It Could Be Coming Sooner Than I Thought

Late this past week, a good friend – on substantive issues, more liberal than I am — celebrated a birthday, and in response to our Happy Birthday text, responded in effect, “It’ll be happier if I don’t have to read one of your posts today” – i.e., he didn’t want to be reminded on his birthday of the dire dangers I keep maintaining in these pages that our democracy now faces. I burst out laughing; it was the only moment of humor – albeit gallows — I’ve felt for quite a while about how things are developing, and the only note of levity that will appear in this post. His wish was granted; I had nothing scheduled to run that day, but would have deferred any scheduled entry if there had been.

His birthday is now past. If today is your birthday, I strongly suggest you that now exit this site.

You don’t need me to recount the details of ICE agents’ murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on January 24. It is apparently undisputed that Mr. Pretti was an American citizen, a VA intensive-care nurse with no criminal record. He was carrying a concealed firearm at the time he was accosted by ICE, but multiple credible outlets have reported that he had the legal permits to do so and the New York Times is reporting that there is no sign in videos that Mr. Pretti “pulled his weapon, or that agents even knew he had one until he was already pinned on the sidewalk.” Virtually any video of the incident makes clear that multiple ICE agents were all over this one man. I understand that there are estimates that Mr. Pretti was shot up to 10 times.

Minneapolis is now in tumult. MN Gov. Tim Walz has activated the Minnesota National Guard to try to keep order. How these troops will interact with the federal ICE agents remains to be seen.

You’ve already heard more than enough from me in recent days; until Mr. Pretti’s murder, I had intended to give both you and me a break for a while. Of the points made below, the one that primarily prompted me to enter this note is the reference to a potential coming culmination near its conclusion.

The fact that a number of Regime officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, were already publicly exonerating the ICE agents and defaming Mr. Pretti as a domestic terrorist before – as anyone with the IQ of a rock should realize — the Regime could possibly have had time to collect and verify the facts of the shooting, demonstrates that the Regime has no interest in fairness or truth; that, to paraphrase Comedian Jon Stewart’s comment a while back about President Donald Trump’s holding a Great Gatsby Party while millions were having their food assistance cut off: The Regime doesn’t give a f—k about even looking like it gives a f—k. They don’t give a f—k – at all. (I know; I just wasted your time with the obvious; couldn’t help myself; I apologize.)

At the same time, I predict that this recent shooting will not reduce Mr. Trump’s dismal approval ratings, or the public’s now-decidedly negative view of his immigration enforcement, by more than another a point or two. Any citizen who is paying attention and was willing to believe his/her own eyes made up his/her mind about the Regime’s ICE’s Nazi Sturmabteilung-like activities in the days following ICE’s murder of Renee Good. Any such citizen didn’t need another murder to be convinced.

Now, to the most chilling: it is apparently undisputed that in a Saturday letter to Mr. Walz, Attorney General Pam Bondi offered to “bring an end to the chaos in Minnesota” – which one can reasonably infer is an offer by the Regime to tone down ICE agents’ activities — in return for several Minnesota state concessions including, most ominously, turning Minnesota voter rolls over to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to “confirm that Minnesota’s voter registration practices comply with federal law.” Again, you don’t need me to point out that this is a blatant attempt to gain information which will facilitate the Regime’s subversion of the upcoming 2026 federal elections in a “blue” state. A point I find intriguing that I haven’t seen anybody else make is that it was Ms. Bondi who made this blatantly extortive and extralegal demand. Ms. Bondi’s job is to prosecute those who are violating federal law. She has nothing to do, per se, with immigration enforcement. That is Ms. Noem’s job; it is Ms. Noem who has the authority to turn up or down ICE enforcement. The fact that Ms. Bondi made the offer to reduce ICE pressure in return for Minnesota’s providing the Regime access to state’s voter rolls – which obviously have nothing to do with immigration enforcement — shows the concerted, coordinated nature of the Regime’s attack on both our civil rights and our electoral processes.

An aside; I just can’t resist a comment on the Second Amendment-obsessed, MAGA-related irony tragically apparent in Mr. Pretti’s death. Much of the justification of the ICE agents’ shooting of Mr. Pretti has focused on Mr. Pretti’s possession of a firearm (of which they weren’t even aware, when they first wrestled him to the ground), and the risk that the agents allegedly felt when they discovered the gun – despite Mr. Pretti’s legal right to carry the weapon the way he did, and video proving that he did not pull or brandish it at officials as Regime officials have falsely claimed (and that an ICE agent had indeed taken the weapon from him before they killed him). Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t much of MAGA’s spirited defense of the Second Amendment based upon the premise that the Amendment is needed to enable a citizen to protect him/herself against unconstitutional governmental overreach? Here, a fascist regime is using a citizen’s legal possession of a weapon which he did not draw as a rationale for … killing him. Again, if this wasn’t so gut-wrenching, you couldn’t make this stuff up.

