Noem's "Liberate from socialism" is a threat agains anyone who favors the the New Deal goals and programs that have been enacted over decades: Social Security, labor laws, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare. A strong majority of Americans have supported these programs across nearly 9 decades (Social Security turns 90, August 14, 2025)..
Birchers, Goldwater, and Reagan all saw a modern social welfare state as a socialist enemy. None of them resorted to violating the Constitution or militarized force to attack it as Trump has.
Americans need to realize that this is the big domestic question: New Deal or the 1900s Gilded Age, that Trump and many GOPers have long wanted to return to.
According to guys like Trump, my people, i.e. OSHA, were like the Gestapo. He was the poster boy for "employer sanctions" for hiring illegals to work on his job sites. Had to pay fines and make restitution. As a result, he uses temporary foreign workers on his properties to displace Americans.
For some, raids like these have been ongoing since the Clinton administration.
From my perspective, had they wanted to cut off illegal employment, they'd attack employers who hire "under the tabe," paying substandard wages, avoiding liability for workers' compensation, IRS and SS taxes, etc. Ironically the center of the universe for employers breaking immigration laws are places like Home Depot parking lots.....
Here in Baghdad By the Sea, Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader from Miami who Trump pardoned for his participation in the Jan. 6 attack, wants citizens to take deporting undocumented immigrants into their own hands. Literally, he has an app for that. Tarrio has announced he will be the “czar” of an independent organization that pays people cryptocurrency for reporting undocumented migrants.
This is what incenses me. There is virtually no outrage, no coverage of the federal thugs, that are arresting people, and I don't mean just ICE, I mean HSI, FBI, ATF,probably even the US Marshalls.
These men are thugs, this is the Trumpian Brown Shirts, only difference is that they aren't wearing brown shirts, but civilian clothing and are on the federal payroll, where as the Sturmabeitlung were volunteers.
When I see these thugs grabbing people, arresting politicians, my pulse races, and sweat breaks out on my brow. I am incensed, yet there is no talk or criticism of these thugs in any media, not even progressive media.
Nuremberg didn't buy the "befehls ist befehls" (orders are orders) defense, neither do I, neither should anyone.
"Congresswoman LaMonica McIver, New Jersey congresswoman, who was previously charged in a complaint, has now been indicted for assaulting a federal officer. There are three counts in the indictment, the first two charging assaults on specific Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) employees who are identified only as victims one and two (“V-1” and “V-2”). The first count involves a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a directorate of ICE that focuses on criminal cases. The victim in the second count is an ICE deportation officer. The third count charges McIver with the same crime involving unspecified ICE agents and officers."
Eventually the prosecutors have to divulge any evidence under their possession that's FAVORABLE to Mc Iver.
Trump, the businessman, knows how to cow the media, threaten the quarterly P&E and stock price.
As regards McIver. I've seen how she was threatening HSI agents, with her back, she had her arms wrapped around Mayor Barracka. Let's see how Bondi can turn a persons back into an act of aggression and a threat to agents.
Considering the 'official version of events that avers Padilla didn't state he was a senator Bondi should have no trouble.
"Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?" (Richard Pryor paraphrasing Chico Marx). My guess is that 40% or more would go with Bondi. Maybe we're already too dumb for democracy but just in case let's gut education.
This is the rule of a tyrant. Despite the evidence, Noem asserts that he didn't identify himself.
Facts are irrelevant to a dictator, the truth is what ever he says it is. Orwell's 1948 for sure.
Unless something drastic and untoward happens, we are truly fucked.
The only reason we aren't feeling the pain, is because the shit hasn't hit the fan, but it will. Meanwhile minority groups like immigrants and transfolk are feeling it, but so what, ain't me they say.
Pastor Niemoller's plaint is relevant, First they came for....
The irony is the make America great again coalition wants to go back to the new deal America. They want America to look like what it did when we had unions and the policies of the new deal that created the middle class. And yet they’re destroying it. Irony upon irony.
Billy, they want to go back further than the new deal, they consider that a communist abomination, they want to go back to the time when America was totally controlled by hetero, white , Christian males,
The tragedy is that most who want this, like the MAGAts, are grand children, great grandchildren of people who were not considered white when they got here.
In WWI people with German names that lived in non German communities changed their names, Weiskessel became White Kettle, Schmidt became Smith.
Even today. In my refrigerator is a bottle of French's Mustard, it is labeled American flavor in a bottle. They had to have the word American in there because congress called French Fries Liberty Fries, and in WWI, Sauerkraut was called Liberty cabbage.
My Irish ancestors were not considered white, and most if not all of them were indentured servants, maybe slaves. (Most Americans that trace heritage back to the 18th and even 19th Century, are either descendants of indentured servants and/or refugees seeking the same thing that modern immigrants seek, a better life.
BTW, as a genetic genealogist, I use to do research, and found in the probate files of Perry Co, Ala for 1860, a tax receipt issued to a Richard Farrar (distant relative) for a white male, between the ages of 21 and 50, it was listed right below a clock.
Back then every thing in the house was taxed. from slaves to fire dogs.
The Repugnican response to the abuse of Sen. Padilla (effectively at their hands) has been exactly what one would expect. That, too, will only serve to encourage even more citizens to participate in tomorrow’s protests.
Lisa Murkowski spoke out after videos circulated Thursday of Senator Alex Padilla being forcibly removed from a news conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in Los Angeles. Called the incident "shocking," "I've seen that one clip. It's horrible. It is shocking at every level. It's not the America I know," she said.
Try to unmask-identify an ice individual. You may just recognize him as a neighbor. Report to a trusted official carefully. We need to gather their info!
Not just ICE Samani, those who molested and tackled Sen Padilla were FBI, those who grabbed him in the meeting were probably secret service. The entire Federal Police Force are now brown shirts/black shirts, they are the enemy. Most of them are in law enforcement because they are bullies, have low self esteem, and being legally authorized to push people around and beat up on them, raises their self esteem and testosterone levels.
Mr. Farrar, when I was teaching Criminology, I complained to the head of the "Criminal Justice" program about how they were giving "Criminal Justice" degrees to county tough guys who were looking for a respectably sanctioned route which would allow them to physically bully people. He told me they were on their guard trying to identify such people and filter them out of the program.
I remember at least one student who was actually a convicted criminal and was filtered out. Another was not eliminated and was subsequently convicted of a felony and did prison time. I do not advocate abolishing such college programs because they are flawed in this regard. I simply want to point out that, allowing armed men to walk among us with the authority of the state behind them, is a double edged sword. Educating police officers is perhaps a good idea. They call you "sir" as they bounce their night stick off your head.
Please believe me when I say; although I know that department head was sincere, he failed. The overwhelming majority of the students were fake tough guys who did indeed end up carrying a badge and a gun. Not all of them, but too many.
