Tonight’s news dump felt different to me, as if Trump has realized that he is in trouble in the upcoming election, and rather than trying to court the independent voters he needs to win reelection honestly, is focusing instead on doing all he can to protect himself from indictments and to charge up his base.
"You have been identified as a valued member of the community who may have interest in participating in the inaugural class of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Chicago Citizens Academy,” read a letter from ICE Chicago Field Office Director Robert Guadian.
At last, the rollout of a government sponsored program designed to recruit and cultivate the Trump version of the Sturmabteilung, (Nazi Brown Shirts). I knew in my gut, from the very beginning, that this would happen, and now it has. This is a step into dangerous territory; there are way too many heavily armed, right and ultra-right wing people who will take great pleasure in having a government agency validate their racist behaviors. This is incredibly frightening. And sad.
Thanks, Heather, for your tireless research and writing. I cannot imagine how you keep up with it all!
From a strategic standpoint, I think it's important to view Trump's actions (e.g., ICE's Citizens Academy) not through the lens of consolidating power, but rather in terms of destabilizing our country on Russia's behalf. Because then a whole lot more makes sense -- for example, why promote the spread of COVID-19 as part of a power consolidation play? It's much more easily explained as part of a program to weaken and destabilize the US.
On a separate note, we clearly haven't seen the last of the Boogaloo Boys, III%ers, and their ilk. I suspect they will be out in force on Election Day to intimidate voters, and it's one of many reasons why Trump is opposing mail-in voting -- he can't create the necessary chaos if people aren't forced to go to the polls in person. Again, I see this being as much about destabilization (in the form of disputed elections) as it is about consolidation of power.
Where to start? Nov 9, 2016, when I awoke to discover that this unqualified, disgusting psychotic had actually been elected president by the ignorant bigoted masses of this nation. For every day since then I have watched his rise in popularity among this ignorant, bigoted cult base and saw how Hitler actually took over Germany in the early 20th Century.
Now, it is becoming more dire as I see his original boast that he can "stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody" and not "lose any voters," was actually true. Worse, I see the ABSOLUTE CORRUPTION OF THE POTUS & REPUGNANT PARTY. I daily watch the lackeys with which he has surrounded himself, as dictators are wont to do, destroying the core of this nation’s government functioning. The Attorney General is destroying any oversight of this demagogue and the complicit Repugnant Senate is silently letting it happen. It is like being in a car wreck in progress, where you are powerless to do anything about it and time seems to have slowed so you can see all the rolling & sliding out of control to the end.
Besides experiencing a deadly viral pandemic, which should have been the most calamitous occurrence in my lifetime, I am also experiencing the demise of our nation.
I agree that today’s news feels different - to me it feels scarier, with outright in-our-face disregard for the values and rule of law that so many of us believe in, count on and stand for. Commutation of sentence for a convicted traitor? Citizens encouraged to train to bear arms and turn onto immigrants? Gosh, I’m an immigrant from France, by choice, American for 30 years; to me the smell of civil unrest is getting sharper. The commemoration of the French Revolution is next Tuesday. Let’s not forget that it was followed by years of a period that for good reason is called the Terror. We don’t want *that* history to repeat itself.
Just another day of corruption and cronyism, and sadly because he has been able to reward personal loyalty and install so many of his friends in positions of power, in the years ahead we will be reeling from the damage he has inflicted on this country. This, in addition to all the rollbacks of legislation that protected the environment and our national parks, is an American horror story and a tragedy indeed. So sad.
The most frightening thing about the last four years remains the people who voted for this guy and who continue to fly the Trump/Pence flag. As a liberal living in a predominantly GOP county in SE Ohio, I worry what will happen after T loses in the fall? Where will all of these irrational, trigger-happy nut jobs take out their aggression?
I continue to be stunned by politicizing COVID. With hospitals at capacity no less! Truly stunning. And Desantis refuses to release hospitalizations? That tells us all we need to know. I have no faith in a fair election...anyone else?
Everywhere you look the stories come to the same point: Trump trying ineptly to save his a...! He "saves" brother Stone from his just desserts in a way that ensures he'll still not spill all.....untill someone offers him a lucrative book contract, of course. Barr plays musical chairs with appointments to try to stifle on-going investigations that are getting too close to the Trump-bone...but judicial time is not political time and the dirt will come out in the wash anyway. Ice's Chicago office starts to recruit and train a private army.....who's membership Trump will strictly control....to either forestall electoral defeat by creating vigilante chaos or by generating street resistance to overtly racist immigration control...and which he can link to existing armed, white supremacist or survivalist militia.....but the army is not with him and without that there is no coup!