Another aside, which I would submit is extremely important for our democracy: the current battle between Netflix and Paramount for the acquisition of Warner Brothers, which, among its other properties, owns CNN. CNN is amongst the least commercially valuable of Warner Brothers’ assets that will be obtained by its new owner, but the transfer of CNN ownership is clearly very important to Mr. Trump, who wants to see Warner Brothers sold to Paramount – controlled by the Ellison family, vigorous Trump supporters – rather than to Netflix. The Warner Brothers Board of Directors keeps trying to fend off Paramount offers, and to sell to Netflix. May its efforts be successful. All that read these pages are well aware of our affinity for MSNOW’s Morning Joe, but when news happens, we don’t turn our TV to MSNOW, but to CNN (sorry, Joe 😉). While covering Mr. Pretti’s murder, CNN has minced no words demonstrating that ICE’s justifications are hogwash. If the Ellison family gains control of CNN, CNN’s factual reporting will stop the day after the takeover is finalized. For the good of democracy, we need CNN to remain one of our now alarmingly-dwindling, widely-disseminated credible news outlets.

Of course, Mr. Walz and the Minnesota legislature are not going to agree to surrender the state’s voter rolls to the Regime. Such a surrender would be the equivalent of Denmark giving up Greenland to the United States. Which means that ICE will continue its brutal activities, and despite the efforts of Minnesota’s National Guard, the unrest in Minneapolis may likely correspondingly escalate. Where we are is what happens next.

Within the past week – it seems like weeks ago, but we’re in Trump time – I ventured that if Mr. Trump ordered a military invasion of Greenland, as he was then threatening, the presence of waiting NATO troops meant that there would be shooting, and that both American and NATO troops would die. I further ventured that if such occurred, given the vast majority of Americans’ disagreement with Mr. Trump’s intentions to invade an ally, those dead soldiers would mean the end of his presidency in the democratic sense – that he would then either become a lame duck with three years formally remaining in his term, or, to maintain de facto control of the country, that he would then have to declare Martial Law and institute a dictatorship. I will pose that if continuing brutal ICE activities incite accelerating unrest in Minneapolis, the President will soon be placed in the same political position as he would have been had he invaded Greenland. If he cites the Insurrection Act and deploys active-duty military to the streets of Minneapolis – which will already have a blizzard of Minnesota National Guard, ICE agents, and Minneapolis law enforcement on the scene, the closest we have had to a militarily-occupied city since the end of the Civil War — riots will ensue. Most Americans will conclude that he is deploying military against American citizens to quell unrest that he precipitated. It will mean the end of his presidency in the democratic sense. He will then either resign himself to being an emasculated lame duck – which I would submit is not within his compass — or he will be willing to declare Martial Law and to in effect institute a dictatorship.

I wouldn’t venture a wager as to how events will now go. Mr. Trump is not a strategist; in any encounter, he seemingly never has any specific “end result” in mind; he thinks tactically — he simply pushes as hard as he can, and sees how the other side reacts. Despite his reputation for “doubling down” when confronted, if he sees that events in a given situation are not shaping up to his liking and that he doesn’t have an overwhelming advantage, he will – as he did in Greenland — look for a face-saving measure to step back from the brink. To the extent that he is not consumed by delusion, I would expect that he will see that any further escalation in Minnesota will narrow his options to the two above. He may not – at least yet – want to go there. Or he might. I would forthrightly predict a hypertoxic confrontation if White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller – who is, more than Ms. Noem, truly the architect of the ICE enforcement approach – was making the final call; but as I observed in an earlier note on Greenland, Mr. Miller was the Administration official making the most bellicose declarations about military deployment there, but in the last analysis, Mr. Trump – who clearly is still the boss – had no trouble undercutting him. The Regime’s offer to Mr. Walz, no matter who made it, may have been its first maneuver to step back from the brink.

We’ll see what happens.

After the Pretti shooting, another friend – now closely following events, but who hasn’t spent a lifetime being a Political Science/Policy/History geek – mentioned to me at being literally shocked that the Regime, despite all existing video evidence in the Good and Pretti murders, would simply lie to the American people about what had happened, and keep on lying. The comment made me pause and reflect: although I am outraged, saddened, and a number of other emotions at the Regime’s activities, why am I not shocked at the Regime’s systemic lying? The answer came readily enough: because I am a lifetime Political Science/Policy/History geek, and once I internalized – in the last year and a half of the President’s first term — that Donald Trump and his true cohort had fascist tendencies, watching them lie, as abhorrent as it is, has been no more surprising to me than the punchline of the story of the scorpion who stings the frog swimming the spider to safety.

