POST 1193
Are You Among The Disfavored People?
university student, professor or administrator
scientific or medical researcher
non-White person
LGBTQ person
any form of non-Christian
protector of the planet.
any Democrat (Trump hates you) or a current or former government employee
any person not accused or convicted of any crime and in this country legally – easy ICE targets
Bummer for you, because this country is solely for Christian-claiming (although not doing what Jesus would do), straight White men who insist on telling you how to live, establishing limits to your freedom and deciding your restricted fate, which may include warrantless deportation.
And all that gets far scarier when you consider that Trump is declining into dementia and JD Vance is next in line. He might be smarmy, disingenuous and heartless (I guess he forgot about his hillbilly roots), but he’s smart, diabolical and under the thumb of Peter Thiel, his sugar daddy, the private information thief.
Speaking of Disfavored
Let’s declare out loud what this deportation lunacy is actually about. The goals are:
- To get rid of Brown and Black people because they aren’t European White. Those immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
- Expand White privilege
- Feed raw meat to Trump’s base
- Suppress votes of Democrats
Those goals are well met by snatching Brown people, especially those who look Hispanic, off streets, from farm fields, from Home Depot parking lots, from a public park in Los Angeles and more. No need to check their papers, because we no longer care if the snatchees are here legally or even if they are U.S. citizens.
Nobody has a right to due process under the Trump administration. We just snatch ’em, shove ’em in a bus or van, cram them handcuffed onto an airplane and into rendition to be abused and held incommunicado. That’s the new American Dream Nightmare.
Here’s what our populist speaking but not practicing President and Republican Congress have done to make sure we’re number one in inflicting cruelty on immigrants.
This chart shows our Big Barfy Betrayal Bill carve out for ICE and compares it to the defense budgets of 20 countries. We are now poised to spend more on anti-immigrant actions than the total the next 10 countries spend on their national defense. That’s probably good, since those immigrants are drug dealers, rapists and murderers. So said the man with the golden escalator, the golden toilet, 34 felony convictions, boundless ignorance and a mania for cruelty, but not for reality.
Are you feeling safer now with our huge expansion of ICE, the American Gestapo? Read this from Jennifer Rubin for more.
The Lies and Cheating Didn’t Start With Trump
In 2010 the Supreme Court decided the Citizens United case. The lawsuit was about a movie trashing Hillary Clinton, intended by its producers to be aired during the 2008 presidential campaign. The Court struck down a provision of the McCain-Feingold Act (properly, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002) and told the Citizens United group they could show their movie. That should have been the end of that case, but it wasn’t.
Chief Justice John Roberts did something almost unheard of. He called the litigants back and ordered them to argue the rights of corporations, something not even remotely part of the original lawsuit. The Court then made a second ruling, deciding that corporations have all the rights of flesh and blood humans.
That unleashed the furies of fabulous wealth, which allowed those corporations and insanely rich people (plus foreign influencers) to donate fabulous amounts of money to political campaigns and overwhelm the wishes of we small folk. Roberts had made up a whole new case to serve his agenda and it worked.
As a result, the gun lobby, the pharmaceutical lobby and more lobbies control the votes of Congress and you have almost no influence. So, we don’t get the gun safety legislation 80% of us want, the healthcare-for-all that 67% of us want and far more. These legislators don’t care what you want because they don’t have to. They’re funded by corporations and super rich guys.
This Court that can’t seem to tell the difference between a corporation (a fictional “entity”) and human beings. The Court is composed of strict originalists, they tell us, but they don’t recognize the Founders’ abhorrence of undue influence exerted by the wealthy.
Like I said, it didn’t start with Trump. Before he showed up the Court had already greased the gears of the fascism express. The Court further cleared the way with it’s ruling in Trump v. United States, allowing the President to break any laws he wants and get away with it. Does that sound originalist to you?
In America
Likely you’re feeling disheartened, as are most of us because of the blatantly illegal, immoral and cruel actions of this administration. But here’s the thing: we don’t get to wallow in our despair because there’s so much that must be done and we’re the only ones who can do it.
The Charlie Daniels Band song In America was released in 1980 as
“. . . a reaction to the varying difficult issues facing America in the late 1970s – the fallout from the Watergate scandal [etc.]. [Wikipedia]
We have “difficult issues facing America” now, too.
The fascists have come back to divide us and steal America from us.
.
The CDB’s message tells us about Lady America, that “We’re gonna put her feet back on the path.” The fascists, the oligarchs, the selfish rich guys “can all go straight to hell.” That’s not exactly what Charlie sang, but I like the sound of it.
You’ll see Lady America back on the path when the pain hits – from tariffs and the resultant higher prices and empty shelves, stolen healthcare, stolen food assistance, scarcities, babies beginning to suffer and die, neighbors being sent to concentration camps, jobs being lost and more. As Thom Hartmann puts it, Trump’s Tax Cuts Come with a Body Count — Starting with Grandma. That’s when we’ll all come together, “feet back on the path.”
Click this link and listen to the song. While our fight and our battle victories may not be happening at the pace we’d prefer, they’re happening – because of us.
The “Deconstructing Trump”* Corner
For the week following the Fourth of July and Trump’s failed narcissism parade, at which both he and Melania fell asleep, this is about Trump:
- Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
- Do you know the hallmark of the second-rater?
- It’s resentment of another man’s achievement.
- Ayn Rand – that’s for our Libertarian friends
- _________________________________________
* Deconstructing Trump by Mardy Grothe explores The Trump phenomenon through the lens of quotation history. As such, we explore his volume and add its applicable wisdom to these posts.
Mid-Term Election
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JA
3 Responses to In America
Jim Altschuler July 9, 2025
I’M DOOMED! I fall into multiple categories from the first paragraph! Dead Man Walking!
No one gets due process because draft-dodging, cowardly Trump has spent so much time in courts as both sue-er and sue-ee. Paranoia strikes deep.
Finger pointing is counterproductive. Our sole concern needs to be how to stop the greedy bastards, reinforce.the United States Constitution, bring back the rule (and enforcement) of OUR LAWS.
David Lindgren July 9, 2025
Thanks for staying on-top of rather than withering away . Readers need to share your column and commit to waking “them” up. You care! Question is to what degree do we care? We may not be directly affected but others are suffering. My interest is in supporting voices like Jack’s and Pritzger and Newsome, strong voices that courageously take a stand.
Jack Altschuler July 9, 2025
Thanks, Dave. The issue is reaching so many more so that they step up to protect their own interests, yours, mine – everyone’s, and we create a groundswell that cannot be denied. That will take all of us.