Deutsche” (“Only for Germans”)

Signs posted during World War II in Nazi Germany and occupied territories

“America is for Americans and Americans only!”

Stephen Miller at a New York City rally for Trump on 27 October 2024. He is now the Deputy Chief of Staff for Trump in charge of immigration.

Yesterday I stumbled upon a live press availability in the Oval Office where Trump and the president of El Salvador Nayib Bukele (the self proclaimed “world’s coolest dictator” — you can’t make this stuff up) held forth about a variety of issues. Among them, Trump declared that the war in Ukraine was President Biden’s (“he should never have let it happen”) and President Zelenskyy’s fault (“you don’t start a war against someone twenty times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles”), spread Russian propaganda, lied about the Supreme Court, congratulated himself on his trade war with our allies and friends, and opined about sending U.S. citizens to the most dangerous prison in the western hemisphere in El Salvador. (More on that in a minute.) All of that is to name just a few of the embarrassing and yet terrifying remarks that he made. To me, it was an unmistakable declaration of his belief that he was already the autocrat he always yearned to be. It was literally a jaw dropping moment as I realized how much trouble we are in as a nation that used to be dedicated to the rule of law.

The Trump Administration brings an entirely new level of craziness and ignorance into our lives every day. As the president and his minions challenge our long standing traditions and norms in every area of our national lives — from the economy to foreign affairs — there is one thing in common to all of it. The correct questions to ask are does Trump or his family financially benefit from his actions? If not, which of his cronies do? As Anne Applebaum points out in her article “Kleptocracy, Inc” in The Atlantic magazine, Trump knows that he can get away with anything. After all, he is a convicted felon that tried to overthrow the government and suffered no meaningful consequences. Why worry about silly things like conflicts of interest or blatant financial dealings that enrich the president? Who is going to stop him? Manipulate trade laws to crash the stock market, bring it back, and then have his family and friends profit from possible insider trading? Why not? But, just to make sure, Trump suspended enforcement of a long list of checks and balances on our financial system that prevent illegal activity. His actions now allow for nearly unfettered corruption, graft, greed and bribery to flourish. Too harsh? Look up “World Liberty Financial” as an example of the many ways he is making money off of the presidency. It is the Trump family cryptocurrency business that he set up just after his re-election. Anyone can contribute to it at any time. A perfect front for taking bribes.

The country, including you and I, are, to use a technical term, screwed.

But even as I watch my 401(k) disappear, the grift and graft are not my biggest worries with the Trump administration. I am most worried about the loss of our rights under the Constitution. We are well on our way to having our worst nightmares realized.

As with the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father married to a U.S. citizen picked up off the street and sent to the notorious Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CETCO) in El Salvador, none of us appear safe anymore. The Trump Administration claims that the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) declared in a 9-0 unanimous decision that under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, the president has unfettered rights to do as he pleases with regards to national security and foreign affairs. In fact, the SCOTUS declared nothing of the kind. They ruled that the U.S. has the obligation to “facilitate” the return of Mr. Garcia from El Salvador as he had no criminal record anywhere, was protected from deportation to El Salvador by a court order, and three administration officials declared, under oath, that his banishment to CETCO was an “administrative error.” The government argues that he is a member of a dangerous gang without producing any evidence to support their claim. Besides, they argue, he is now in El Salvador, therefore U.S. courts have no jurisdiction and the U.S. government cannot just go and get him. Not surprisingly, President Bukele said that he would not release Mr. Garcia.

Please let me get this straight. Trump started a trade war, threatens to invade Greenland and Panama, turn Canada into the 51st state, says he can end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, and yet he is too weak to convince a two bit dictator (who is getting paid by the U.S. to keep prisoners in CETCO), to release one man?

Why is this important? Two big reasons. The Trump administration is clearly ready to defy SCOTUS if they don’t like a particular ruling, and it is currently unclear whether or not SCOTUS will insist on the administration following the law. Second, if the administration can claim that once somebody is sent to El Salvador the U.S. has no further way to bring that person home, even if they were sent in error, then what is to prevent them from “accidentally” picking up a U.S. citizen, sending them to El Salvador and then claiming that, as Bukele did on social media when this all began, “Oopsie….. To late.”