In some ways the ineptness of his manoeuvres and manipulations, the absence of any vision or strategic sense and the translucence of the intent behind his communicated propaganda and diversions are more shocking than the facts of what he does. He can't even weave his nasty web intelligently, coherently and persistently and can't find competent "helpers" to further his designs and compensate for his inadequacies.
The real problem in all this is that it was obvious before his election and known to all and sundry....should they care to open their eyes! Do the core voters who Trump is constantly appealing to care for him personaly or will they see him as a failure, stay at home and reserve their ammunition to fight another day.... while McConnell and his ilk try to save the furniture.
At this point there is no pretense of trying to be a president, now he is straight up pandering to his loyal followers baser instincts in a power grab. Chilling. I hope you get a couple quiet news days so you get some down time. Thank you for your dedication and passion.
Biden's adoption of the progressive agenda in a way that can consolidate D's and steal some of dt's populist thunder, is canny and shrewd. But I think it's also important to note that dt and Barr represent a coalition between different kinds of fascist "tendencies." Dt is in it for self-glorification, raw power and darker ideals than we care to dwell on, while Barr is a religious moralist and would-be reformer who believes that all the ills of society derive from secularism; in that sense he represents is a more sophisticated version of the religious right. Each believes he is using the other as a means to an end. We could do worse than to stress that dt is "godless," and there's plenty of ammunition to support it. Morality is not exactly his strong point
I did not know the difference between commuting a sentence and a pardon. I guess because I don’t need that knowledge in my everyday walk about life. Wow!
ICE has followed children home from school to find immigrants around Ft. Worth/Dallas area. Guess they need to go full gestapo since kids aren’t in school. Imagine a little child, being followed by someone with a gun to their home any random day. Churches use to hand out cards “What to do when ICE comes to your door.” Many parents shipped away leaving small children abandoned.
Indoctrination. That’s rich! As a teacher that makes me so angry! Believe me the that process doesn’t happen at school! But you can see it where people refuse to wear a mask! I walked out of a garden nursery because no one had on a mask. Enough t-shirts of confederate flags, Christian slogans, and hate slogans to make you puke!
Thank you! For enlightenment and for my rant. I knew it was all going to happen right down to the brown shirts. Just took a little longer than I expected.
Hope you take time to rest! How is your garden? Get outside!!!
Here in South Carolina, where Covid-19 numbers are among the worst in the country, the governor has decided to fight the spread of the virus by ordering bars and restaurants to stop serving alcohol at 11 p.m. nightly.
"You have been identified as a valued member of the community who may have interest in participating in the inaugural class of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Chicago Citizens Academy,” read a letter from ICE Chicago Field Office Director Robert Guadian.
At last, the rollout of a government sponsored program designed to recruit and cultivate the Trump version of the Sturmabteilung, (Nazi Brown Shirts). I knew in my gut, from the very beginning, that this would happen, and now it has. This is a step into dangerous territory; there are way too many heavily armed, right and ultra-right wing people who will take great pleasure in having a government agency validate their racist behaviors. This is incredibly frightening. And sad.
Thanks, Heather, for your tireless research and writing. I cannot imagine how you keep up with it all!
This ICE story scares me. More than the rest of it, if possible.
From a strategic standpoint, I think it's important to view Trump's actions (e.g., ICE's Citizens Academy) not through the lens of consolidating power, but rather in terms of destabilizing our country on Russia's behalf. Because then a whole lot more makes sense -- for example, why promote the spread of COVID-19 as part of a power consolidation play? It's much more easily explained as part of a program to weaken and destabilize the US.
On a separate note, we clearly haven't seen the last of the Boogaloo Boys, III%ers, and their ilk. I suspect they will be out in force on Election Day to intimidate voters, and it's one of many reasons why Trump is opposing mail-in voting -- he can't create the necessary chaos if people aren't forced to go to the polls in person. Again, I see this being as much about destabilization (in the form of disputed elections) as it is about consolidation of power.
Where to start? Nov 9, 2016, when I awoke to discover that this unqualified, disgusting psychotic had actually been elected president by the ignorant bigoted masses of this nation. For every day since then I have watched his rise in popularity among this ignorant, bigoted cult base and saw how Hitler actually took over Germany in the early 20th Century.
Now, it is becoming more dire as I see his original boast that he can "stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody" and not "lose any voters," was actually true. Worse, I see the ABSOLUTE CORRUPTION OF THE POTUS & REPUGNANT PARTY. I daily watch the lackeys with which he has surrounded himself, as dictators are wont to do, destroying the core of this nation’s government functioning. The Attorney General is destroying any oversight of this demagogue and the complicit Repugnant Senate is silently letting it happen. It is like being in a car wreck in progress, where you are powerless to do anything about it and time seems to have slowed so you can see all the rolling & sliding out of control to the end.
Besides experiencing a deadly viral pandemic, which should have been the most calamitous occurrence in my lifetime, I am also experiencing the demise of our nation.
