Saturday Report 1/24/26 — Trump is targeting states that didn’t vote for him, with your money. Surprise.

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— So much for the “anti-big-government right” in America. Growing up in Michigan, I had a friend whose dad was in the Michigan Militia, a rightwing group that used to go into the forests of northern Michigan to “train” with semiautomatic weapons and survival tactics for the day when the “jackbooted thugs” from the “big government” would try to “end our freedom.” My Republican activist dad told me they were just bigots and “boys who never grew up,” but I always felt like they’d be the shock troops for a fascist takeover, should that ever happen to America. That was sixty years ago, long before they tried to kidnap and kill Michigan’s governor, and long before anybody took Trump seriously. But now, according to a fascinating report in this week’s Washington Post, those same government-skeptical rightwingers are now fully embracing Trump’s racist crackdown on brown people using so-called “Kavanaugh Stops” in which people are now legally racially profiled. The key to their change of attitude appears to hang on the race of the people the government is targeting; so long as it’s going after people of color they’re 100% on board. Apparently these yahoos have never read Pastor Martin Niemöller’s famous poem, “First they came for…” Government that selectively enforces the law to the detriment of one disfavored group will almost always eventually turn on others. These idiots are just too stupid to realize what they’re cheering on…

— It was the third or fourth shot that killed Renee Good. An autopsy commissioned by her family found that the first shot nicked her arm and the second shot hit her breast, but neither would have killed her. It was the third shot, taken from the side of the car into her head and completely unnecessary, that killed her. This sure looks like pure homicide, which is probably why Kash Patel, Pam Bondi, and Kristi Noem are doing everything they can to cover up this crime.

— Trump’s war on the First Amendment threatens to change America forever. Colby Hall writes for Mediaite.com: “In a functioning democracy, the federal government does not compile dossiers on students for their political views, threaten journalists with prison for covering protests, or seize reporters’ devices as a warning to sources. Yet all three have now come into focus in the United States, supported by newly unsealed court records and recent actions by the Trump administration.” He then proceeds to document in painful detail multiple times the Trump regime has violated the basic tenets of our First Amendment, including arresting and deporting people based on their speech, searching journalists’ phones and computers without legal authority, and the president himself calling for the criminal prosecution of a reporter (Don Lemon). Our largest media outfits are ignoring this (after many of them paid Trump off), hoping to avoid Emperor Trump’s wrath, or openly sucking up to him (CBS/Washington Post/LA Times/etc.). This isn’t about partisan loyalty anymore; it’s about whether we’re willing to live in a country where speech is still technically legal but exercising it gets you threatened with arrest, searched without warrants, or singled out for prosecution by the president himself. This is what Ben Franklin warned about when he said, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Without a truly free and open press, the space for dissent quietly shrinks and people learn to stay silent just to stay safe. And our republic dies.

— How did America get to the point where a five-year-old hostage is an acceptable tool of law enforcement? When ICE can detain a five year old and reportedly use that terrified child as bait while armed agents sweep neighborhoods under an explicit promise of immunity from Gauleiter Stephen Miller, it’s fair to ask how America got to the point where a five-year-old hostage is an acceptable tool of law enforcement. This isn’t about enforcing the law, it’s about raw, naked power being used without restraint, and cruelty being inflicted on people without consequence, encouraged from the top and excused after the fact by people who know better. The surge in drawn guns, shootings, and intimidation isn’t a breakdown of discipline, it’s the logical result of telling agents they won’t be held accountable no matter who they harm or how they do it. When most of the people being arrested have no criminal record and children are dragged into the machinery of fear, the lie that this is about public safety collapses completely. A country that tolerates terrorizing kids to score political points doesn’t just brutalize families in the moment, it corrodes the moral core of America and teaches that raw force matters more than law, conscience, or humanity.

— House passes bill funding ICE with help from seven turncoat Democrats: the bill provides more billions to Immigration and Customs Enforcement with no meaningful constraints on its violent tactics in Minnesota or elsewhere. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Jared Golden (D-ME), Laura Gillen (D-NY), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), Don Davis (D-NC), Tom Souzzi (D-NY), and Vincente Gonzalez of Texas all broke ranks with the American people and their constituents to give ICE even more money and absolutely no constraints. No outlawing masks or Klan hoods, no requiring actual judicial warrants before they kick in your front door, no funding investigations of their violence or their concentration camps, nothing. If one of these fools represents you, you may want to call 202-224-3121 and let them know what you think of this traitorous behavior. And don’t forget to let Hakeem Jeffries, who allowed this to happen in a way Nancy Pelosi would never have tolerated, know how disappointed we all are in his failure of leadership. If Chuck Schumer has a similarly difficult time holding his caucus in line when this hits the Senate, it’s past time for Democrats to seriously reconsider our leadership choices. At the very least, supporting fascism like this should result in the loss of committee appointments.

— The Trump administration goes after protesters that stormed a church but they’re entirely fine with the protesters who stormed the capitol, killed and harmed police, and smeared poop on the wall of the capitol. I understand that there’s no First Amendment provision that protects the right to bust into a church and disrupt their services, but the outrage coming from the Trump regime and Fox “News” around this makes a mockery of their deification of the people who attacked our Capitol in an effort to overturn the 2020 election. Republicans have managed to elevate hypocrisy to an art form…

— Trump is using our money to target states that didn’t vote for him. Surprise. Trump is reviewing federal funds to Democratic-led-states. Can anyone stand up to the bully? Russell Vought, the architect of Project 2025 and now head of the Office of Management and Budget has ordered a “review” of pretty much all federal funds flowing into Blue states. Targets include: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state, and Washington, DC. “This is authoritarianism, plain and simple,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), whose state is the only one on the list with a Republican governor. “The Trump administration is targeting states that didn’t vote for him—including my home state of Vermont. Using federal power to punish political opponents is anti-democratic and blatantly illegal.” Amen. So, what are Democrats going to do about it? Inquiring minds want to know…

— King of the World bully uses “board of Peace” just like he uses Tariffs. It’s all about bullying and loyalty to Emperor Trump. Trump is now trying to replace the UN with a new “Board of Peace” with him as its unchallengeable leader for life, him alone able to appoint his own successor from his own family, and member states paying a billion dollars that Trump gets to decide how to use. Before all these bizarre details came out and this was just part of the UN’s plan for implementing a peace deal in Gaza, Canada had initially agreed to consider membership. But after that nation’s Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a fire-and-brimstone speech at Davos warning the world about Trump’s dangerous anti-democratic impulses, Trump went to his Nazi-infested social media site to un-invite Canada. Our president has the emotional maturity of a ten-year-old, and our country’s reputation is paying the price…