Yesterday Trump asked Bukele to expand CETCO with five new buildings so that he could make even more people disappear into the depths of that hell hole including what he calls “home grown criminals” — American citizens. Is that legal? Not under our Constitution. Can “mistakes” happen? Who knows? What we do know is that nearly every action that Trump has taken since his inauguration runs counter to what we had come to assume was “normal” for our democratic republic. Instead, his administration has declared “emergencies” in every area of our lives to put into place whatever policy suits their fancy.

Everyone in the U.S. is entitled to due process under the Constitution, no matter their status. The Trump administration sees no need for such legalities when they are dealing with anyone they deem a threat — as they define it. Apparently, they are the only ones that can define the threat. Note that we already have laws that deal with illegal immigration, deal with criminals and provide the ability to lawfully deal with people that are a threat to our security. Trump refuses to use existing legal means, probably because they know that there is no legal basis to do what they are doing.

Mr. Garcia is the example that demonstrates where this administration is going. Last week they declared roughly 6100 immigrants as “dead” in the Social Security system. They range in age from 13 to 80 and are here under a variety of legal policies. The intent is to get them to self-deport. Here is what happens when the Social Security Administration puts one into the dead system. Not only do you lose social security benefits (which most immigrants pay into but if they are illegal, they get no benefits out) but banks, landlords, credit card companies and numerous other financial and social systems immediately drop you out of their systems. You cannot work. Need cash from your savings account for food? Sorry, you don’t need to eat, you are dead! How do you self deport? By going to an immigration judge and letting them know. Easy. Except if ICE is also there and picks you up before you see the judge, holds you incommunicado and sends you to CETCO.

Apparently the Trump administration is focusing on students studying in U.S. colleges either on a student visa or with a green card. Several hundred students have been deported or refused re-entry into the U.S. for various reasons — usually because they are alleged to have taken part in demonstrations (even if peaceful) protesting the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians. The administration’s announced plans to scour the social media postings of all 1.2 million foreign students in the U.S. and deport those alleged to have remarks deemed “antisemitic” or critical of U.S. policies. The government will decide who meets those criteria without defining them.

Let’s come back around to sending “home grown” criminals to CETCO. Last week Trump signed two Executive Orders targeting two of his former first term administration officials. One is Christopher Krebs who was the cyber security official that oversaw the 2020 election. He declared it the safest, most secure election in the history of the U.S. The other official is Miles Taylor who was the chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) during Trump’s first term. Mr. Krebs is in trouble because Trump still claims that the 2020 election was rigged (really? still?!) and therefore Mr. Krebs is facilitating the falsification of the election results. Mr. Taylor wrote an anonymous op-ed for the New York Times, and later a book, detailing how crazy things were within the Trump administration’s first term. Trump wants the DHS and the Attorney General to investigate and prosecute the two men. (Talk about politicizing the DOJ!) Here’s the rub. Trump declared that what they did, especially Mr. Taylor, was “treasonous.” The maximum punishment for treason is death. Does that make Mr. Taylor a “monster criminal” and if so is he eligible for permanent incarceration in the gulag known as CETCO? Where does it stop? He has said that the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley committed treason by not doing everything Trump wanted him to do in his first term. Does he go to CETCO?

We might only be surprised by our lack of imagination on just how far this administration is willing to go.

Trump continues to sign Executive Orders attempting to put powerful law firms, that have in some way or another irritated him, out of business. Sadly, so far many of them have caved to Trump and crawled to the Oval Office to kiss his ring. As a result, Trump has amassed the promise of roughly one billion dollars in pro bono legal services for his causes. Whatever those may be. He only cares about himself, so I guess these law firms will give Trump nearly unlimited legal advice and support for whatever strikes his fancy.

The deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller publicly stated that his goal was to deport one million people by the end of 2025. (The dirty little secret is that despite the hype and high profile cases, so far the Trump administration has deported slightly fewer people than the Biden administration did over the same time period. The Biden administration followed the law.) That means that they are planning to deport people that are here legally. Just declare that groups of people (Haitians, Venezuelans, Ukrainians, pick your group) no longer have special legal status to stay in the U.S. and you have a target rich environment to start deporting whomever you want. Asylum seekers, green card holders, student visa holders, just pick a group. Were I a naturalized citizen I would be paying close attention. One man with a legal green card was arrested Monday while attending a scheduled meeting on how to become a naturalized citizen.

My sense is that they literally want to deport every man, woman and child that is not a born in the U.S.A. citizen. Although even that may not be enough if Trump succeeds in over-turning the 14th Amendment, which he is already trying to do.

No one is safe. Congress remains supine in worship of Trump and have abdicated their responsibilities under the Constitution. We thought that the judicial branch would step into the breach but it is not clear to me that they will. The SCOTUS seems hesitant to directly challenge Trump and his administration. Perhaps they know that Trump will ignore any ruling with which he disagrees and therefore they do not want to give him that opportunity. I do not know. I am out of the prediction business, but I can read and listen and see what is happening and I am very concerned.

I take solace in the fact that we are not Hungary, or Turkey or Russia. We have a tradition of democracy and most of us will not give it up easily. My concern is that the muscle memory of most Americans assumes that politicians come and go but life pretty much continues as it always has. That just is not true today. Big changes are ahead. What they are I know not, but we all need to pay attention.

White Nationalist Terrorism

Posted: March 18, 2019 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Another mass shooting, this time in Christchurch New Zealand, left at least fifty people dead and many dozens wounded, proving yet again that white nationalism spreads hate and leads to the vilest of acts.  Let’s call it what it is — terrorism.  For some reason, when Muslim extremists attack a Western target, it is immediately condemned as an act of terrorism.  But when a white man attacks two mosques and kills fifty Muslims, it is considered an isolated act of a mad man.  While no one can be held accountable for these acts other than those that perpetrate these heinous crimes, let’s not fool ourselves that this is solely the random act of a nut job.  He reportedly chose New Zealand precisely because it is arguably the safest country on earth.  His attacks on two mosques where he ruthlessly gunned down children, women and men were not random.  They were intended to send a message and to instill terror.

Western intelligence agencies work together world-wide to follow and thwart such acts by ISIS and al-Qaeda and other Muslim extremist groups.  And well they should.  But there is to date, no similar intelligence effort to follow and thwart acts by white nationalists.  Make no mistake about it, the far right extremists work together via the dark web and other social media avenues to spread their ideology and to share ideas about how to carry out violence.  As explained in a Washington Post article this weekend, white supremacists who are motivated by a right-wing political ideology committed more acts of violence in recent years than any other type of domestic extremist.  It is time to recognize that these are not one time random events but rather that these extremists are connected in that they are motivated by and share the same websites, political views and understanding of world events.  They feed off of each other.  It is a movement, both here in the United States and increasingly in other Western nations around the world. They are connected in ways we may not truly understand. There was a reason this evil person left a 74 page manifesto and live streamed his attack on Facebook.  He wanted to share with those like him and in a way, to brag about his ability to carry out with action what others only talk about.

Be aware of the language.  Words matter and have meaning.  Many experts start with the French writer Renaud Camus and his book “The Great Replacement” which is often referenced by the far right.  Indeed, this shooter named his manifesto in homage to this book.  In his book, Mr. Camus argues that whites in Europe are being replaced by immigrants from non-white countries and most of them are Muslims. He calls it “demographic colonization” and talks about a “counter revolt” to drive them away.  Mr. Camus now has a second book along the same lines called “You Will Not Replace Us!” Remember that in 2017 the white supremacists in Charlottesville marched to the chant “Jews will not replace us!”  Other words like “invasion” and depictions of non-white immigrants as criminals, and disease carriers and generally despicable non-human beings fills the pages of the writings and postings of these far right nationalists.  They come from “shit hole” countries.  They want to take away jobs. Sound familiar?

According to the ADL (formerly the Anti-Defamation League) in the United States from 2008 to 2017 there were 387 domestic extremist murders.  Of those, they report that 71 percent of them were committed by right-wing extremists.  26 percent were by Islamic extremists and three percent were by left-wing extremists.  Please don’t give me the “both sides” argument.  It is time to be realistic about this danger to our citizens.