Face and voice recognition should spot any. LAPD should have data.
The Ice agents are another matter. Here in Florida, state and local police are voluteering to intern immigrants. Many of the "agents" may be outside contractors. When they commit infractions, there will be internal incident reports and even affifavits and the names can eventually be exposed via litigation discovery.
Media should have some data, but the real protestors should document everything to protect themselves. Peaceful protest is protected by the 1 st Amendment.
The corporate media is owned by investors whose bottom line is benefited by not only Trump,. but by so called "conservatives". Liberals tax and regulate corporations, thus are the enemy of corporations.
Global Warming is putting the whole northern hemisphere at risk, the AMOC is desalinating, the jet stream is disrupted and that pushes blizzards and subzero weather further south an into the mid west. hurricanes are increasing in ferocity and number, thanks to warming oceans, tornadoes are increasing in ferocity and number and appearing much earlier than historically.
The experts agree that the end is nigh, they only argue about the when not if, estimates place it from the 2030's to the 21st Century.
Yet the corporations don't give a shit, they live for the next quarterly P&E.
Perhaps the reason why these billionaires want more and more money, is to finance their palatial underground bunkers, floating cities or subsurface libertarian communes.
And NPR is being diminished from even its mild upholding of truth by withholding of funds. I've noticed recently more 'interviews' of right wing organizational officials - with mild questioning of their views, but nothing that could be called fact checked push back.
I am not surprised, not when you realize that everyone has a price. If a man will crawl into a hole in the ground, to risk death and lung disease for the chance to earn a buck or two, what do you think people will do, to keep or find a job.
My ballpark estimate is that the Republican party is roughly 20% fascist firebrands and 80% quivering masses of jelly. That transmits into 100% unprincipled anarcho-capitalists.
My own take is that all one needs to do is look at the back bone of MAGAts, that portion of the Gen Z, black and Hispanic population that voted for Trump, and the rise in Incels, and scrips for Viagra and Cialis, and you will find a common denominator: male insecurity which manifests as misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and racism.
Ifracism is looked at in terms other than melanin, racism is otherism and has been with us since we beat t the other over the head with the thight bone of a mastadon.
The Rwanda genocide as a racist civil war, between two groups of people whom whites look at and see merely as blacks, but whom the Hutu's and Tutsi's see as different races
Racism is a subset of classism. Bernie knows that, he tried to convey that, but was stifled by the DNC which plays according to the rules laid down by the ruling class, the donor class.
For gods sake don't mention or expose the ruling class.
Yes Mr. Farrar, I have claimed for years that racism is a subset of classism. It is not a claim I will always support because the lines can become blurry. But, I think it is analytically a good model. I have often been viciously ridiculed for this stance by my Liberal friends, both White and Black, who should behave better than that.
I remember a case in the 1960s when I was working in Detroit. A Black man was walking down an alley on the East Side carrying a paper bag. Two White police officers stopped him and demanded he show ID and show them what was in the bag. The man refused, so they arrested him for "resisting arrest" [really!] When they got him to the station the sergeant on duty old them that their "resister" was one of the most prominent professors at the Wayne State University Medical school and the bag contained the candy and ice cream he was taking to his children. That Black victim of police overreach had an advanced education; a BA and MD and he earned an income that placed him in the 95th percentile. Needless to say, those two police officers were pilloried in the press. This is an example of how analytically-blurry the lines can become.
Another example I recall was a party just a little way down the street from my apartment when I was a student at Wayne State Univ. It was common for us students to have parties with both Black and White youths together. Four students were walking away from the party: two Black Men and their dates, two White women. They were walking toward the car belonging to one of those young men. Two White police officers pulled those young men into an alley and beat them with their night sticks and stomped them with their feet as they lay on the concrete, breaking bones. They screamed at the students that this was what will happen to N....s if they date White girls. When the police brought those young men into the 13th precinct station on Woodward Ave. their sergeant discovered that one of those arrested was the son of a Surgeon employed by the Detroit Police Department. The other young man was the son of a local Federal Judge. Both those officers lost their jobs and were sued. This is another case which blurs the analytical model.
We can ask: which is more important in our system of Social Stratification?
Race or Social Class?
In the end, I still go with Social Class. I believe American slavery and its aftermath are consequences of virulent, unrestrained capitalism.
Most Economists would disagree with me and claim that slavery is not a version of capitalism. They would say it is a form of feudalism, transplanted onto American soil by European Feudalist Oligarchs. These economists would say that the American revolution was not really a revolution. It was a civil war between the American colonial settlers and the Feudal oligarchs of the British Empire. Eventually the settlers in the Northern colonies/states clearly developed into industrial capitalists. While the southern colonialist settlers developed into a feudal oligarchy whose wealth and power was based upon ownership of land and human labor.
I am glad that you agree with me, even if no one else does. I can understand the feelings and mentality of a person who has been the victim of discrimination and ostracization, and their natural tendency to be myopic and see that discrimination as THE problem, and the greatest of sins.
And thus demand all of the resources and attention, but it is that myopia on the left that has fractured us, led to extreme demands and resulted in the rise of the right.
You can't legislate and browbeat bias out of a person, all you can do is shove it down, where it burns like a glowing ember, until someone like Trump comes along and fans the flames and tells them that it is OK to say nigger,fag, spic, kike, what have you.
Truly they are literally thanking Trump for being able to express their hatred in public.
Meanwhile those saps are complicit, joyfully, in their own subjugation and misery, but at least they can get their fears and hate off their chest.
"Are there any John McCain Republicans left? Any patriots who revere the Constitution and respect the rule of law? Any who are willing to call out Trump’s brutal dictator-inspired corruption and excesses?"
Where's Don Bacon? Roger Wicker? Where are Mike Turner? Jerry Moran? Mike Bost?
Please get them on the record.
BTW my colleague, Moe Davis has annouced his candidacy for the House from Ashville. https://moedavis.com/
Moe has my vote. Chuck Edwards in his newsletter stated that Albrego Garcia was a terrorist. Tried and convicted without due process of trial, lawyer, etc
Not only should Newsom have Trump arrested and consider how to withhold state funds from the federal government, he should seek a TRO to stop Fox from continuing to lie to the American public. If right wing media continues to control the narrative, there's little can be done. I hope Padilla sues not only Noem but also Fox, and that he and Newsom together get a TRO to stop them from portraying LA as a battleground.
45 years since Reagan launched the war on the middle class. We are here because the GOP ran out of ideas beyond fear of “the other”! The oligarchs, led by the Koch brothers, built the think tanks that finally led to P2025. Tomorrow we must show up in massive numbers to demand that, if there any, Republicans in the House and Senate grow a spine and stop this wannabe dictator!
Re Reagan. He had a different take on migrants. Reagan signed the bills that MAGA complain about. He granted illegals amnesty and set up a path to citizenship for many of them.
