Trump Hates Me (And Maybe You Too)
Posted: July 7, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 2026 Elections, Democracy, Department of Homeland Security, Donald Trump, Immigration, Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), MAGA, One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Political Violence, Salute to America Rally, Tik Tok, United States Constitution Leave a comment“But I hate them, too. You know that? I really do, I hate them. I cannot stand them because I really believe they hate our country, you want to know the truth.”
— Trump referring to Democrats at a “Salute to America” rally on 3 July 2025
I am still trying to figure out how I morphed from being a moderate, maybe slightly left of center on social issues, into a “lunatic” and a “radical left Democrat.” I don’t feel any different today than I did, say, a year ago. Maybe I am just not self aware. Or maybe the President of the United States does not care about half of the citizens of those same United States. Or worse. Perhaps he is radicalizing his followers into committing acts of political violence so that he can promote his own autocratic agenda.
Whether or not you believe this is “just Trump being Trump,” his increasingly violent language has consequences. He calls undocumented immigrants “scum” and “animals” and “people with bad genes” among many other, even worse, characterizations of other human beings. There is a long historical record of how words used to vilify “others” eventually always leads to violence. Increasingly, it is apparent that Trump has an agenda to depict our country as under attack from “within” by people that, as he says, “hate our country.” Apparently, eventually or tomorrow, I am one of those people. Imagine my surprise! He is only six months into his term. He has three and a half more years to continue to implement his autocratic plan. Am I fear mongering? I don’t think so — and I am certainly not doing it on purpose — but to me, the evidence is there.
Trump has figured out that all he has to do is demand that something happen and refuse to back off when dealing with our institutions. His cabinet, in my opinion, is filled primarily with sycophants that are too busy designing photo ops to impress the boss, rather than running their departments. There is no pushback. Other institutions seem to take the same approach, impress Trump by giving him what he wants and hopefully he will back off — which of course no bully ever does if they keep “winning.” Whether it is the party formerly known as the Republican Party, Congress, the Supreme Court, institutions of higher learning, corporations, tech bros, or countless other groups, they cave. If the guardrails are still there, they are hanging on by one slightly rusty bolt. Perhaps some state governors and legislatures continue to do the right thing and to follow the law, but it isn’t clear to me how long they can keep it up. When the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) goes to California for a photo op with the National Guard and combat Marines protecting Los Angeles from a non-existent threat, there are already warning signs. When she declares “We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country” as she did on 12 June 2025, there is an imminent threat to our democracy. Like them or not, the governor of a state and the mayor of a city are duly elected representatives of their constituents. The DHS cannot implement a coup d’etat just because they disagree with an elected official’s legal policies.
Mass deportations are underway. When will they stop? Who knows, but given the pace of things and impotence of the Congress and the willingness of the Supreme Court to do Trump’s bidding, I expect them to continue to expand. When due process is not enforced, and apparently it isn’t really being enforced except in a few publicized cases, and masked men without identification can whisk anyone away off the streets with no restraints, we are already living in a police state. What is to stop it from expanding to others that merely disagree with this administration? When the president declares that he hates half of the country, what he is really saying is “fall in line or else.” I worry about the “or else” for the citizens of our great country.
With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), Trump has a para-military force (ICE) that is bigger than the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) Agency, Bureau of Prisons and the U.S. Marshals Service combined. Add to that the use of the military in the form of federalized National Guard troops and combat Marines in Los Angeles. But why stop there? The Trump administration is deploying 200 Marines to Florida to “help” ICE and has approved plans for deploying up to 700 Marines in Florida, Texas and Louisiana. Think about that. They are gradually increasing the numbers and locations of combat Marines throughout the United States. I seriously doubt that that will be the end of it. Coming soon to a city near you! The U.S. Marines! We should be so thankful. Believe me when I tell you that the Marine Corps absolutely does not want to do this. It impedes their readiness and training for, you know, their actual duties (the Marines are an expeditionary force to, as they like to say, “kick open the door” for the other services in foreign combat — hopefully they will not soon be kicking open my door), not too mention it uses Department of Defense (DOD) money that could be better spent elsewhere and takes those Marines away from their families, when they already have precious little time to spend with them to begin with.
I do not have a good feeling about the 2026 elections when the president declares that Democrats are unpatriotic and hate their country, with increasing numbers of troops deployed around the country, with a Department of Justice (DOJ) that is Trump’s personal law firm, and other warning signs. Trump continually debases our country and rants about how dangerous it is. What assurances do we have that the 2028 election won’t include Trump? Here is my “canary in the coal mine” concern about upcoming elections. Neither Trump nor his MAGA supporters in Congress seem to care about the political damage the OBBBA and other policies are causing. In what might be considered normal elections, the “Republican” party would be likely to take heavy election losses turning Congress over to the Democrats. They seem totally unconcerned about that — especially Trump. Why?
As Trump and his cronies continue to dismantle the federal government, from the National Security Council to our health care institutions, to environmental agencies, to education agencies, to just about anything you can name, Trump and his fiercest loyalists are consolidating power under the Executive branch. He likes to say that he loves Article II (of the Constitution) because I have “the right to do whatever I want as president.” Constitutional experts would disagree, but let’s look at the evidence. The Supreme Court says the president is immune and only they can rule on whether what he does is Constitutional or not. His Project 2025 minders continually tell him that he is the ultimate decision maker on almost everything. Truthfully, who has stopped him?
Here is the kicker. The following is a peek into the future for us and the current mind set of this administration.
Remember Tik Tok? The scourge of the youth of America? The one that was banned by a bipartisan vote in Congress, signed into law by the president and upheld in a 9-0 decision by the Supreme Court? Trump continues to ignore the law. He continues to give Tik Tok extensions for its sale, even as he campaigned that it was a tool of the Chinese Communist Party to spy on Americans. Stay with me, yes, who cares about Tik Tok, but here is where it gets scary.
Attorney General Pam “Whatever You Say Boss Barbie” Bondi declared that the president can decide which laws to enforce and further more, she declared that the companies carrying Tik Tok can continue to do so “without incurring any legal liability” and that DOJ was “irrevocably relinquishing” any legal claims against them for their actions.
How did she decide this? Quite simple actually. She declared that shutting down Tik Tok would impinge upon Trump’s “constitutional duties” because the law interfered with his “unique constitutional responsibility for the national security of the United States, the conduct of foreign policy, and other vital executive functions.” Hmm. If they will do this because Trump thinks Tik Tok helped him win the 2024 election, imagine what lawless lengths they will go to to do what they want, much less to interfere with any future elections.
I am sorry to be so negative. I see what is happening (and more) and worry greatly about the future of our democracy for our kids and grandkids. I see too many comments that “it can’t happen here.” It is already happening here and increasingly Trump and his loyalists are more and more brazen about it. I remember back in the fall when a voter focus group was asked if they were worried that we would lose our democracy under a Trump presidency. They all said “no.” Why? Because as long as we can vote we will have a democracy, they declared. To that I can only ask if they mean like in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), or like Russia, or like the People’s Republic of China (Communist China) or numerous other countries where the people vote, but they definitely do not have a democracy?
No one pays attention until they are impacted. By then it is too late.
Let Freedom Ring
Posted: July 3, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alligator Alcatraz, Donald Trump, Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), Impoundment Control Act, Independence Day, One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Supreme Court, Supreme Court of the United States, Trump v CASA, Trump v United States, United States Constitution 2 Comments“It is not merely for to-day, but for all time to come that we should perpetuate for our children’s children this great and free government, which we have enjoyed all our lives.“
Abraham Lincoln in a speech to the One Hundred Sixty-Sixth Ohio Regiment –August 22, 1864
Tomorrow is the 249th birthday of the Declaration of Independence, a time to celebrate our nation and our heritage. On our way to our landmark 250th birthday, I cannot help but wonder what kind of nation we will be in a year.