One might ask where the real “national emergency” is taking place.  It may be that the real threat comes from those trying to “Make America White Again.”

We need to move beyond thinking of these incidents as isolated.  They are not.  Until our leadership realizes that this is a real and present danger these events will continue. When asked if he thought the rise of white nationalists around the world was a growing threat, Mr. Trump said, “I don’t really.  I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.  It’s certainly a terrible thing.” To think as the president does about white nationalism is to either condone it, or it is the moral equivalent of having our collective heads in the sand.  From Saturday morning to Sunday night, Mr. Trump put out 50 Tweets or retweets about everything from formulating the idea that the government should investigate Saturday Night Live for colluding with the Russians (?!) to attacking Senator John McCain.  (Still.)  Not one concerned the massacre in New Zealand.

Wake up USA.

This Is Not Our Country

Posted: June 20, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

We are losing our heart and our soul as a nation.  I hope that we can recover.

With the Trump Administration policy of “zero tolerance” we are experiencing the full depth of depravity that his leadership instills.  And make no mistake about it, it is a policy, not a law.

Repeat after me:  There is no law that requires separating children from their parents at the border.

There are so many lies surrounding the implementation of this policy and the explanations for its continuance that is hard to know where to begin.  Let’s start with the rationale for it.

Mr. Trump and the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security state that it is simply the enforcement of the law.  (All together now:  There is no law!).  However, the Attorney General and high ranking presidential advisers say that the policy is an attempt to deter further immigrants from coming to the border either illegally or for the purpose of claiming asylum – of which the Attorney General changed the criteria for what we will accept under that claim.

Other presidential advisers, including the president himself, basically argued that it was a political gambit to get the Congress to pass legislation to fund his “big beautiful border wall.”  You know, the one he promised that Mexico would pay for.

Taking the second argument first, it is totally despicable and un-American to use children, including babies and toddlers, as political bargaining chips.  The mere sight of these internment camps should be enough for Americans — regardless of one’s views on immigration — to say “not in my America!”

The argument that it is a deterrent is short-sighted and won’t work.  Here is the fallacy in their reasoning.  People that are fleeing unspeakable crimes, persecution and fear will risk whatever lies at the end of a very long road because it cannot be any worse than what they are experiencing and there is a chance that it could be better.  Desperate people do desperate things.  Think Sophie’s Choice (either the book or the movie with Meryl Streep.)

As many of you know I experienced this first hand in the early 1980’s off the coast of Viet Nam.  On several Navy deployments we rescued refugees at sea fleeing the oppressive communist regime of the time.  Note this — we were not there for that mission.  No US Navy ships were there for that mission.  We were merely transiting from one mission to another and happened to be there — far off the coast in regular shipping lanes.  Unimaginably rickety wooden boats of 40 or 50 feet loaded with about 50 people of all ages — babies to grandmothers — on board would head to sea hoping that a US Navy ship would see them (not a sure thing — small boat, big ocean), stop, and pick them up to take them to a refugee camp.  If they missed the US Navy, perhaps some friendly merchant ship would pick them up (some did, but not all).  If they weren’t lucky, they were lost at sea.  Unknown numbers were never rescued.  I should point out that there was no specific government policy to pick them up.  It was our duty as mariners to help those in peril on the sea and our duty as human beings not to let them perish.

Those experiences over about three years have made a lasting impression on me ever since.  I could not and can not imagine what it would take to put my entire family at risk of perishing at sea in the hope — the hope — that there might be something better for us.  And if there wasn’t, well maybe we would still be better off perishing together than losing family members to evil forces.

That is why those people come to our borders.  They won’t stop until the conditions in their home countries change.

Additionally may I add that on numerous occasions over the decades, I have read about a senior military officer, politician, public servant, fireman, successful business person, and others that were among those rescued during that period.  I have no idea whether any of them were among those on the boats that we saved.  I do know that if we had not exercised our obligations as human beings we would have never known about them because they would never have lived to be the proud and productive Americans that they are today.

Some of those in the child internment camps will have similar stories in a few decades.  If we let them.