Many permanent residents, even from the 80's, have not sought citizenship.
I held DOL hearings re agricultural visas. Many California farmers work through labor pools.
The H-2A visa program, administered by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), allows U.S. employers to bring foreign workers to the United States to fill temporary or seasonal agricultural jobs. These jobs typically last no longer than one year. To use the H-2A program, employers must first obtain a temporary labor certification from the DOL, demonstrating that there are not enough U.S. workers available for the job and that employing H-2A workers will not negatively impact the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.
I once lived in Fresno, the figuarive and literal armpit of California. Largest agricultural area in the world. Many of the workers were Chicanos but many were Asian, from the Middle East and even places like Portugal and Spain. We had a treaty with the Hmong, and brought about 50,000 of them to the San Juaquin Valley. We were the defacto capitol of Armenia.
When I lived in Fresno I wrote policy over citizenship issues, re Mexico. In 1848 we took most of the west via the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo, which gives Mexican citizens rights in the US. Some of the Chicanos, even today, do not know where they were born. Many were children of migrants. Many are 3rd or 4th generation, the same people who were affected by Bracero policy during the Eisenhower administration. If they were born in the US, they are citizens, but have to be able to prove it. If they are illiterate, it's almost impossible.
Libertarians have always been for open borders. Many of the farms are now corporate owned, and if you check their lineage can be traced to Koch and their libertarian allies.
Virtually all the lawyers that represented the labor pools in my cases started as lawyers at DOL, under the tutedge of say, my former boss, Elaine Chao, once Secretary of Labor, wife of Mitch McConnell. Some go back to the Reagan administration.
The accusation was that many of the pools didn't follow the law and the employers didnn't hold them to produce I-8 forms and other authority. We had a category of penaty cases -- I could debar some employers for continuing violations.
It's crazy that Americans who are screwed out of jobs haven't been suing employers who hire aliens under our discrimination statutes and regs. Most lawyers are ignorant that this stujff exits.
I assume that Trump has killed the regulations as DEI.
My wife, was employed as a contract employee for FEMA, after the Loma Prieta quake of 89, her job was to assist local communities in fulfilling the paperwork requirements for the communities to receive FEMA assistance. She was temporarily reassigned to Fresno, and I would drive from Santa Cruz to Fresno on Friday after work, to visit her.
Fresno is the most depressing city in America. Just driving past the city limits sign, one could feel the gloom. Despite the fact that it is majority minority, it is as white bread, bigoted and intolerant as any town in the south or Idaho.
What else to say? It is wrong to use troops. They know that and move to authoritarianism anyway. It will be soon that the tensions on this strap will break and violence will escalate. I am not hopeful that protest peacefulness can be sustained. The authoritarians are stoking the flames to start the fire.
Trump wants violence, riots as an excuse to declare martial law, but absent such he uses his brown shirt thugs to break into cars, drag out people, arrest them on the streets, and put them in concentration camps. In other words he is doing what you fear, without any provactation, and silence equals consent. The longer we stay silent, the more he, Bondi, Noem and Homan will push.
On the other hand peaceful demonstrations have never deposed an authoritarian regime.
The only way to turn things around is
1. Rejection by the world, especially those countries which were our allies. And no chance of that since you have the spectacle of country leaders groveling at Trump's feet.
2. The Trump regime being overthrown from within, by an outraged citizenry, and no chance of that happening.
The Republicans have almost a year and a half, to alter the political and legal landscape and co opt the 2026 election, not to mention the 2028 election, to find a way for Trump to run for president again, or maybe not, just install him as dictator. Will there ever be an honest election again, according to Musk there wasn't in 2024, as he interfered and elected Trump and there is a scandal that not even MSNBC has touched.
The election was stolen, and nothing was done, not even by the feckless Democratic party.
Not buying disappointed-voter laments suggesting an illegal election. I am so disappointed also. But the prognosis is defeatist. Put’em up! Put’em up! June 14th protest tomorrow.
Far right violent extremist groups are using private Telegram channels to share on “anti-Trump protests planned for Saturday, June 14,” and these groups have been “calling for their members to disrupt them.”
The anti-immigrant group Americans for Legal Immigration PAC emailed an map of the anti-Trump protests to supporters, and claimed the grassroots immigrant rights activists intend to "spread the chaos from Los Angeles to other towns to overwhelm US law enforcement and ICE.”
Active Clubs, the network of neo-Nazi White Supremacist fight clubs, reportedly “appear to have recently ramped up their efforts to recruit young men and boys, launching a series of ‘youth clubs’ around the country. The group’s Telegram channels show members have been posting racist propaganda flyers.”
While the FBI claims the agency’s “domestic terrorism investigations continue uninterrupted,” the agency has recently reassigned “some agents focused on domestic terrorism to a new task force set up to investigate the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and its aftermath.”
Jonathan Julio Nique allegedly “accumulated numerous and varied firearms that included homemade guns,” and “spoke about blowing government buildings and a house of worship,” according to charges filed by local prosecutors.
Nick Fuentes, the antisemitic White Nationalist propagandist, said that the “groypers have won,” and that the immigrant rights and anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles have radicalized the right-wing. “I've noticed people like Charlie Kirk and Matt Walsh are now calling for an immigration moratorium. That means they want to shut down all immigration,” Fuentes said.
Before and after I was in Vietnam, 1966-67, I served in the Army of the Occupation of the South. I personally wasn't involved, but a lot of the training of the permanent cadre was crowd control. In '68 after my dischagre from active duty, the reserves were called in to perform same during the riots.
Just how many ways can this Administration show how inept they are? It truly is a new shit-show everyday. Who's your favorite? I think Kristi would win.
We should be grateful? Of course, we should hate that this comes at the expense of good people like Senator Padilla. I hope it raises his profile and his war chest for future elections.
I knew who Senator Padilla is, but then I watch C-Span instead of porn. Maybe Kristi should do a little homework in between killing animals, rounding-up innocent people, and her cosplay hobby. She lied in her book about meeting foreign leaders and lied yesterday after we saw with our own eyes that he LOUDLY identified himself.
Those FBI agents should be ashamed. They could have pulled out their phones and looked him up on USA.gov. Jerks.
Liars always end up believing their own lies and then it becomes difficult to sustain them. Although I must admit they have done a pretty good job with the trickle down theory. 45 years and counting.
Thanks to the Sen Padilla event, thanks to the immigrant round ups, we are now able to see that it isn't just ICE, but the FBI, HSI, ATF, in fact all federal police are thugs.
Can't agree with "all" unless you mean the agencies. The officers and agents are pawns in this sick game but could still be held accountable for their individual actions in some cases. Scary times for them too if they are decent people.