As I write, the House is about to vote in favor of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that incorporates provisions to rob the poor to pay the rich. Almost immediately, Trump and his Mar-A-Lago buddies will benefit. Their tax breaks and financial incentives will help to make billionaires and corporations richer. To pay for it, while still adding over three trillion dollars to the national debt over the next ten years, Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP — commonly referred to as food stamps) will be cut substantially, along with other programs. The Medicaid cuts alone impact 12 million Americans. Along with other changes to the Affordable Care Act, numerous projections all agree that about another four million Americans will lose their health insurance. Those 16 million Americans set to lose their health care are not the perpetrators of waste fraud and abuse as Trump constantly falsely claims. The OBBBA is devious. The bill has many critics — the aggregate of reliable polls show that only about 33 percent of Americans approve of the bill. Knowing that, MAGA Republicans wrote the bill so that the tax cuts for the rich take place in the near term, but cuts to social services don’t kick in until December 2026, after the mid-term elections. Digging deeper, it is apparent that more than those on Medicaid will be impacted. Medicaid funds are the main source of income in many rural hospitals and medical clinics, retirement homes and other institutions that take care of our poor and elderly. Without Medicaid, many will close. In those areas, whether or not you personally have insurance, where are you going to go to get healthcare even if you can afford it? Cutting back Medicaid by about a trillion dollars will also lead to the loss of jobs. Several studies calculate that 500,000 healthcare workers will lose their jobs over the next ten years as a result of these cuts.
The bill is about 900 pages long. I do not believe that as I write today, a single Senator or Representative knows everything that is in the bill. There so many other provisions installed to satisfy the many competing interests of MAGA Senators and Representatives that the impact — and surprises — from the bill will be felt well into the future. Some significant changes include, for example, increased financial rewards for fossil fuel companies while it penalizes clean energy companies to such an extent that experts are worried about the future viability of the programs. As a result, thousands of jobs will be lost in what is currently one of the fastest growing industries in the U.S.
With all of that, my biggest concern is the immediate impact on Immigration Control and Enforcement (ICE). Over the next four years, spending for Trump’s border security and mass deportation plans will increase to a total of 150 billion dollars. For example, the bill allocates 45 billion dollars for adult and family detention centers. That is up from the current 8 billion dollars. Look for more punitive detention centers such as the newly minted “Alligator Alcatraz” concentration camp. Just this week Trump and his factotums joked about how much “fun” living in the Everglades in cages without air conditioning would be. There are also equally significant increases in spending for more masked, unidentified men grabbing people off the streets and putting them into unmarked cars and sending them to jail without due process, a warrant or any other legal justification. Some who have lived here for decades, raising families, working hard and paying taxes even though they are not eligible for social security or many other tax payer funded services. By this time next year most of us will know or know of someone taken away for wanting to have a better life. This worries me a lot. I do not just worry about those that are currently being rounded up. I also worry about the rest of us — what if we look “foreign”? Will we have to carry our passports proving our citizenship just to go to the grocery store? Where does it stop as the Trump Administration digs deeper and deeper into our society to remove those who they decide do not belong here? We already have National Guard troops and combat Marines deployed in a peaceful Los Angeles. What other demonstrations of unleashed power are we going to see?
To my surprise, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is helping him to change our societal norms. Last week it was a ruling on nation-wide injunctions and birthright citizenship. In Trump v CASA, Inc, the justices put serious restraints on the ability of a district federal judge to issue a national injunction. A good argument can be made that the practice of “judge shopping” and looking for an amenable judge to stop anything that a particular group opposes should be eliminated. Practically speaking, however, really? This was the case that they chose? A violation of the Constitution? (Trump issued an Executive Order ending birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment.) Not to mention that the Biden Administration tried several times to get the SCOTUS to take up the issue and they never did. (According to the Congressional Research Service, 28 nation-wide injunctions were issued during President Biden’s term.) There are arguments for and against these injunctions. The system was beginning to be abused. However, it seems to me that a case involving a president trying to eliminate a Constitutional right by fiat should not be limited to the plaintiffs that brought the case. The Court did delay their decision for thirty days so that the plaintiffs could pursue other avenues to address the issue. Without going into the legalese, legal experts disagree on how effective those work-arounds might be. One, is to file a class action lawsuit, however this SCOTUS has been continually refining and narrowing what cases are allowed under a class action. No one knows what will happen going forward. The result? Probably chaos. Trump always takes advantage of the loopholes in any ruling or law and then lies about it. Right now twenty two states, and some immigrant rights groups, have sued to stop Trump’s Executive Order. Does that mean at the end of July Trump can start taking away the citizenship of those in the other 28 states that are citizens by birth? How do you or I prove we are a citizens? Trump is also threatening to denaturalize citizens that oppose him. Whether we agree with his critics or not, we do not kick citizens out of the country because of their political views. This is part of a larger administration effort to punish people for exercising their First Amendment right to free speech. Trump is also threatening to send US citizens to “shithole” third countries because of their beliefs. He says he will only send hardened criminals (there are already laws to imprison criminals in the US) but he gets to define who is a criminal.
Congress is impotent and unwilling to challenge him in any way. I had hope that the judicial system would temper him and keep his wildest impulses in check, but now SCOTUS says only they can do so. Not district courts or appellate courts. So in one sense, those courts are now exhibition matches because only the SCOTUS has the authority to rule on Executive Branch actions. By the way, on this court are the same people that said Trump as president is immune for prosecution no matter what he does in an “official” capacity. (Trump v United States) He has already shown a willingness to pardon hardened criminals if they do his bidding. Scary.
While we were not paying attention because of all of the drama surrounding the OBBBA, this week the Trump Administration withheld 7 billion dollars in education funds the night before they were to be disbursed. Those funds were duly appropriated and authorized by Congress. Once again Trump is going against the law. As a result, tens of thousands of summer programs and adult education and other activities to help kids and adults are cancelled. In addition the teachers, counselors and others have lost their jobs. This is yet another test of the 1974 Impoundment Control Act that Trump and his Project 2025 henchmen unilaterally declare to be un-Constitutional. Their belief is that the Executive Branch has sole discretion on how to spend funds appropriated and authorized by Congress.
Also this week, while few were paying attention, Trump severely limited military aid to Ukraine even as Russia mounts a major offensive and continues the largest aerial attacks of the war. Why would any of our friends or allies trust us?
In every instance I see the increasing power of the Executive Branch as they ooze into areas that give them more and more power. Appease Trump (bribe him — I am looking at you Paramount Studios), you get what you want. Oppose him for any reason and you are vilified, investigated, shut down or otherwise pursued in retribution. (“I am your retribution.” — 2024 campaign slogan) As time goes by he feels untouchable and ever more powerful.
Looking back over our 249 year history, clearly our country has been in some tough spots before and survived. We will eventually get through Trump, but I fear that it could be at least a generation of hard work to get back to where we were just a year ago. I cannot predict how things will look a year from now. When I put together everything that is happening (and the above is only a part of what is happening right now), however, along with his continued claims that the 2020 election was stolen and therefore election “reform” is necessary, I do not think that those of us that care, about our freedoms, our rights and our fellow human beings, are going to like it.
It’s Starting
Posted: June 10, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Donald Trump, Immigration, Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), Insurrection, Insurrection Act of 1807, Kent State University Massacre, Los Angeles Protests, los-angeles, Posse Comitatus Act, United States Constitution Leave a comment“I tasted a little tear gas — tasted like fascism.”
An unidentified protester in Los Angeles in a street interview on CBS on 8 June 2025.
Starting last Friday, protests in Los Angeles have continued in response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions to apprehend undocumented immigrants. The protests started small, but have grown in reaction to the federal government’s response to the unrest. It seems that Trump (aka TACO — Trump Always Chickens Out, a name given to him in an article about tariffs in the Financial Times) seized upon this development to embrace his attempts to try and show how tough he is. His poll numbers and national support are dropping sharply in all areas except immigration. Therefore, he wants to make immigration his central focus in order to drown out all the criticism of all of the other parts of his agenda that are failing.