It’s just their nature.

Even if it’s not your birthday — too dark, you say? Let us hope so. Whether he will publicly admit it or not, Mr. Trump is clearly acutely aware that if traditional federal electoral processes are allowed to proceed unfettered this November as they have for the last 250 years, Republicans (and thus, he himself; he is the Republican brand) are likely to receive such a resounding rejection that not even he will be able to blame it on election fraud. One has to have significant doubt that his fragile ego can face such a prospect. As I have suggested on one earlier occasion, I think what will ultimately transpire – if not in the near term, at some point in the future — is more likely to depend not on how far Mr. Trump and his cohort are willing to go, but upon how far our professional military is willing to follow them. Will our commanders and soldiers – not Mr. Trump’s ICE thugs – follow any Regime orders to forcefully subdue peaceful American citizen demonstrators?

I apologize at the blizzard of posts that I have dumped upon you in the last week. Although I am honored that you read them, I can well understand that you could feel that enough is enough. I may not, as I anticipated before Mr. Pretti’s killing, post for a while; on the other hand, if there is yet another new Regime outrage today, I might post tomorrow. The catharsis that posting in these pages provides is, at this point, for me their most valuable attribute; if you are finding the notes exhausting – as I think our friend who just celebrated his birthday does, although I’m pretty confident that he agrees with their substance – just delete ‘em. Give it a rest for a while.

No matter what, if one wishes to oppose Regime activities, always stay peaceful. If those who oppose the Regime fail to remain peaceful, all is lost practically and morally. But be ready for what comes next.

The fate of our democracy could be coming sooner than I thought.

Mr. Warhol Predicted our Government’s Failure

This is simply a plaint, nothing you haven’t already realized yourself, indeed something I think I may have already noted here at some time in the past, but one of the perks of having a site like this is the opportunity to state the obvious when you wish to. Although one could decry the injustice inherent in a couple of the observations made below about the complexion and standing of our early members of Congress, I don’t think anyone can dispute their accuracy.

This also the rare post that I think any American of any political persuasion across our entire spectrum would agree with.

A large share of our people are currently bemoaning the fact that our toothless Congress – some would instead characterize the members of Congress as lacking other body parts than teeth – are refusing to stand up to President Donald Trump although they – Republicans as well as Democrats – are well aware that his excesses are dangerous for our country and do little or nothing to address the issues of greatest concern to their constituents. Instead, they cower in corners and whisper. Why? We’ve brought it upon ourselves with our descent into the social media snippet, reality TV, hyperbole, glitz, and Let No Complex Thought Be Left Unthought Culture. The trouble with our Congress today is not that it is filled with people who fundamentally believe in MAGAism or Democratic Socialism, or in White Christian America or Black Lives Matter, or in Regulation or Deregulation, or in Abortion or Choice, or in Guns or No Guns, or in anything else.

They believe in Andy Warhol.

Mr. Warhol, as virtually all are aware – at least of his imputed observation, if not that it is attributed to him – was quoted by Time Magazine in 1967 as saying, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” It doesn’t matter that it is now disputed that Mr. Warhol actually ever uttered his most famous statement, or if he did, that he was the first to say it; it will forever be attributed to him.

What matters is the observation’s continuing resonance – much truer today than when the quote appeared in Time almost 60 years ago. Our members of Congress need – apparently, lust for – fame. They need everybody to know that they’re somebody. Apparently, simply being a member of Congress makes them somebody. That’s why we have no functioning federal legislative branch.

I will assert that the situation we have today was unfathomable for the Founding Fathers. In a time when only white men could vote and, practically speaking, only rich white men could literally afford to donate their time – that is indeed what they were doing — to participating in the federal government, the notion that these proud landowners would totally obsequiously surrender the prerogatives of their Congressional offices to the President of the United States, or change their views to stoop to pander their constituents – the vast, vast majority of whom were incredibly poorer and incredibly less versed in the matters of the country and the world than they were — was inconceivable to them. In the Declaration of Independence, a number had literally pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the founding of a new national enterprise. They didn’t enter Congress to become somebody; each of them already was somebody. Their sentiments upon entering Congress may be best expressed in the words of another politician in another nation at almost the same time — Irish-Anglo Edmund Burke, considered the founder of modern Conservativism (you know, the real kind), who once told his Parliament constituents that a representative’s “ … unbiased opinion, his mature judgement, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”