The next time a Republican claims to be "pro life," the appropriate response is to laugh in their face.
I agree that today’s news feels different - to me it feels scarier, with outright in-our-face disregard for the values and rule of law that so many of us believe in, count on and stand for. Commutation of sentence for a convicted traitor? Citizens encouraged to train to bear arms and turn onto immigrants? Gosh, I’m an immigrant from France, by choice, American for 30 years; to me the smell of civil unrest is getting sharper. The commemoration of the French Revolution is next Tuesday. Let’s not forget that it was followed by years of a period that for good reason is called the Terror. We don’t want *that* history to repeat itself.
Just another day of corruption and cronyism, and sadly because he has been able to reward personal loyalty and install so many of his friends in positions of power, in the years ahead we will be reeling from the damage he has inflicted on this country. This, in addition to all the rollbacks of legislation that protected the environment and our national parks, is an American horror story and a tragedy indeed. So sad.
The most frightening thing about the last four years remains the people who voted for this guy and who continue to fly the Trump/Pence flag. As a liberal living in a predominantly GOP county in SE Ohio, I worry what will happen after T loses in the fall? Where will all of these irrational, trigger-happy nut jobs take out their aggression?
Gobsmacked, yet again. You are my light inside the storm. Please get some rest and take care of yourself.
Regarding the ICE training program. Will they be wearing brown shirts?
I continue to be stunned by politicizing COVID. With hospitals at capacity no less! Truly stunning. And Desantis refuses to release hospitalizations? That tells us all we need to know. I have no faith in a fair election...anyone else?
Everywhere you look the stories come to the same point: Trump trying ineptly to save his a...! He "saves" brother Stone from his just desserts in a way that ensures he'll still not spill all.....untill someone offers him a lucrative book contract, of course. Barr plays musical chairs with appointments to try to stifle on-going investigations that are getting too close to the Trump-bone...but judicial time is not political time and the dirt will come out in the wash anyway. Ice's Chicago office starts to recruit and train a private army.....who's membership Trump will strictly control....to either forestall electoral defeat by creating vigilante chaos or by generating street resistance to overtly racist immigration control...and which he can link to existing armed, white supremacist or survivalist militia.....but the army is not with him and without that there is no coup!
In some ways the ineptness of his manoeuvres and manipulations, the absence of any vision or strategic sense and the translucence of the intent behind his communicated propaganda and diversions are more shocking than the facts of what he does. He can't even weave his nasty web intelligently, coherently and persistently and can't find competent "helpers" to further his designs and compensate for his inadequacies.
The real problem in all this is that it was obvious before his election and known to all and sundry....should they care to open their eyes! Do the core voters who Trump is constantly appealing to care for him personaly or will they see him as a failure, stay at home and reserve their ammunition to fight another day.... while McConnell and his ilk try to save the furniture.
At this point there is no pretense of trying to be a president, now he is straight up pandering to his loyal followers baser instincts in a power grab. Chilling. I hope you get a couple quiet news days so you get some down time. Thank you for your dedication and passion.
Biden's adoption of the progressive agenda in a way that can consolidate D's and steal some of dt's populist thunder, is canny and shrewd. But I think it's also important to note that dt and Barr represent a coalition between different kinds of fascist "tendencies." Dt is in it for self-glorification, raw power and darker ideals than we care to dwell on, while Barr is a religious moralist and would-be reformer who believes that all the ills of society derive from secularism; in that sense he represents is a more sophisticated version of the religious right. Each believes he is using the other as a means to an end. We could do worse than to stress that dt is "godless," and there's plenty of ammunition to support it. Morality is not exactly his strong point
I did not know the difference between commuting a sentence and a pardon. I guess because I don’t need that knowledge in my everyday walk about life. Wow!
ICE has followed children home from school to find immigrants around Ft. Worth/Dallas area. Guess they need to go full gestapo since kids aren’t in school. Imagine a little child, being followed by someone with a gun to their home any random day. Churches use to hand out cards “What to do when ICE comes to your door.” Many parents shipped away leaving small children abandoned.
Indoctrination. That’s rich! As a teacher that makes me so angry! Believe me the that process doesn’t happen at school! But you can see it where people refuse to wear a mask! I walked out of a garden nursery because no one had on a mask. Enough t-shirts of confederate flags, Christian slogans, and hate slogans to make you puke!
Thank you! For enlightenment and for my rant. I knew it was all going to happen right down to the brown shirts. Just took a little longer than I expected.
Hope you take time to rest! How is your garden? Get outside!!!
Here in South Carolina, where Covid-19 numbers are among the worst in the country, the governor has decided to fight the spread of the virus by ordering bars and restaurants to stop serving alcohol at 11 p.m. nightly.