While it is true that playing to his base is one of his main motivators, it is not all that he is doing, nor is it the most important. We as a nation are on the brink of losing our democracy to an autocratic regime that has no patience for criticism and is willing to take extreme measures to achieve their goals.
It is extremely ironic, not to mention hypocritical, that a man that is a convicted felon, adjudicated sexual offender and well known draft dodger (“bone spurs”) who pardoned over 1500 people that brutally attacked law enforcement officers in an insurrection designed to keep him in power after he lost an election, is now screaming about law and order and pushing for the harshest punishments for anyone that even bumps into a law enforcement official. The leaders of the Trump regime are immune to feelings of hypocrisy and shame.
Let there be no doubt. Violence, looting, destruction of property are all crimes and people should be held accountable for any form of criminal activity, whatever “heroic” actions they may think that they are taking. However, the vast majority of the protesters are acting peacefully, if forcefully, to express their dissatisfaction and fears for their safety and the safety of their family, friends and neighbors. California is the fifth largest economy in the world — all by itself. Los Angeles is the biggest city in the state. It has a diverse, well integrated economy that relies on immigrants in every aspect of social and economic activity. It is a majority-minority city — meaning white people comprise less than half of the population. Estimates put the number of undocumented immigrants in the greater Los Angeles area as being about a million people. ICE and other Trump regime members claim that they are only going after hardened criminals. Yet another lie. Finding and arresting hardened criminals is difficult, time consuming and expensive. When Trump’s deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller (a white nativist) tells the ICE and other federal law enforcement officials that they must arrest 3,000 people a day or else they are fired (the bottom ten percent of field offices each month), those officials are going to go for the easy pickings. Day workers outside of Home Depot. Construction sites. People coming in for their immigration hearings or other appointments in accordance with our laws and their asylum or citizenship requests. As I and many others pointed out before Trump took office, many people now in the administration were saying that anyone that is here illegally is breaking the law and therefore is a criminal. We should not be surprised. They told us what they were going to do but no one believed them. That is what is happening in Los Angeles. ICE raided the parking lot of a Home Depot scooping up day workers and then raided the garment district. That is how the protests started.
According to NBC news, and other sources, Mr. Miller already directed 5,000 federal law enforcement officers to augment ICE and other Department of Homeland Security (DHS) efforts to round up immigrants. This includes FBI agents, Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agents, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) personnel, U.S. Marshalls and many other agencies. First, none of those officers have been trained to apprehend immigrants. Second, their reassignment creates huge gaps in our ability to conduct anti-gang investigations, break up drug cartels, provide counter-intelligence and generally keep our country safe and secure. Instead we are arresting moms and high school kids and other long term, law abiding, tax paying members of our society. Their only focus is on immigration and looking “tough.”
Which brings us back to what I am afraid is really going on. The protests in Los Angeles and the sporadic violence that broke out was ably and effectively controlled and monitored by the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office. They are trained, equipped and expert in handling protests bigger than what was happening in the beginning. They did not need outside help, and if they did, there were thousands of other area law enforcement officers available to help them under mutual aid agreements that most counties and cities have with jurisdictions in their areas.
Instead, the president mobilized two thousand National Guard troops. The desired result was achieved. Instead of calming things down — which any right minded leader would have as their objective — it exacerbated the situation and tensions increased. In my view, Trump was hoping for exactly what happened. Things got worse. When they got worse, his lackey in the Pentagon decided to send in a battalion from the U.S. Marine Corps base in Twenty-nine Palms California (about 700 Marines). Why do that? First, local law enforcement officials said that they could handle it. Second, 2,000 National Guard troops were there. Third, the California National Guard has about 18,000 members. If those on the ground needed help why not mobilize more National Guard personnel? He did it for many reasons — political, precedent, court tests and because Trump thinks that the U.S. military is his personal armed force. (He loves to play with “his” toys. There is a massive display of military power on tap for Saturday 14 June. It is the Army’s 250th birthday (happy birthday soldier!) and coincidentally Trumps 79th birthday. Washington DC is already closing down and Reagan National Airport will be closed during the parade. Totally disruptive. I will only note that the Navy (October) and Marine Corps (November) are also celebrating their 250th birthdays this year. No parades are scheduled.)
Here is why I think Trump and his henchmen and women are purposely escalating this situation. It is a dress rehearsal for bigger and better (in their minds) use of the military under the Insurrection Act of 1807, essentially martial law. Immigration enforcement is a political winner for this administration. It is also a fig leaf for trampling on the Constitution. It is no coincidence that Trump’s foray into this test case took place in California, a deeply blue state with a powerful governor that Trump happens to hate. If he can get away with it there, then he can go after other blue states that anger him (watch out Maine.)
California Governor Gavin Newsom did not request that the National Guard be activated and sent to Los Angeles. The president did so on his own, the first time since 1965 that a president has done so. (In that instance President Lyndon Baines Johnson activated the Alabama Guard to protect peaceful civil rights protesters being harassed and beaten by Alabama law enforcement officers. What a turn around today.) Of course in those 60 years the National Guard has been called out in a variety of circumstances, but always only upon request from the state’s governor.
I am not a Constitutional expert nor any kind of attorney, so I will not get into all of the U.S. codes covering the use of the military domestically. In brief, it is legal for the president to call up the National Guard and to deploy the Marines. However, under the law, they are only to be used for force protection (guarding buildings and the like) and support services (logistics, communications, transportation, and so on). Under a U.S. law known as the Posse Comitatus Act, federal military personnel cannot be used for civilian law enforcement purposes. (Ironically, if the governor had mobilized the Guard, they could be used in that way, but since now that they are federal military forces, they cannot.) I will vouch for the fact that the Marines being sent in have had absolutely no training in crowd dispersal, riot control or any other element of dealing with protesters, unless one or two were previously law enforcement officials. Probably the first time they had ever held a baton and shield in crowd control formation like the pictures show, was yesterday. What could go wrong? This is not the Marine’s mission. They are only there to show how “tough” the Trump regime can be. Some might say cruel, but then we know that when it comes to this administration, fear and cruelty is the point. One prays that an anxious young Marine or excited young protester doesn’t do anything stupid. It could all go down hill fast. Some of us remember what happened at Kent State University in Ohio when National Guard troops opened fire on unarmed war protesters in 1970.
Language is important, precision is important, especially when it comes to the law. Trump and his cohorts are aggressively using the word “insurrection” in their barrage of comments about the evil people of Los Angeles. They are not insurrectionists, of course. No one is trying to overthrow the government. However, there are several reasons for that. One, perhaps the least important, is an attempt to change the narrative and re-write history concerning the attack on the Capitol building on 6 January 2021. Those were insurrectionists, but Trump and the MAGA crowd want you to think otherwise which is why they continue to call them “patriots” — as if Trump even knows what that word means.
Second, the provisions of the Posse Comitatus Act allow for the military to be used in law enforcement under the provisions of the Insurrection Act of 1807. Remember that Trump wanted to invoke that law during the protests following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. He wanted to direct the military to shoot protesters in the legs. The then Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (CJCS) refused to implement his requests and true to his TACO form, he backed down. Thankfully. Who is there now telling him that what he has in mind is wrong? No one. SECDEF Pete (DUI Hire) Hegseth certainly will not. DHS Secretary Kristi (ICE Barbie) Noem certainly will not. Attorney General Pam (Police State Barbie) Bondi certainly will not. I don’t know about the current CJCS but I am worried that we have heard nothing from any source as to any mitigating recommendations senior uniformed officials are making. Crickets so far. Trump’s senior civilian officials seem to be competing amongst themselves to see who can impress the boss the most with their cruel and demeaning behavior.