As I write this, the president just announced that later today he will “sign something” to alleviate the situation at the border regarding the removal of children from their parents.  I hope it is meaningful.  The damage is already done, however, to our standing as a moral leader in the world and in our communal sense of what it means to be an American.

Mr. Trump is using the most vile, scare mongering rhetoric imaginable to demonize these potential contributors to the USA.  It is on purpose.  When he tweets that they “pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13” he brings out the very worst in our nature. Pour? Infest?  What?  Sound familiar?

“From the rostrum of the Reichstag, I prophesied to Jewry that, in the event of war’s proving inevitable, the Jew would disappear from Europe. That race of criminals has on its conscience the two million dead of the First World War, and now already hundreds and thousands more. Let nobody tell me that all the same we can’t park them in the marshy parts of Russia! Who’s worrying about our troops? It’s not a bad idea, by the way, that public rumor attributes to us a plan to exterminate the Jews. Terror is a salutary thing.”  — Adolf Hitler October, 1941

“You see what happens with MS-13, where your sons and daughters are attacked violently.  Kids that never even heard of such a thing are being attacked violently, not with guns, but with knives because it’s much more painful.  Inconceivable — here we are talking about business — inconceivable that we even have to talk about MS-13 and other gangs.  They attack violently, the most painful way possible.  And a bullet is too quick.  And we’re allowing these people into our country?  Not with me.  We’re taking them out by the thousands.  We’re taking them out by the thousands.”  Donald J. Trump, 19 June 2018

There are so many more references from Mr. Trump where he demonized those of color.  There is a reason that to date, the only pictures, still or video, from inside the child internment camps are from the US government.  What do they show?  Only teenage boys of color shuffling along and kept in cages (or as one DHS official claimed that they aren’t cages, they are just walls made of chain link that go from floor to ceiling).  As Mr. Trump rails against “MS-13” — is the president really saying that every man woman and child seeking entry from the south is a gang member — the video subtly reinforces his vitriol.

The president is trying to create a vision of a nation at war.  That we are under attack from the south and the refugees at our borders are enemy combatants.  With that psychology, of course we “capture” them and put them in POW camps.  It is an artificial war and a created crisis.  Created for political purposes.  The president is trying to create an issue that he thinks he and the GOP can win on in November 2018.  Truth is trampled in the process.

Look it up.  The numbers apprehended at the border have plummeted between 2000 and now.  For example in March, 2000 about 220,000 people crossed the border.  In March of this year, when the “crisis” resulted in the zero tolerance policy, about 40,000 were apprehended trying to cross illegally.  Looking at yearly totals since 1960, apprehensions increased steadily until peaking in the late 1990’s at roughly 1.6 million people.  Since then the trend has been downward, hovering around 300,000 to 400,000 during President Obama’s second term and about 300,000 last year. Hardly “unheard of” or “the most in history” or “unprecedented”.  By the way, part of the reason was that there were dramatic new hires in Border Patrol officers begun under President George W. Bush and expanded further under President Obama.  As a side note, one should be aware that the historic rate of crimes for illegal immigrants is half of that of natural born citizens and the rate for legal immigrants is about a quarter of that for natural born Americans.

The current condition is a cruel manufactured crisis for crass political purposes.  We are a nation of immigrants.  We are better than this.  Or at least I thought so.

Despite Mr. Trump’s fake claims that the Democrats want “open borders” to get more criminals, drug dealers and future voters into the country, the vast majority of Americans understand that immigration must be controlled and that laws must be the rule of the land.  That said, it is possible to have and execute immigration laws with compassion.

Let’s hope that when Mr. Trump “signs something” today, he solves this problem.  Whatever that something is, however, we have already seen clearly what is in his heart.  What is now happening on the border is evil.  It does not represent the values of the United States of America that I know.

In truth, I do not believe that Mr. Trump really cares one way or the other about immigration and the welfare of children on the border.  It just makes a good wedge issue to enhance his own power.  We have seen that Mr. Trump will stop at nothing to exploit fear and to promote his personal gain.  Wake up America!  This is what the future holds if we do not begin to demand more from our elected officials.  Now.