Maybe you object to the idea that all police are culpable, but here is the truth, the only reason bad cops exist is because there are no good cops. If there were good cops, there wouldn't be any bad cops. Silence is consent. silence is complicity.
Those FBI agents and secret service that wrestled Sen Padilla to the ground were obviously enjoying themselves. Same with the ICE,FBI,BATF, DEA and US Marshalls that are assisting in rounding up immigrants.
Take for example a firing squad, how many members do you think fire over the head? How about Lt Calley's platoon, how many members do you think objected.
It took a helicopter pilot, Hugh Thompson, Jr to stop the slaughter.
This wasn't some deliberate action meant to cow the masses. Rather, there was a rote, disinterested, quality to it, another day of dealing with a peasantry beneath contempt. Senator Padilla was "dealt with" with all the emotional, dehumanizing and sociopathic indifference that a mechanic manifests loosening a frozen bolt. This isn't a condemnation of the Puppy Slayer, or of MAGA, or of Trump; this is a condemnation of the dominant culture, one that transcends party lines and points to a ruling class devoid of any real interest in society, one where contemptuousness increases the more onward pushes back on it. Consider: Had the senator's actions been done by a Republican against a Democratic Secretary, would the reaction have been any different?
Oh, and how I wish Los Angeles really was governed by socialists!
Happy Friday the 13th. Whatever possibly could go wrong.
The dog killer is a “Swinish neo-nazi hack,” and the Lump who would be king is just a “White trash dingbat.” The R voters are a “Monument to everything cruel and stupid and corrupt in the human spirit,” and Vance “looks like a potato with mange.”
DeSantis says protesters on roadways can be run over by drivers.
“You have a right to flee for your safety, and so if you drive off and you hit one of these people, that’s their fault for impinging on you,” DeSantis said. “You don’t have to sit there and just be a sitting duck and let the mob grab you out of your car and drag you through the streets.”
Under Florida’s relatively new anti-riot law, he’s not completely wrong, legal experts say.
Mike Tyson once commented that everybody feels tough until they get punched in the face. All of us have witnessed, faced down or been assaulted by a bully, at least once. Most, 95% or more, have some drooling sycophant do the battering for them - as with Padilla. He shook it off, good on him, and am sure this incident will fuel the resistance. To have such a crude caricature as Black Widow Noem talking crap, along with the almost pre-pubescent Leavitt screaming like a troubled teen at journalists, running cover for the obese and garbled TFG is a tragi-comedy all on its own. The entire world is laughing and barfing at the same time. Human brains are hard-wired, just like their wild counterparts and their canine and feline pets, to build a silent line that cannot be crossed when it comes to being punched in the face. Once that line is even tingled, anything goes. As the desperation rises within the flaccid belly of maga, the extreme boomerang reaches toward its apex. There are near 300 million of us who do not share any semblance of values with these pathetic cretins. All around the Earth the crescendo is nearing, on so many fronts, all due to the recalcitrance of humans. The Atlantic Anomaly is growing, the sunspots and CMEs are here, and the phantom of climate catastrophe is washing debris down city streets and burning more forests to the ground, sending miserable smoke for thousands of miles on ill winds. Pay attention to everything around you, and act with conscious need. You can only do what you can do, but do not be shy about doing it, over and over and over. Small, insignificant acts add up very quickly.
The GOP representatives are being paid to get rid of social programs of every kind under the guise of getting the government out of supporting lazy people. This, of course is hogwash. The ultra-rich in fact are paying these so-called representatives of the people to represent only themselves in order to get rid of taxes on high incomes and to reverse the money flow in their direction.
The ultra-rich in fact are paying these so-called representatives of the people to represent the rich in order to get rid of taxes on high incomes and have them instead flow from the poor to the rich as they did all through history until relatively recently, and hiding behind other small groups of radicals and religious fanatics. They refuse to give anyone that may represent a disruption to their cash flow, tax breaks or social programs. They intend to squash the American dream because this dream is for those who represent competition or those who may through their vote have the power to regulate their polluting corporations in anyway.
These wealthy refuse to acknowledge that people cannot live on the substandard wages these corporations largely control. This, we have to remember, ultimately includes not only the working poor, but, now the once healthy middle class who paid most taxes, children, and older America, as well as those with no income from employment or anyone who is not white and subjugated to this billionaire oligarchy—its a very large group.
We are not a country of billionaires and subjects; however, we as a country are obviously way too dependent upon these relatively few individuals who espouse to control what the people have built for 250 years, all of us, not just them.
After 40 years of turning our heads in denial, the srew continues to turn. The FBI physically assaults a Senator in the biggest state in the country, and federal troops are sent in to quell a civic matter comprising one square mile. This is what we, the citizens, have allowed to happen. People may die tomorrow in protest of what they have allowed to happen. The screw will continue to turn in the face of death & protest. Long after I had given up hope that Congress would save us, I had an illusion that the Generals would be our bedrock. They seemed to have taken their oath to the Constitution as more than just words recited. Now that seems to be another faulty judgment on my part. They say that if we can put 12 million people in the streets tomorrow, it will create change. I live in a city of 1 million people; that spells 35,000. The Dallas/Ft Worth metroplex has a population of 8 million plus. That spells 280,000 in the streets. Each citizen has a choice to make tomorrow. It seems like such a small choice, but it will define the American citizen. It will reveal our character.
Noem's "Liberate from socialism" is a threat agains anyone who favors the the New Deal goals and programs that have been enacted over decades: Social Security, labor laws, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare. A strong majority of Americans have supported these programs across nearly 9 decades (Social Security turns 90, August 14, 2025)..
Birchers, Goldwater, and Reagan all saw a modern social welfare state as a socialist enemy. None of them resorted to violating the Constitution or militarized force to attack it as Trump has.
Americans need to realize that this is the big domestic question: New Deal or the 1900s Gilded Age, that Trump and many GOPers have long wanted to return to.
According to guys like Trump, my people, i.e. OSHA, were like the Gestapo. He was the poster boy for "employer sanctions" for hiring illegals to work on his job sites. Had to pay fines and make restitution. As a result, he uses temporary foreign workers on his properties to displace Americans.
For some, raids like these have been ongoing since the Clinton administration.
From my perspective, had they wanted to cut off illegal employment, they'd attack employers who hire "under the tabe," paying substandard wages, avoiding liability for workers' compensation, IRS and SS taxes, etc. Ironically the center of the universe for employers breaking immigration laws are places like Home Depot parking lots.....
Here in Baghdad By the Sea, Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader from Miami who Trump pardoned for his participation in the Jan. 6 attack, wants citizens to take deporting undocumented immigrants into their own hands. Literally, he has an app for that. Tarrio has announced he will be the “czar” of an independent organization that pays people cryptocurrency for reporting undocumented migrants.