Immigration is a legitimate issue. The system has been broken for a long time. In 2024 there was a legitimate bi-partisan effort in Congress to try and untangle the mess in a fair, but practical way. Trump killed it during his campaign because he thought that it was his best issue to win re-election. It appears he was right. Now he can use it as a handy tool anytime anything else goes wrong in his administration. Think of all the things that he was going to change/solve/fix in his first 24 hours/month/100 days. None of them happened. But with actions such as he is taking in California, and pretty much around the country, he can say he is doing what the electorate wanted by cracking down on undocumented immigrants. He has a winning political issue and the enablers in his administration, the Project 2025 crowd, have a willing enforcer to Make America White Again.
Only about ten percent of his term has gone by. Stand by for what is coming. This is just the start.
Corruption Reigns Supreme
Posted: May 22, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Air Force One, Corruption, Donald Trump, Emoluments Act, ODNI, Politics, Qatar, Trump, United States Constitution, US Intelligence Community 1 CommentAs Trump continues to consolidate his reign as king, corruption in every sense of the word is spreading through his administration and it is damaging our country and making us less safe.
The examples are numerous, but this example explains what I mean by making us less safe. Last week, two of the most experienced and knowledgeable people in the intelligence community were fired by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard. Her actions explain both why we are less safe and why she got the job despite being woefully unqualified for the position. The combined U.S. intelligence community (IC) consists of eighteen agencies and organizations across the government (FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, etc.) that support their individual communities but also provide collection and analysis that is aggregated into national assessments that inform the president and other top officials in making their decisions. In February, the IC produced an assessment concluding that the government of Venezuela was not controlling the gang known as Tren de Arugua (TdA) to attack the United States with an “invasion” of gang members to destroy our country. Remember that the Trump administration based their rendition of individuals to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador on the Alien Enemies Act of 1789, a war time provision used only three times in our history. The claimed invasion by Venezuela through TdA is the legal basis for the administration’s actions. No invasion, no legal basis. Top officials in the ODNI were directed to redo the assessment to support Trump’s unfounded claims. The IC took another look and provided more information, but repeated their conclusion that TdA was not invading the U.S. at the direction of the Venezuelan government. The top two officials responsible for the final product were fired because they would not cook the books to make Trump look good. This is not just bordering on dangerous, it is a huge klaxon horn of an alarm that no one is safe. How can we expect our security agencies to protect us if the senior officials in our government will only accept assessments and recommendations that fit their preconceived outcomes? Just like the witch in The Wiz proclaims, the directive from above is “don’t you bring me no bad news!” If you do, you are fired. Scores of senior, experienced people through out our national security community are resigning or being fired because they refuse to lie.
The president’s financial corruption is staggering. The Trump family is estimated to have received close to three billion dollars since taking office. I have written in this space before about their crypto coins and meme coins which bring them millions in “handling costs” whether the coins go up or down in value. The peak (depth?) of the corruption knows no bounds. Tonight, the top 220 investors in Trump’s meme coin ($TRUMP coins to be exact) will dine with the president at his club in northern Virginia. They bought about $148 million worth of coins in the contest and over half of the purchasers are from outside the United States. The top 25 “investors” spent about $111 million and will receive a special VIP reception with Trump and each will get a Trump Tourbillon priced at $100,000. The top donor is the China born Justin Sun who spent $18.5 million. He was seen in the Executive Office Building next to the White House today. Oh, yeah. He is also the top investor in the Trump family’s crypto platform World Liberty Financial. Coincidentally, the Security and Exchange Commission paused its investigation into Mr. Sun’s fraud case and is expected to drop it entirely. Just another day in the life of a mob boss.
One more example, if I may, of the extraordinary grift underway by Trump. (One wonders how he has time to run the government and protect our nation since he spends so much time lining his pockets. Oh. Wait. He puts his financial interests ahead of national security. If you doubt it, take a look at his recent trip to the Middle East. Coincidentally, his sons were recently there making billions of dollars in family “deals” — not national deals — with each of the countries that Trump visited.)
By now you no doubt have heard about the Qatar government’s “gift” to Trump of a luxurious 747 airliner to use as Air Force One. (Technically, any airplane of any make or size is Air Force One if the president is on board. It is a call sign used for communicating with air controllers. The Marine helicopter used by the president has a call sign of Marine One.) The New York Times reports that originally, the Qataris were going to sell it to the United States. They had been trying since 2020 to get rid of it because of its cost and limited utility to the Emir. The Air Force has two Boeing 747s on order to replace the existing presidential aircraft. However, they are way behind in the production schedule and may not be available until 2028 when, supposedly, Trump will leave office. He wants something now to keep him ensconced in luxury like an Emir or king — a level he fully expects to receive. (” We’re the United States of America. I believe we should have the most impressive plane.”) The plane was flown to Florida in February and when Trump toured it, he was immediately and fully all in to have it. How it became a $400 million “gift” is unclear. But this week, the Air Force took possession (it has been in San Antonio for weeks already) on behalf of the “American people.” Right. Especially since Trump claims it will go to his presidential library when he leaves office. There are many safety and security issues to be resolved before it can be used. Some experts think it may take years and close to a billion dollars to get it ready — essentially dismantling the aircraft and rebuilding it to military specifications. If nothing else, one must assume that it is riddled with listening and other intelligence collection devices installed by the Qataris and/or other intelligence agencies. Unless, of course, the commander-in-chief over rides the national security and safety experts and uses it regardless of any concerns. As is clear, national security is the least of his worries as long as he is getting rich and being treated like a king. The Constitution? What about it? Just because Article I, section 9 of the Constitution says “No title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State” doesn’t mean it applies to Trump. Besides, the Attorney General of the United States said it was legal. She should know because her lobbying firm earned $115,000 a month from the Qatari government.
There is more, but you get the drift, or should I say, grift. Trump thinks he is a king, wants to act like a king, and thinks he should be treated like a king. Personal financial gain outweighs any concern for national security. Congress is a natural barrier to our president taking on the trappings of a monarch but the MAGA faithful fall into line when ordered. Look no further than the House of Representatives passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” Yes. That is the actual name of the bill. In sum, it is loaded with off the wall provisions and paves the way to rob the poor (cutting Medicaid and SNAP — food stamps) to pay the rich (more tax breaks for the top individuals and corporations). If you don’t think that it is loaded with disturbing provisions, then why were hearings literally held at one in the morning and the final vote was conducted over night? Sure must be proud of it.
“Corruption is paid by the poor.” — Pope Francis (2014)
No One Is Safe
Posted: April 15, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: CETCO, Corruption, Deportation, Donald Trump, Due Process, Fourteenth Amendment, Immigrants, Immigration, Supreme Court, Trade War, Trump, United States Constitution 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.
“Slip Sliding Away”
Posted: April 4, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: DOGE, Donald Trump, Due Process, Elon Musk, Greenland, Project 2025, Tariffs, Taxes, Trump, United States Constitution, William McKinley Leave a comment“We won with the poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”
— Donald J. Trump in a victory speech after the Nevada caucus in 2016
While I, and many others, warned of the likely devastation that a second Trump administration would bring, I, at least, while not surprised at what is happening, am shocked at the depth and breadth of his total frontal assault on our democracy. He told us what he would do, but I was not sure that he would be able to pull it off, especially in such a short time frame. Of course, shortsightedly on my part, I did not foresee a complete capitulation from the Congress, giving Trump full leeway to do whatever he pleased.
Only the judicial system has resisted his most unconstitutional moves and we have yet to see how that plays out. Early indications are that the Trump administration expects that the Supreme Court will totally, or mostly, rule in his favor citing the power of the Executive in ways that such power has never been defined in our history. Should the Supreme Court not support the president as being able to do whatever he feels like doing, I fully expect him and his administration to ignore the ruling. We already see that in the way that they ignore and disparage federal judges everyday and claim that a single judge cannot overrule the president, especially when the president is acting in the role of commander-in-chief. As a result, Trump and others in his administration call judges that rule against him, “radical leftists” and that they are issuing “unlawful” orders and that they have “no authority” to block the executive branch. As a result, Trump and many others have called for the impeachment of many of those that have ruled in favor of the Constitution rather than in favor of Trump. As we all know, the federal judges thus far have been issuing temporary restraining orders in order to further understand the government’s case and to have a full hearing, where, you know, actual facts can be presented. If the government does not like the decision, there is recourse to an appeal.
It is worth reminding everyone, because apparently we have collectively had the wool pulled over our eyes, that Executive Orders are not laws. They do not have the force of law unless we react to them as if they are. They are policies. Policies can be over ridden in Congress or deemed unconstitutional by the courts or changed or cancelled with the stroke of a pen. Additionally, an unelected South African co-president has no power under the Constitution.
All of this is emblematic of a plan I did not fully appreciate. When Trump and his Project 2025 acolytes talked about removing the “deep state” I knew what they were talking about but did not appreciate the full extent of what that meant — even though they told us straight out what that meant.
It was not just weeding out allegedly unproductive federal workers or political appointees that tempered Trump’s most weird policies, it meant getting rid of the entire bureaucracy and replacing it with a small cadre of loyalists. Period.
It also meant that “deep state” really meant what they call “elite.” The Project 2025 zealots are using Trump to reshape America. In their view, everyone in a position of power or influence in the fall of 2024 (and for decades before that) were members of the deep state. Universities, cultural institutions, museums, entertainment companies, television programs, public schools, law firms, military organizations, and on and on have all been instruments of the so called radical left. They all must be destroyed and then reimagined to match the Project 2025 vision and become subservient to the all powerful executive. I knew it intellectually, they told us over and over they were going to do it and Trump campaigned on it, but I don’t think I internalized it. In their minds, those around Trump are literally on a mission from God. (We can discuss whether Trump is using them, or they are using Trump. He has no ideological underpinnings. His goals as president are uninhibited power, money and retribution.)
They have attacked nearly every corner of our society and now it is the economy. They want to party like it’s 1897. (Trump has become enamored of our 25th president William McKinley. I am not sure he knows that President McKinley was assassinated in 1901 in Buffalo NY.) He said as much in the Rose Garden when he announced the tariffs aimed at destroying the world order that served us so well for the last eight decades. He clearly has no understanding of history as he claims tariffs made the U.S. prosperous (the Gilded Age — he calls it the Golden Age) and that income taxes implemented in 1913 ruined the country. We can see where this is going. The Robber Barons of his “Golden Age” were the rich, powerful white men that ran the country and became fabulously wealthy on the backs of the working class (much of America). Think the cottages of Newport RI. So, following his logic, he and today’s robber barons (the billionaires with which he has surrounded himself) should run the country. Taxes equal socialism. It is taking money from the rich (billionaires) and giving it to the poor (in the form of roads, public schools, food banks, health care, social security, regulating pollution, and so on.)
Thus, his stated plan to eliminate or reduce income taxes because tariffs will make up the difference. (The math does not work. The US collects just over 3 trillion dollars a year in taxes. The best, some say wildly optimistic, projection by his administration is that tariffs will bring in about 600 billion dollars a year.) However, if one eliminates aid to the poor people overseas, aid to Americans, and just about every social program that we have come to rely upon as a nation — the DOGE-bros at work — that saves money for the billionaires because taxes won’t be needed anymore. (Salaries to the workers are a very tiny fraction of the overall budget, not enough to meet their goal.)
It also saves money so that tax dollars can go to subsidizing Trump’s weekly golf outings at his own courses. So far he has spent 19 of his 74 days in office golfing (just over 25% of his time as president this term), at a cost of roughly 28 million dollars. So far.
At the end of the 19th century, Trump believes, the US got along quite nicely, thank you, without any entangling trade or security or military alignments. Why do we need them now? Let’s see how many of our friends and allies we can drive away from us. America First! We don’t need allies or trading partners. Of course we should go back to that era where most people had no running water, there was rampant disease, the lack of regulations resulted in the deaths of countless workers on the job, we built the Panama Canal (by God!) at the cost of thousands of lives, and the maximum range of weapons was about three miles. Just like now!
Whether through ignorance or Manifest Destiny, Trump’s fascination with Greenland shows his basic misunderstanding of a lot. Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark. Denmark is in NATO. The US is in NATO. An attack on one is an attack on all. There is a 1951 treaty between Denmark and the US for the defense of Greenland. If he is actually concerned about the vulnerability of Greenland, there are multiple existing ways to improve its defenses. Since he continues to insist that military force is an option, does he really intend to attack a NATO ally which would precipitate the rest of NATO coming to Denmark’s defense? (Putin is so excited at this idea that he can hardly sit still.)
Do you remember Trump’s logic during the pandemic? He wanted to stop all COVID testing because if there were no tests, there would be no COVID. So of course he still has that logic. Fire all the scientists and there is no climate change. Fire all the medical researchers and we do not need vaccines. Fire all the weather prediction folks and there are no more major storms, therefore it is possible to fire the folks at FEMA. Cut scholarships and poor people won’t have to get a higher education. Privatize K-12 schools and only the right people will be able to send their kids to get a good basic education. Want to go to a museum to learn about your heritage? Want to read a book about our black, brown, Asian and women heroes? Why? There is only one America so fire all the “woke” people working at the Smithsonian Institution and only allow Trump approved exhibitions. Subversive plays at the Kennedy Center? Make Trump the Chairman and only allow what he wants to be performed there. Prestigious law firms are defending people or issues you don’t like? Put out an Executive Order that essentially puts them out of business. Want to control the admissions policies at Ivy League Schools? Withhold billions of dollars in grant money, threaten to put them out of business and they will come around. Want to spread fear among the populace? Start abducting legal residents on the street because they co-authored an opinion piece in a college newspaper a year ago and send them to jail without access to an attorney, in defiance of a court order and hold them without due process. Accusations and “trust us” are enough to put anyone in jail without having committed a crime. And so it goes.
All of these things are happening now.
The most disappointing and discouraging thing of all? Prestigious law firms, Ivy League colleges, news organizations, businesses, groups with the fiscal and physical ability to resist these unconstitutional actions of the executive are caving to the Dear Leader. Not just giving in to Trump, but actually paying out millions of dollars in thinly disguised extortion money. Trump has a pretty good mob boss business going while the Project 2025 folks are achieving their goals. A symbiotic relationship between two forces that are destroying our Republic as we have known it for at least the last 80 years and ignoring the principles that have guided us from our earliest days as a nation.
So far, the dark forces are winning. Our democracy is “slip, sliding away.”
(Title from Paul Simon)
Are You an Alien Enemy?
Posted: March 24, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alien Enemies Act, Civics, Constitution, Fifth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, Immigration, Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), Supreme Court, Tren de Aragua, Trump, United States Constitution Leave a commentWithin political circles, in the news and among the talking heads on the television, there are ongoing discussions as to whether the actions of the 47th president will lead to a Constitutional crisis. Are we there yet or not? I believe that we are already there.
In our daily lives it is easy to lose track of all the chaotic actions taken by the president and his DOGE-bros to disrupt and destroy the federal government under the lie that they are eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. Possibly, you have yet to personally feel anything different or to have experienced any changes to your daily life. Therefore, you may ask, why do I really care about any of it? You may even believe that you are apolitical or “tired” of all the discussions and drama and divisiveness so you just tune it out. Good luck. While you were not paying attention, you lost many of the rights we thought were guaranteed to us by our Constitution.
Too dramatic? Let’s take a closer look.
On 14 March 2025 Trump signed an Executive Order claiming to have the right under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (as amended in 1918) to declare that a group of undocumented immigrants from Venezuela are conducting “irregular warfare” against the United States and that they therefore fall under the provisions of the Act because they are perpetrating an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” into the U.S. Specifically, he claims that a Venezuelan based gang known as Tren de Aragua (or TdA) is acting in concert with the government of Venezuela to destabilize the U.S. by using drug trafficking as a “weapon” to attack U.S. citizens.