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article308487610.html#storylink=cpy
This is what incenses me. There is virtually no outrage, no coverage of the federal thugs, that are arresting people, and I don't mean just ICE, I mean HSI, FBI, ATF,probably even the US Marshalls.
These men are thugs, this is the Trumpian Brown Shirts, only difference is that they aren't wearing brown shirts, but civilian clothing and are on the federal payroll, where as the Sturmabeitlung were volunteers.
When I see these thugs grabbing people, arresting politicians, my pulse races, and sweat breaks out on my brow. I am incensed, yet there is no talk or criticism of these thugs in any media, not even progressive media.
Nuremberg didn't buy the "befehls ist befehls" (orders are orders) defense, neither do I, neither should anyone.
Not the first. Trump has intimidated the media.
Joyce Vance wrote abut the indictment of a Congressperson in ND NJ the other day. https://joycevance.substack.com/p/the-mciver-indictment-explained?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=607357&post_id=165711065&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=zc69i&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
"Congresswoman LaMonica McIver, New Jersey congresswoman, who was previously charged in a complaint, has now been indicted for assaulting a federal officer. There are three counts in the indictment, the first two charging assaults on specific Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) employees who are identified only as victims one and two (“V-1” and “V-2”). The first count involves a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a directorate of ICE that focuses on criminal cases. The victim in the second count is an ICE deportation officer. The third count charges McIver with the same crime involving unspecified ICE agents and officers."
Eventually the prosecutors have to divulge any evidence under their possession that's FAVORABLE to Mc Iver.
Trump, the businessman, knows how to cow the media, threaten the quarterly P&E and stock price.
As regards McIver. I've seen how she was threatening HSI agents, with her back, she had her arms wrapped around Mayor Barracka. Let's see how Bondi can turn a persons back into an act of aggression and a threat to agents.
Considering the 'official version of events that avers Padilla didn't state he was a senator Bondi should have no trouble.
"Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?" (Richard Pryor paraphrasing Chico Marx). My guess is that 40% or more would go with Bondi. Maybe we're already too dumb for democracy but just in case let's gut education.
This is the rule of a tyrant. Despite the evidence, Noem asserts that he didn't identify himself.
Facts are irrelevant to a dictator, the truth is what ever he says it is. Orwell's 1948 for sure.
Unless something drastic and untoward happens, we are truly fucked.
The only reason we aren't feeling the pain, is because the shit hasn't hit the fan, but it will. Meanwhile minority groups like immigrants and transfolk are feeling it, but so what, ain't me they say.
Pastor Niemoller's plaint is relevant, First they came for....
The irony is the make America great again coalition wants to go back to the new deal America. They want America to look like what it did when we had unions and the policies of the new deal that created the middle class. And yet they’re destroying it. Irony upon irony.
Billy, they want to go back further than the new deal, they consider that a communist abomination, they want to go back to the time when America was totally controlled by hetero, white , Christian males,
The tragedy is that most who want this, like the MAGAts, are grand children, great grandchildren of people who were not considered white when they got here.
In WWI people with German names that lived in non German communities changed their names, Weiskessel became White Kettle, Schmidt became Smith.
Even today. In my refrigerator is a bottle of French's Mustard, it is labeled American flavor in a bottle. They had to have the word American in there because congress called French Fries Liberty Fries, and in WWI, Sauerkraut was called Liberty cabbage.
My Irish ancestors were not considered white, and most if not all of them were indentured servants, maybe slaves. (Most Americans that trace heritage back to the 18th and even 19th Century, are either descendants of indentured servants and/or refugees seeking the same thing that modern immigrants seek, a better life.
BTW, as a genetic genealogist, I use to do research, and found in the probate files of Perry Co, Ala for 1860, a tax receipt issued to a Richard Farrar (distant relative) for a white male, between the ages of 21 and 50, it was listed right below a clock.
Back then every thing in the house was taxed. from slaves to fire dogs.
The Repugnican response to the abuse of Sen. Padilla (effectively at their hands) has been exactly what one would expect. That, too, will only serve to encourage even more citizens to participate in tomorrow’s protests.
Lisa Murkowski spoke out after videos circulated Thursday of Senator Alex Padilla being forcibly removed from a news conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in Los Angeles. Called the incident "shocking," "I've seen that one clip. It's horrible. It is shocking at every level. It's not the America I know," she said.
Try to unmask-identify an ice individual. You may just recognize him as a neighbor. Report to a trusted official carefully. We need to gather their info!
Not just ICE Samani, those who molested and tackled Sen Padilla were FBI, those who grabbed him in the meeting were probably secret service. The entire Federal Police Force are now brown shirts/black shirts, they are the enemy. Most of them are in law enforcement because they are bullies, have low self esteem, and being legally authorized to push people around and beat up on them, raises their self esteem and testosterone levels.
Mr. Farrar, when I was teaching Criminology, I complained to the head of the "Criminal Justice" program about how they were giving "Criminal Justice" degrees to county tough guys who were looking for a respectably sanctioned route which would allow them to physically bully people. He told me they were on their guard trying to identify such people and filter them out of the program.
I remember at least one student who was actually a convicted criminal and was filtered out. Another was not eliminated and was subsequently convicted of a felony and did prison time. I do not advocate abolishing such college programs because they are flawed in this regard. I simply want to point out that, allowing armed men to walk among us with the authority of the state behind them, is a double edged sword. Educating police officers is perhaps a good idea. They call you "sir" as they bounce their night stick off your head.
Please believe me when I say; although I know that department head was sincere, he failed. The overwhelming majority of the students were fake tough guys who did indeed end up carrying a badge and a gun. Not all of them, but too many.
The issue is who are committing crimes?
Violence and looting are unwarranted, and may be part of a "dirty tricks" campaign. It's within the realm of possibilities, that some "protestors" are right wing agitators who infiltrated protest groups. https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/110775/documents/HHRG-116-JU00-20200610-SD019.pdf
Face and voice recognition should spot any. LAPD should have data.
The Ice agents are another matter. Here in Florida, state and local police are voluteering to intern immigrants. Many of the "agents" may be outside contractors. When they commit infractions, there will be internal incident reports and even affifavits and the names can eventually be exposed via litigation discovery.
Media should have some data, but the real protestors should document everything to protect themselves. Peaceful protest is protected by the 1 st Amendment.
Glad someone else is saying this. tRump keeps saying they're paid.... the question is by whom.
Exactly. I’ve noticed that the violence-looting mainly occurs in the ‘undercover’ of night.
The exception proves the rule.
IMHO the media hasn't pressed anybody yet. They're all in for Trump.
When I asked my MAGAT senator about Ukraine, he called Trump a liar. The media doesn't report this stuff.
The corporate media is owned by investors whose bottom line is benefited by not only Trump,. but by so called "conservatives". Liberals tax and regulate corporations, thus are the enemy of corporations.