For context, the provisions of that 18th century law (USC 50 Sections 21-24) have been invoked three times. It was used during the War of 1812, World War I and, perhaps best well-known, for the shameful internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. The law is generally considered to be relevant only in the context of a “declared war” which was used literally in the era in which it was written. The Trump Administration is trying to declare that the other language in the Act applies, specifically that illegal immigrants constitute an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” — although those terms are also used literally to mean large scale armed attacks by foreign forces as in a war or a step towards war. Throughout our history, the Act was understood to be a war time power only, not a hedge to get around the use of regular immigration law. Under the Constitution, only Congress can declare war. However, to provide for emergency responses, a president can declare that an invasion or predatory incursion is underway.
In the public relations realm, the Trump Administration has a powerful story to tell. Let’s face it, no one defends TdA as a bunch of nice fellows. They are murderous drug dealers that have no mercy for anyone from outside of their gang. In a word, they are scum. This provides a means to attack those that criticize Trump’s actions as being outside the law and they continue to attack anyone, including federal judges, that would disallow their use of the Alien Enemies Act to arrest and deport them.
But that is not the issue. And they know it. No one in the U.S. thinks that TdA is a positive force in our lives. Anyone you ask would say that they should be arrested, tried, punished and deported. The courts and the critics of the Administration are not arguing about the nature of TdA. They are arguing that there are already effective laws that deal with criminals like this gang that can be used under the Constitution rather than ignoring the protections we all should have as basic rights. (Curiously, Trump declared last week that he never signed the Executive Order, which itself creates a whole new set of questions.)
What happened on the weekend of 15 March is that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers made 238 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadorans “disappear” into one of the world’s most cruel and dangerous prisons in El Salvador under the alleged provisions of the Alien Enemies Act. To date, our government refuses to release the names of those captured. However, the Hollywood style videos of the deportations and incarcerations have given friends and families of those abducted a chance to identify their loved ones that disappeared without a trace. Most have no criminal record. Some appeared for their regularly scheduled check-in appointments as they awaited an asylum hearing and were arrested and thrown into the Salvadoran jail. Note that the Venezuelans were not deported to their home country but to a jail in El Salvador. Oh, yeah. I forgot to add that the Trump Administration is paying the president of that country 6 million dollars to keep them.
The Constitution protects all people living in the U.S. regardless of their immigration status. Everyone has the right to due process under the law if accused of a crime. Everyone within the U.S. is eligible for a fair and impartial hearing by the government under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments before their life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is taken away from them. The Sixth Amendment provides for legal counsel for anyone accused of a crime. Given the nature of the arrests, it is worth noting that the Fourth Amendment protects all of us against unlawful entry and searches without a warrant or probable cause.
Here is where it gets interesting for you and me and why I think it is important for all of us to pay attention. The Trump Administration attorneys in the Department of Justice argue that under the Alien Enemies Act, the Fourth Amendment does not apply. In other words, if you are in the next group of people that Trump unilaterally declares are enemies of the state, the federal government can break down your door and come charging in without probable cause or a search warrant.
Additionally, in a sworn declaration during a court hearing on the use of the Act, ICE Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Robert Cerna argued that “the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose” and “demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.” He added that “while it is true that many of the TdA members removed under the AEA [Alien Enemies Act] do not have criminal records in the United States, that is because they have only been in the United States for a short period of time. The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they pose a limited threat.”
Many of those arrested and accused of being members of the gang were targeted solely because they had tattoos. One of those individuals, a professional soccer player in Venezuela who had been tortured by the government regime and received permission to enter the U.S. awaiting an asylum hearing had a tattoo. Of his favorite soccer club. Real Madrid.
So, for those keeping score at home, the Trump Administration claims that they can enter your home for any reason without a court order and arrest you, even if you have no criminal record. Because, according to Mr. Cerna, you are even more dangerous because you don’t have a criminal record. And don’t have any strange looking tattoos in Spanish.
We are living in Bizzaro World.
The issue is now in the courts. As expected, Trump and his henchmen and women in the Administration are crying loud and strong that a single federal judge cannot thwart the will of the great and powerful king in the White House. Apparently, they slept through their civics class that discussed the three equal branches of the government under the Constitution. If they do not like what the district court judge did, then appeal it. Instead they are calling for his impeachment. (Which will go nowhere but will provide for a fund raising advertisement for the MAGA crowd.) Eventually, this issue should wend its way to the Supreme Court. In my mind, this is a no brainer in favor of the Constitution as we have understood it for nearly 250 years. However, nothing is “for sure” anymore. After all, the current Supreme Court is the same one that said the president is immune from prosecution for any act taken within his official duties. Maybe they say that the president can use the Alien Enemies Act in whatever way he wants.
Additionally, the Supreme Court is sometimes reluctant to rule on Constitutional issues when it comes to specific duties assigned to other branches of the government. In this case, Congress declares war under the Constitution and the president carries out the duties of Commander-in-Chief.
This will be a real test of our checks and balances of the three equal branches of government which is already under tremendous stress as the Trump administration continues the quest to turn Trump into the autocrat he so craves to be. He has already subdued the Congress that seems now to exist only to rubber stamp whatever Trump wants. MAGA Republicans bend the knee whenever required and the Democrats in Congress seem leaderless and impotent.
The attack on the judiciary is a direct frontal assault. Trump already silenced several major law firms that stood up to him in the past. They caved. Several news organizations caved to Trump’s extortion threats. So far the judicial branch is holding. I am not sure how long they can continue to hold out, especially as they come under increased threats to their well-being as well as threats to their families.
Please pay attention. We are in a Constitutional crisis. Trump and his supporters are about to decide to ignore or defy a judicial order, putting our cherished democratic republic in danger. It can happen here. It is happening here.
This Is Not Normal
Posted: March 13, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Congress, DOGE, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, MAGA Republicans, Oligarchs, Politics, Project 2025, Reductions in Force *RIF), United States Constitution, Vladimir Putin Leave a commentOkay. Time to face up to the facts. We, the citizens of the United States of America are getting screwed. Erstwhile apologists for the 47th president contend that it is “normal” for a new president to bring in his own political appointees to carry out the policies of the new administration. This is true. But let’s not pretend that what is going on in the Trump administration is anywhere close to normal. Besides the fact that many of his cabinet and other Senate approved nominees are unqualified for their jobs, the person making the biggest impact on our government and, indeed, our cherished way of life, is an unelected, unconfirmed South African billionaire that has no idea of how the U.S. government works and has no intention of finding out. Elon Musk and his co-president Trump just do not care about any of it. Under the Trojan horse of eliminating waste, fraud and abuse, they are destroying our federal government resulting in life changing decisions for tens of thousands of Americans and facilitating the possible deaths of tens of thousands more through their drastic cuts to research, science and health programs and the elimination of funding for the basic necessities of life. The secondary and tertiary effects of these decisions include the impact on farmers that had their contracts to supply food programs cut, to the truck drivers and stevedores responsible for getting the supplies to those in need and on and on. The key question is why are they doing this? I’ll get to that below.
With sincere compassion, yesterday Trump opined that he feels “very badly” about those that are losing their jobs, literally overnight, but “many of them don’t work at all. Many of them never showed up to work.” So I guess the lie that the roughly 32,000 federal employees fired (so far) are losers is supposed to make it all okay.
It is hard to define exactly how much alleged waste fraud and abuse has been rescued from government spending so far. Some lies are easy to unravel, others do not make sense but since the data is limited, it is hard to know exactly what is going on. Musk and his DOGE-bros say that they will cut one trillion dollars from the federal budget by the end of the year. The entire federal work force costs about 293 billion dollars or about 4% of the total budget. That includes salaries and benefits. So far DOGE claims to have cut 115 billion dollars. Most experts that are tracking the cuts conclude that is an overestimate by about 80%. For example, they are counting contracts that were already complete or terminated, sometimes as long ago as during the Bush administration, and in one case, they claimed 8 billion dollars in savings until the contractor pointed out that it was really for 8 million. (I’m reminded of Dr, Evil in the Austin Powers movies and the bit about one million vs one billion dollars in ransom. Only this isn’t funny.)
According to the New York Times tracker, so far at least 10,030 people have been fired in agencies scheduled for dismantling, 21,433 probationary employees were let go, along with 428 DEI workers, 33 January 6 coup investigators, 22 government watchdogs (mostly Inspectors General), and 434 other staffers from across the government that came into the crosshairs of Trumpian disdain. Reports claim that the administration wants to eliminate 100,000 employees in the near future. In other words, the chaos we have endured so far is just the beginning.
Maybe the 18 million dollars of taxpayer money Trump spent in his first seven weeks in office to play golf at his own course could have gone to keeping a few park rangers on the job. I do not begrudge presidents having some down time, but really? President Obama often played golf — at the course on Joint Base Andrews just outside of Washington D.C.
All of this is illegal, of course. Not to mention unethical and a direct conflict of interest given Musk’s 38 billion dollars in government contracts (since 2003) and the fact that much of what they are doing is shrouded in secrecy. Under Article I of the Constitution Congress writes the laws that govern our country, including budget authorizations and appropriations. Under Article II, the president executes the duly enacted laws. Mandates from the electorate or not (and in this case not, Trump got less than 50% of the vote not-with-standing his claims), no president can ignore the law and act as his Project 2025 acolytes decree within a “unitary presidency.” To emphasize that point following the attempts by President Richard Nixon to with hold funds for policies with which he disagreed, Congress passed The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 that reiterates Congressional control of government funds. The Act was reinforced in Train v City of New York (1975), a unanimous Supreme Court decision. Indeed, Trump’s first impeachment was based on his impoundment of funds appropriated and authorized to help in the defense of Ukraine.
Today’s Congress, controlled by MAGA Republicans, refuses to exert its authority and instead is letting an unelected billionaire run amok, cutting on a whim whatever he deems “unnecessary,” for fear of the wrath of Trump. They are derelict in their duties and apparently don’t care. In recent meetings between the MAGA Congress and Musk, he told them to call him if they have any questions about what he is doing. He was even so gracious as to give them his phone number. Which, of course, is totally backwards. They should not be asking him to spare their constituents as a favor, they should be delineating what is and what is not acceptable in accordance with already appropriated spending. Congress has conceded their power and responsibilities to one unelected man. The Speaker of the House, second in line to the presidency behind the Vice President wakes up every morning worried that he did not properly respond to something Musk wants. I exaggerate not. This week he is quoted as saying that Musk has the power to “blow the whole thing up” if he doesn’t like or understand a particular action by Congress. As Speaker Johnson explained, “So I spend a lot of time working with all these dials and all these folks, and I just run around all day and make sure everybody’s happy.”
Why are Musk and Trump doing this?
It is hard to know for sure as to what is going on in the scrambled minds of the co-presidents. Their Project 2025 acolytes believe in what they are doing, They are trying to remake the government in their own ideological image of a white Christian nation. I do not think that Trump and Musk care much about that. Their motivation? To me, money.
There are billions and billions of dollars to be had if one has the inside track on government contracts. If the cuts to the Social Security Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs and other agencies and departments make already difficult situations worse, then so much the better. The more dissatisfied the public becomes with these agencies and the more that they are unable to provide the required services, the more the public will clamor for change. And what change would that be, you may ask? Not to make the departments more efficient or productive by upgrading computer systems or hiring more federal workers or even more, supposedly, efficient workers. The answer is to privatize them. Turn them over to the billionaires to run. Turn them into for profit companies that provide the services previously paid for by taxes and instead charge a fee for the service.
Another example is in the dissolution of the Department of Education. Trump and others in his administration continue to extoll the virtues of vouchers for schools. Vouchers mean private schools. Private schools can be for profit schools. There is also the added benefit of being able to decide who does or does not get to go to a particular private school — limited enrollment, you know, to enhance the student-teacher ratio. They can also set their own curriculum, ideological leaning and rules. Taxpayer dollars getting diverted from public schools to private ones, thus over time destroying the public school system? Maybe, But, let the free market reign!
The General Services Administration wants to sell over four hundred properties around the country owned by the federal government, including such buildings as the Justice Department Headquarters, the Social Security Administration Headquarters, and others. Does anyone really think that we do not need centralized offices for administering the government? Of course not. It is a potential scheme. Flood the market with too much real estate, prices drop, billionaires buy up those properties at reduced prices, and then turn around and rent them back to the government at a profit.
All the talk about taking over Greenland, Canada, Ukraine and other seemingly non-sensical ravings? Rare earth minerals and other resources abound. More money! Not for the ordinary Joes, but rather for those billionaires that deserve to reap the benefits because, after all, they are the “Master’s of the Universe” (see the film Bonfires of the Vanities, although in the end it did not work out so well).
Their blueprint may well be the way that the oligarchs took over Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. When the centralized economy crashed, there were willing businessmen that saw an opportunity and took it. Buying up formerly state-controlled industries at dirt cheap prices, they parlayed their gains in an “anything goes” atmosphere during the turmoil following the collapse of the Soviet state. During Boris Yeltsin’s time as the country’s president, in order to keep the government afloat, he turned to the now billionaires profiting from their monopolies. In the course of events, they accumulated massive political power along with their wealth. When Vladimir Putin came to office as Yeltsin’s hand picked successor, he made examples of three of these budding oligarchs, either throwing them in jail or forcing them to leave the country. As a result, the remaining oligarchs got the message. In exchange for their continued wealth, they agreed to support Putin, stay out of politics, and share their wealth with him. If you helped Putin, you became rich. If you opposed him, you were exiled, killed or both.
While the United States is not Russia, this same outline could be the game plan for Trump and his billionaire friends. He helps them get rich as long as they keep him in power and make sure that he gets rich alongside of them. We already see that the Department of Justice is dropping cases against criminals that support Trump while going after businesses and high profile individuals that oppose him. Two months into his term, Trump has already made it quite clear that those that support him will benefit and those that oppose him will suffer. With billions, maybe trillions of dollars afloat throughout the government, privatizing agencies that control that money is a huge opportunity for those that play along.
Am I predicting this? No. Can I see that it is possible? Yes. I take solace in the fact that we are not Russia. The United States has a long tradition that no other country in the world has. I have faith that eventually people will catch on to what is happening and work to stop it. Already there are a multitude of challenges to the Trump/Musk administration in the courts. So far, the challengers are winning and Trump is losing. Unfortunately, the wheels of justice turn slowly. While I think that they have a righteous cause that will eventually prevail, in the meantime countless numbers of our citizens will suffer and some will die because they are unable to access the help that they deserve and that our government promised to give them.
Continue to let your elected officials know that you did not sign up for this. We need to keep shouting our dissatisfaction. The self-anointed Masters of the Universe will not prevail.
The Kremlin Rules!
Posted: March 1, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Diplomacy, Donald Trump, International Relations, Louis XIV, MAGA, Project 2025, putin, Russia, Trump, Ukraine, Ukrainne, United States Constitution, Vladimir Putin Leave a commentYesterday, 28 February 2025, was a day where you, me, historians, diplomats, and anyone else that cares about the role of the United States in international diplomacy will talk about as “before 28 February and after 28 February.” We now know that the convicted felon in the White House who tried to stage a coup to keep himself in power is totally, 100 percent behind Russia’s Vladimir Putin and against our long standing allies around the world. Trump’s and Vance’s ignorant display in the Oval Office yesterday reflected the essence of this administration — embarrassing, repugnant, vengeful, hypocritical, and extremely dangerous.