Global Warming is putting the whole northern hemisphere at risk, the AMOC is desalinating, the jet stream is disrupted and that pushes blizzards and subzero weather further south an into the mid west. hurricanes are increasing in ferocity and number, thanks to warming oceans, tornadoes are increasing in ferocity and number and appearing much earlier than historically.
The experts agree that the end is nigh, they only argue about the when not if, estimates place it from the 2030's to the 21st Century.
Yet the corporations don't give a shit, they live for the next quarterly P&E.
Perhaps the reason why these billionaires want more and more money, is to finance their palatial underground bunkers, floating cities or subsurface libertarian communes.
And NPR is being diminished from even its mild upholding of truth by withholding of funds. I've noticed recently more 'interviews' of right wing organizational officials - with mild questioning of their views, but nothing that could be called fact checked push back.
I am not surprised, not when you realize that everyone has a price. If a man will crawl into a hole in the ground, to risk death and lung disease for the chance to earn a buck or two, what do you think people will do, to keep or find a job.
It’d be easier for the media to report that it if he mentioned it to the media.
RICK SCOTT. When I sent the letter, they wouldn't post it.
My ballpark estimate is that the Republican party is roughly 20% fascist firebrands and 80% quivering masses of jelly. That transmits into 100% unprincipled anarcho-capitalists.
My own take is that all one needs to do is look at the back bone of MAGAts, that portion of the Gen Z, black and Hispanic population that voted for Trump, and the rise in Incels, and scrips for Viagra and Cialis, and you will find a common denominator: male insecurity which manifests as misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and racism.
You've just put your finger on a major root of the problem.
The ball sack.
Bad image...
¿así que lo que?
.Sorry, I'm visually oriented. And my Spanish is limited to order dos enchiladas con queso y salsa verde.
Jung: collective racicist subconscious.
Ifracism is looked at in terms other than melanin, racism is otherism and has been with us since we beat t the other over the head with the thight bone of a mastadon.
The Rwanda genocide as a racist civil war, between two groups of people whom whites look at and see merely as blacks, but whom the Hutu's and Tutsi's see as different races
Racism is a subset of classism. Bernie knows that, he tried to convey that, but was stifled by the DNC which plays according to the rules laid down by the ruling class, the donor class.
For gods sake don't mention or expose the ruling class.
Yes Mr. Farrar, I have claimed for years that racism is a subset of classism. It is not a claim I will always support because the lines can become blurry. But, I think it is analytically a good model. I have often been viciously ridiculed for this stance by my Liberal friends, both White and Black, who should behave better than that.
I remember a case in the 1960s when I was working in Detroit. A Black man was walking down an alley on the East Side carrying a paper bag. Two White police officers stopped him and demanded he show ID and show them what was in the bag. The man refused, so they arrested him for "resisting arrest" [really!] When they got him to the station the sergeant on duty old them that their "resister" was one of the most prominent professors at the Wayne State University Medical school and the bag contained the candy and ice cream he was taking to his children. That Black victim of police overreach had an advanced education; a BA and MD and he earned an income that placed him in the 95th percentile. Needless to say, those two police officers were pilloried in the press. This is an example of how analytically-blurry the lines can become.
Another example I recall was a party just a little way down the street from my apartment when I was a student at Wayne State Univ. It was common for us students to have parties with both Black and White youths together. Four students were walking away from the party: two Black Men and their dates, two White women. They were walking toward the car belonging to one of those young men. Two White police officers pulled those young men into an alley and beat them with their night sticks and stomped them with their feet as they lay on the concrete, breaking bones. They screamed at the students that this was what will happen to N....s if they date White girls. When the police brought those young men into the 13th precinct station on Woodward Ave. their sergeant discovered that one of those arrested was the son of a Surgeon employed by the Detroit Police Department. The other young man was the son of a local Federal Judge. Both those officers lost their jobs and were sued. This is another case which blurs the analytical model.
We can ask: which is more important in our system of Social Stratification?
Race or Social Class?
In the end, I still go with Social Class. I believe American slavery and its aftermath are consequences of virulent, unrestrained capitalism.
Most Economists would disagree with me and claim that slavery is not a version of capitalism. They would say it is a form of feudalism, transplanted onto American soil by European Feudalist Oligarchs. These economists would say that the American revolution was not really a revolution. It was a civil war between the American colonial settlers and the Feudal oligarchs of the British Empire. Eventually the settlers in the Northern colonies/states clearly developed into industrial capitalists. While the southern colonialist settlers developed into a feudal oligarchy whose wealth and power was based upon ownership of land and human labor.
Take your pick of analytical positions.
I am glad that you agree with me, even if no one else does. I can understand the feelings and mentality of a person who has been the victim of discrimination and ostracization, and their natural tendency to be myopic and see that discrimination as THE problem, and the greatest of sins.
And thus demand all of the resources and attention, but it is that myopia on the left that has fractured us, led to extreme demands and resulted in the rise of the right.
You can't legislate and browbeat bias out of a person, all you can do is shove it down, where it burns like a glowing ember, until someone like Trump comes along and fans the flames and tells them that it is OK to say nigger,fag, spic, kike, what have you.
Truly they are literally thanking Trump for being able to express their hatred in public.
Meanwhile those saps are complicit, joyfully, in their own subjugation and misery, but at least they can get their fears and hate off their chest.
"Are there any John McCain Republicans left? Any patriots who revere the Constitution and respect the rule of law? Any who are willing to call out Trump’s brutal dictator-inspired corruption and excesses?"
Where's Don Bacon? Roger Wicker? Where are Mike Turner? Jerry Moran? Mike Bost?
Please get them on the record.
BTW my colleague, Moe Davis has annouced his candidacy for the House from Ashville. https://moedavis.com/
Moe has my vote. Chuck Edwards in his newsletter stated that Albrego Garcia was a terrorist. Tried and convicted without due process of trial, lawyer, etc
Not only should Newsom have Trump arrested and consider how to withhold state funds from the federal government, he should seek a TRO to stop Fox from continuing to lie to the American public. If right wing media continues to control the narrative, there's little can be done. I hope Padilla sues not only Noem but also Fox, and that he and Newsom together get a TRO to stop them from portraying LA as a battleground.
45 years since Reagan launched the war on the middle class. We are here because the GOP ran out of ideas beyond fear of “the other”! The oligarchs, led by the Koch brothers, built the think tanks that finally led to P2025. Tomorrow we must show up in massive numbers to demand that, if there any, Republicans in the House and Senate grow a spine and stop this wannabe dictator!
The extermely rich want open immigration to undermine union scale wages.
Meanwhile the Kochs and Federalist Society are suing Trump over tariffs. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/08/new-civil-liberties-alliance-lawsuit-trump-tariffs-china/82996118007/
Know thy enemy.