Trump invited President Zelenskyy of Ukraine to the White House yesterday. Ostensibly, the reason for the meeting was to discuss the possibility of Ukraine giving the U.S. access to the rare earth minerals believed to be in Ukrainian territory. (No one is exactly sure what or where those valuable minerals actually are as there are almost no mines actively recovering them and the existence of such minerals is based on a decades old map done by surveyors from the Soviet Union.) Instead, President Zelenskyy walked into an apparent ambush by Trump and his MAGA henchman J.D. Vance where they berated and harassed Mr. Zelenskyy while spreading lies and disinformation about the actual situation in Ukraine. (If you have not yet seen it, watch it here. The body language is as important as what is actually said. Or read about it here.) Note that J.D. Vance started the harangue. J.D. is usually not allowed to attend such meetings between Trump and foreign dignitaries (Trump doesn’t want to share the spotlight), which further indicates that he was part of some plan along with Trump to stick it to the Ukrainian. To his credit, Mr. Zelenskyy did not take the bait, stayed calm, and did not yell back at Trump. He did, however, resolutely stick to his position and to try and explain the dire situation that he and his nation are in because of Russian aggression. What really seemed to enrage Trump was when Mr. Zelenskyy tried to explain that no deal with Russia was worth anything without concrete security guarantees. Further, he warned Trump that if he made an unsecured deal with Putin, eventually the U.S. would be in danger. Trump tripped off the line and starting ranting about Hunter Biden, the Russia “hoax” that Putin suffered through, and countless other grievances that had nothing to do with the alleged negotiations at hand. In the end, Trump sounded exactly like a mafia Don threatening retribution on a business that refused to give him a cut. The point was to bully Mr. Zelenskyy in a dual attack in order to get him to concede to a deal to stop the war that would be exclusively favorable to Russia. Mr. Zelenskyy refused. The meeting ended with Trump ordering the press out of the office and saying, “This is going to be great television.”
What does this attack on Mr. Zelenskyy mean? Why would Trump take Russia’s side in the dispute since they are the clear aggressor and the war could end in one day by withdrawing the Russian and North Korean troops? Let’s take a look.
There is a difference between what things are and what things mean. This was a crude and very undiplomatic shouting match aimed at bullying one of our allies in front of the cameras. What it means is that the U.S. is no longer a reliable partner to our NATO allies and our friends around the world. It means that Trump supports the dictator Putin over the leader of a democracy suffering at the hands of an unprovoked aggressor. It means that Trump and Putin will probably work out some kind of “peace” deal without Ukraine having a say. It means that Russia will be encouraged to continue its quest to reestablish the Russian empire. It means that the U.S. is meaningfully less secure.
This is the biggest diplomatic change since the arrival of the United States on the world stage at the start of the Twentieth Century. We are now aligned with Russia who is aligned with China, Iran and North Korea. Countless leaders throughout the free world from Belgium to New Zealand lined up in support of Mr. Zelenskyy and his stance to defend Ukraine.
Where was Secretary of State Marco Rubio, known as an avid anti-Russian hawk? Slumped in a chair next to Vance looking very much like he wished he could disappear. Where was National Security Adviser Mike Waltz who as a Congressman was another anti-Russia, pro-Ukraine supporter? Missing in action. After the dust settled many, many of the MAGA crowd (there are no longer members of the Republican Party in Congress) chose to blame the melt down on Mr. Zelenskyy. They focused on the fact that he did not a wear a suit and tie (he goes everywhere in modified military gear to remind everyone his country is at war) and therefore he was disrespectful and argumentative. (Musk wore a ball cap and t-shirt to a Cabinet meeting in the White House earlier this week, but apparently he can do whatever he wants to do.)
Mr. Rubio and Mr. Waltz should resign. It is clear that they have no influence over Trump or American policy. But of course, they will not. They have been totally coopted. American foreign policy is no longer based on American values and strength. It is now based on the ignorant whims of one man who thinks he is a world player. Instead, he is getting played.
Why is Trump trying to destroy our role in the world by aligning with Putin? I have given this a lot of thought. Trump’s apologists come up with a myriad of reasons as to why he disparages our closest allies and cheers our enemies. He is a businessman. He knows the art of the deal. He is trying to get the EU to step up. It is part of “America First.” Blah, blah blah.
Of course, I am not on the inside so I do not know what takes place behind closed doors but here is what I think. There are only two conceivable scenarios at this point as to why Trump is turning our country over to Putin. The first is that he is actually an agent for Putin. He is trying to destroy our country from within (via Musk and his DOGE bros running amok) and without (throwing our allies under the bus). The Russians cannot believe their great fortune in his returning to the presidency. They are getting a great return on their investment. Can I prove this? Of course not. But there have been rumors since the 1980s that Trump was compromised and groomed to at least be sympathetic to Russia. Given his intellectual and psychological vulnerabilities, and his weakness for flattery, this is not too far fetched. Several uncorroborated reports have had at least four separate former KGB agents at different times reveal that there was a KGB operation, run by the then Czechoslovakian intelligence service, to groom him as a Russian supporter. It is known that many of his real estate deals were with Russian oligarchs buying properties at inflated prices. His first campaign manager Paul Manafort had known ties to Russian oligarchs and intelligence agents. All that said, this to me is the least likely of the options.
It is more likely that he has some simplistic medieval grand view where rich and powerful kings rule the world and their subjects show absolute fealty to him and carry out his every whim. He needs only confer with his fellow “kings” in Russia and China to decide how they will divide the world. Thus we do not need a federal civil service, the king and his lords will run the country. He does not need allies because he consorts with his fellow kings. Rich and powerful men know what is best. What is good for the king is good for the state. “L’etat, c’est moi” — “I am the state” — as King Louis XIV of France is said to have told the French parliament in 1655. In other words, he is an absolute monarch with complete power and not subject to Constitutional limitations. While some of you may think that I am stretching the analogy, and I doubt that Trump knows who Louis XIV was and wouldn’t care anyway, he is approaching his presidency as if he is the absolute ruler. As the absolute ruler he only needs to confer with other absolute rulers.
Whether or not he succeeds with this approach to governing, we will find out. What I am arguing is that this is his mind set and thus he acts in the ways that he does. As I have written in this space countless times, autocrats always tell you what they are going to do. They don’t always succeed, but they are going to try. Trump is telling us exactly what he wants to do and unlike in his first term, he has people around him that are willing to do it.
This is dangerous for many reasons, of course. In this particular case, and what President Zelenskyy was trying to tell Trump, is that he can not trust Putin. Once America repudiates our allies and removes itself from participation with our allies in NATO and elsewhere, Putin and Xi Jinping of China will work together to bring us to our knees. This is one of the things that infuriated Trump during the meeting. Mr. Zelenskyy told Trump that the U.S now “has a nice ocean” to protect us against Russia so we don’t “feel” Russian pressure or threats, but that “you will feel it in the future.” Trump exploded and said “don’t tell us what we’re going to feel.” Completely missing the point, but then he is not that sharp and he is intellectually uncurious. Flattery gets you everything with Trump. He is an easy mark for Putin and Xi who have been in this game for a long time.
The idea of the world being divided into “kingdoms” fits nicely with the Project 2025 playbook being implemented throughout the government as I write. Trump’s world view, Musk’s world view and that of the Project 2025 folks is that rich, powerful men became that way — became “kings” of their domains — because they are smarter and more ruthless and more capable than the rest of us. Therefore it is only logical that they should be in charge. This view is manifesting itself in the foreign policy arena with Ukraine as the example. Ukraine is relatively weak, especially compared to Russia, therefore they should submit and give Russia whatever they want in order to bring “peace” and “save lives.” Of course the Butcher of Bucha will only torture, rape and murder the good citizens of Ukraine should Putin take over.
Remember the day that it all changed. Even if Trump’s plans are thwarted, it will take a generation of hard work before our allies will ever trust us again.
Tom
Into The Fray 
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