Re Reagan. He had a different take on migrants. Reagan signed the bills that MAGA complain about. He granted illegals amnesty and set up a path to citizenship for many of them.
Many permanent residents, even from the 80's, have not sought citizenship.
I held DOL hearings re agricultural visas. Many California farmers work through labor pools.
The H-2A visa program, administered by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), allows U.S. employers to bring foreign workers to the United States to fill temporary or seasonal agricultural jobs. These jobs typically last no longer than one year. To use the H-2A program, employers must first obtain a temporary labor certification from the DOL, demonstrating that there are not enough U.S. workers available for the job and that employing H-2A workers will not negatively impact the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.
I once lived in Fresno, the figuarive and literal armpit of California. Largest agricultural area in the world. Many of the workers were Chicanos but many were Asian, from the Middle East and even places like Portugal and Spain. We had a treaty with the Hmong, and brought about 50,000 of them to the San Juaquin Valley. We were the defacto capitol of Armenia.
When I lived in Fresno I wrote policy over citizenship issues, re Mexico. In 1848 we took most of the west via the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo, which gives Mexican citizens rights in the US. Some of the Chicanos, even today, do not know where they were born. Many were children of migrants. Many are 3rd or 4th generation, the same people who were affected by Bracero policy during the Eisenhower administration. If they were born in the US, they are citizens, but have to be able to prove it. If they are illiterate, it's almost impossible.
Libertarians have always been for open borders. Many of the farms are now corporate owned, and if you check their lineage can be traced to Koch and their libertarian allies.
Virtually all the lawyers that represented the labor pools in my cases started as lawyers at DOL, under the tutedge of say, my former boss, Elaine Chao, once Secretary of Labor, wife of Mitch McConnell. Some go back to the Reagan administration.
The accusation was that many of the pools didn't follow the law and the employers didnn't hold them to produce I-8 forms and other authority. We had a category of penaty cases -- I could debar some employers for continuing violations.
It's crazy that Americans who are screwed out of jobs haven't been suing employers who hire aliens under our discrimination statutes and regs. Most lawyers are ignorant that this stujff exits.
I assume that Trump has killed the regulations as DEI.
My wife, was employed as a contract employee for FEMA, after the Loma Prieta quake of 89, her job was to assist local communities in fulfilling the paperwork requirements for the communities to receive FEMA assistance. She was temporarily reassigned to Fresno, and I would drive from Santa Cruz to Fresno on Friday after work, to visit her.
Fresno is the most depressing city in America. Just driving past the city limits sign, one could feel the gloom. Despite the fact that it is majority minority, it is as white bread, bigoted and intolerant as any town in the south or Idaho.
I was there to '90. Great restaurants. Can't see your feet from Nov - March -- fogged in....
We felt superior to Bakersfield, Stockton.
The imperial valley, two populations. Asshole right wing vampires who suck the life out of immigrants.
What else to say? It is wrong to use troops. They know that and move to authoritarianism anyway. It will be soon that the tensions on this strap will break and violence will escalate. I am not hopeful that protest peacefulness can be sustained. The authoritarians are stoking the flames to start the fire.
https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/troops-in-los-angeles?r=3m1bs
There is a conundrum Carl.
Trump wants violence, riots as an excuse to declare martial law, but absent such he uses his brown shirt thugs to break into cars, drag out people, arrest them on the streets, and put them in concentration camps. In other words he is doing what you fear, without any provactation, and silence equals consent. The longer we stay silent, the more he, Bondi, Noem and Homan will push.
On the other hand peaceful demonstrations have never deposed an authoritarian regime.
The only way to turn things around is
1. Rejection by the world, especially those countries which were our allies. And no chance of that since you have the spectacle of country leaders groveling at Trump's feet.
2. The Trump regime being overthrown from within, by an outraged citizenry, and no chance of that happening.
The Republicans have almost a year and a half, to alter the political and legal landscape and co opt the 2026 election, not to mention the 2028 election, to find a way for Trump to run for president again, or maybe not, just install him as dictator. Will there ever be an honest election again, according to Musk there wasn't in 2024, as he interfered and elected Trump and there is a scandal that not even MSNBC has touched.
The election was stolen, and nothing was done, not even by the feckless Democratic party.
Not buying disappointed-voter laments suggesting an illegal election. I am so disappointed also. But the prognosis is defeatist. Put’em up! Put’em up! June 14th protest tomorrow.
It will take more than protests. The reason that Trump and the Republican party is able to hold on to power is through fear. Fear of the MAGAts.
Fear is the ultimate decider. Just peacefully protesting does not generate fear, it is a pressure relief valve,
But wait, they already have a plan to use the protests to justify martial law.
https://www.radicalreports.org/p/morning-briefing-far-right-extremist-nokings
Far right violent extremist groups are using private Telegram channels to share on “anti-Trump protests planned for Saturday, June 14,” and these groups have been “calling for their members to disrupt them.”
The anti-immigrant group Americans for Legal Immigration PAC emailed an map of the anti-Trump protests to supporters, and claimed the grassroots immigrant rights activists intend to "spread the chaos from Los Angeles to other towns to overwhelm US law enforcement and ICE.”
Active Clubs, the network of neo-Nazi White Supremacist fight clubs, reportedly “appear to have recently ramped up their efforts to recruit young men and boys, launching a series of ‘youth clubs’ around the country. The group’s Telegram channels show members have been posting racist propaganda flyers.”
While the FBI claims the agency’s “domestic terrorism investigations continue uninterrupted,” the agency has recently reassigned “some agents focused on domestic terrorism to a new task force set up to investigate the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and its aftermath.”
Jonathan Julio Nique allegedly “accumulated numerous and varied firearms that included homemade guns,” and “spoke about blowing government buildings and a house of worship,” according to charges filed by local prosecutors.
Nick Fuentes, the antisemitic White Nationalist propagandist, said that the “groypers have won,” and that the immigrant rights and anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles have radicalized the right-wing. “I've noticed people like Charlie Kirk and Matt Walsh are now calling for an immigration moratorium. That means they want to shut down all immigration,” Fuentes said.
Before and after I was in Vietnam, 1966-67, I served in the Army of the Occupation of the South. I personally wasn't involved, but a lot of the training of the permanent cadre was crowd control. In '68 after my dischagre from active duty, the reserves were called in to perform same during the riots.
Meanwhile TRump's polls dropped...again
Just how many ways can this Administration show how inept they are? It truly is a new shit-show everyday. Who's your favorite? I think Kristi would win.
We should be grateful? Of course, we should hate that this comes at the expense of good people like Senator Padilla. I hope it raises his profile and his war chest for future elections.
I knew who Senator Padilla is, but then I watch C-Span instead of porn. Maybe Kristi should do a little homework in between killing animals, rounding-up innocent people, and her cosplay hobby. She lied in her book about meeting foreign leaders and lied yesterday after we saw with our own eyes that he LOUDLY identified himself.
Those FBI agents should be ashamed. They could have pulled out their phones and looked him up on USA.gov. Jerks.
Thanks Thom. See you in the streets.
Someone who kills her puppy with a rifle is responsible for our security? No one could make this up....
Liars always end up believing their own lies and then it becomes difficult to sustain them. Although I must admit they have done a pretty good job with the trickle down theory. 45 years and counting.
Thanks to the Sen Padilla event, thanks to the immigrant round ups, we are now able to see that it isn't just ICE, but the FBI, HSI, ATF, in fact all federal police are thugs.
Can't agree with "all" unless you mean the agencies. The officers and agents are pawns in this sick game but could still be held accountable for their individual actions in some cases. Scary times for them too if they are decent people.
Maybe you object to the idea that all police are culpable, but here is the truth, the only reason bad cops exist is because there are no good cops. If there were good cops, there wouldn't be any bad cops. Silence is consent. silence is complicity.
Those FBI agents and secret service that wrestled Sen Padilla to the ground were obviously enjoying themselves. Same with the ICE,FBI,BATF, DEA and US Marshalls that are assisting in rounding up immigrants.
Take for example a firing squad, how many members do you think fire over the head? How about Lt Calley's platoon, how many members do you think objected.
It took a helicopter pilot, Hugh Thompson, Jr to stop the slaughter.
This wasn't some deliberate action meant to cow the masses. Rather, there was a rote, disinterested, quality to it, another day of dealing with a peasantry beneath contempt. Senator Padilla was "dealt with" with all the emotional, dehumanizing and sociopathic indifference that a mechanic manifests loosening a frozen bolt. This isn't a condemnation of the Puppy Slayer, or of MAGA, or of Trump; this is a condemnation of the dominant culture, one that transcends party lines and points to a ruling class devoid of any real interest in society, one where contemptuousness increases the more onward pushes back on it. Consider: Had the senator's actions been done by a Republican against a Democratic Secretary, would the reaction have been any different?
Oh, and how I wish Los Angeles really was governed by socialists!
Happy Friday the 13th. Whatever possibly could go wrong.
Has anyone heard from Susan Collins?
She must be very concerned.
The dog killer is a “Swinish neo-nazi hack,” and the Lump who would be king is just a “White trash dingbat.” The R voters are a “Monument to everything cruel and stupid and corrupt in the human spirit,” and Vance “looks like a potato with mange.”
Paraphrasing: Thompson, Hunter S. Thompson
DeSantis says protesters on roadways can be run over by drivers.
“You have a right to flee for your safety, and so if you drive off and you hit one of these people, that’s their fault for impinging on you,” DeSantis said. “You don’t have to sit there and just be a sitting duck and let the mob grab you out of your car and drag you through the streets.”
Under Florida’s relatively new anti-riot law, he’s not completely wrong, legal experts say.
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article308471625.html#storylink=cpy
.
Don't be cruel to a heart that's true
Don't be cruel to a heart that's true
I don't want no other love
Baby it's just you I'm thinking of
Mike Tyson once commented that everybody feels tough until they get punched in the face. All of us have witnessed, faced down or been assaulted by a bully, at least once. Most, 95% or more, have some drooling sycophant do the battering for them - as with Padilla. He shook it off, good on him, and am sure this incident will fuel the resistance. To have such a crude caricature as Black Widow Noem talking crap, along with the almost pre-pubescent Leavitt screaming like a troubled teen at journalists, running cover for the obese and garbled TFG is a tragi-comedy all on its own. The entire world is laughing and barfing at the same time. Human brains are hard-wired, just like their wild counterparts and their canine and feline pets, to build a silent line that cannot be crossed when it comes to being punched in the face. Once that line is even tingled, anything goes. As the desperation rises within the flaccid belly of maga, the extreme boomerang reaches toward its apex. There are near 300 million of us who do not share any semblance of values with these pathetic cretins. All around the Earth the crescendo is nearing, on so many fronts, all due to the recalcitrance of humans. The Atlantic Anomaly is growing, the sunspots and CMEs are here, and the phantom of climate catastrophe is washing debris down city streets and burning more forests to the ground, sending miserable smoke for thousands of miles on ill winds. Pay attention to everything around you, and act with conscious need. You can only do what you can do, but do not be shy about doing it, over and over and over. Small, insignificant acts add up very quickly.
The GOP representatives are being paid to get rid of social programs of every kind under the guise of getting the government out of supporting lazy people. This, of course is hogwash. The ultra-rich in fact are paying these so-called representatives of the people to represent only themselves in order to get rid of taxes on high incomes and to reverse the money flow in their direction.
The ultra-rich in fact are paying these so-called representatives of the people to represent the rich in order to get rid of taxes on high incomes and have them instead flow from the poor to the rich as they did all through history until relatively recently, and hiding behind other small groups of radicals and religious fanatics. They refuse to give anyone that may represent a disruption to their cash flow, tax breaks or social programs. They intend to squash the American dream because this dream is for those who represent competition or those who may through their vote have the power to regulate their polluting corporations in anyway.
These wealthy refuse to acknowledge that people cannot live on the substandard wages these corporations largely control. This, we have to remember, ultimately includes not only the working poor, but, now the once healthy middle class who paid most taxes, children, and older America, as well as those with no income from employment or anyone who is not white and subjugated to this billionaire oligarchy—its a very large group.
We are not a country of billionaires and subjects; however, we as a country are obviously way too dependent upon these relatively few individuals who espouse to control what the people have built for 250 years, all of us, not just them.
Tom, you and Louise are the best. I ask that you not promote Uber - which represents the privatization of transit - and instead promote locally regulated taxis cabs as means to protests. https://www.sfexaminer.com/archives/prop-22-would-help-undo-decades-worth-of-worker-protections/article_39c64755-c910-553a-bfcb-afc13a48a303.html
"Liberate" - the most terrifying and deceitful word in the GOP's vocabulary.
After 40 years of turning our heads in denial, the srew continues to turn. The FBI physically assaults a Senator in the biggest state in the country, and federal troops are sent in to quell a civic matter comprising one square mile. This is what we, the citizens, have allowed to happen. People may die tomorrow in protest of what they have allowed to happen. The screw will continue to turn in the face of death & protest. Long after I had given up hope that Congress would save us, I had an illusion that the Generals would be our bedrock. They seemed to have taken their oath to the Constitution as more than just words recited. Now that seems to be another faulty judgment on my part. They say that if we can put 12 million people in the streets tomorrow, it will create change. I live in a city of 1 million people; that spells 35,000. The Dallas/Ft Worth metroplex has a population of 8 million plus. That spells 280,000 in the streets. Each citizen has a choice to make tomorrow. It seems like such a small choice, but it will define the American citizen. It will reveal our character.