Now, we have a bunch of gutless lickspittles who pander to the basest tastes of their constituents so they can keep their tender tushies in warm cushy Congressional seats. It is clear that the lust to keep these seats isn’t about the actual political power or purpose they provide; they have entirely ceded these to the President of their party (startlingly true right now with the particularly unscrupulous and ruthless Mr. Trump, but just as true on the other side of the political aisle when the president is a popular Democrat). At this point, it seemingly isn’t always even about a normal citizen – one of us — being able to make him/herself a somebody by entering Congress, because it seems that more and more members of Congress already are “somebody” in the traditional sense – i.e., wealthy; so the office cannot be for the financial advantages or societal entrée it might thereafter provide. (Actually, for our really wealthy members of Congress, it seems that the choice came down to running for Congress or buying a professional sports team, and buying a Congressional seat was cheaper and easier than buying a professional franchise.)

No, it’s as Mr. Warhol (apocryphally, at least) said: it’s about the Fame. “Look, look at me. I not only need to be somebody; I need you to know I’m somebody!” Mr. Trump is of course the most shameless example of it, but virtually all of them suffer from it. (Oh, for the good old days when Robber Barons like John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and Henry Ford, who were already confident that they were somebody, were satisfied to run their businesses and exploit the vast majority of Americans from behind the scenes without feeling the need to foist their views upon our citizens in public. 😉)

You want evidence? (Although I don’t think you need it.) It’s said today that Republican members of Congress fear Mr. Trump. Actually, they don’t. What they fear is his influence with their constituents – not the same. Let’s assume for a moment that we do have free and fair elections in 2026, that current projections of a dramatic Democratic capture of the House of Representatives come to fruition, and that credible polls thereafter attribute the Republican electoral debacle to the unpopularity of the Trump Regime. In such event, what do you want to bet that the most dangerous place to be the day after the election will be at the door of the Republican Congressional cloakroom as those Republicans who did survive rush out to find a camera to distance themselves from Mr. Trump and all that his Regime has done during its first two years?

I know. You won’t take the bet.

I have to admit that I used to be firmly in favor of term limits for members of Congress. I guess I still am; but I consider it a much lesser priority than I used to. What these people lust for isn’t power, it’s fame. To get their seats, they all pander to whatever constituency or TV camera or media outlet that will get and keep them there. If one leaves Congress, s/he will simply be replaced by another with the same yearning.

I don’t know how we recover a Congress with [you fill in whatever body part you consider most symbolic of inner strength]. Because in fact, our Congress is simply a reflection of what we’ve become.

Our Congress is us.

A Greenland Checkmate – If NATO Nations Stand Fast: a Postscript and Correction

Yesterday, it appeared that President Donald Trump and the NATO nations aligned against him over his attempts to extort Denmark, Greenland, and NATO into transferring control of Greenland to the United States were taking steps to move back from the brink of war. Mr. Trump at one point apparently indicated that he would not attempt to use force to take control of Greenland. Whether our Manchild President stepped back from the brink because the NATO nations found a way to placate Mr. Trump, as he claimed, or because somebody woke him up sufficiently to the possibility, as suggested in this post, that the conflict that would ensue if he ordered a military invasion of Greenland could effectively spell the end of his presidency, it does not appear – at least as this is typed – that the United States and its putative NATO allies are headed for any immediate armed conflict.

But who knows what the case will be by the time you read this? We’ll have to see what happens today. And then tomorrow. And then the next day.

Meanwhile, the New York Times is reporting that the Regime’s ICE has started new operations in the state of Maine, targeting immigrants from Somalia. Here we go again.

On a different note, I observed here recently that I very much enjoy receiving comments – even ones pointing out that I have erred in a post. 😊 I was informed yesterday by an unimpeachable source that I had erred in this original note when I casually referred to Greenland as a “colony” of Denmark. Greenland is not a Danish colony; it is actually a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, although Denmark handles Greenland’s foreign policy and defense, and Greenland relies heavily on Denmark’s financial support, education and health care.

The record – at least on Greenland’s legal status, and at least in these pages – is now clear. 😊

Now, let’s brace for today’s rollercoaster ride.

A Greenland Checkmate – If NATO Nations Stand Fast

Clearly, a blizzard of impressions arise regarding the United States’ recent incursion into Venezuela, its capture and extraction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and what might come next. This note isn’t about that. (Some day, there may be a lengthy post on Venezuela that that tries your resolve and eyesight.) That said, there is one point to be made here about the Venezuelan raid that is relevant to what follows: President Donald Trump’s comment not long after the raid, reported by multiple credible sources, that “many” Cubans were killed in the process of capturing Mr. Maduro. (The Cuban government later indicated that 32 Cuban military personnel were killed.)

So much for the Cubans. From both domestic political and geopolitical perspectives, nobody in America cares about dead Cuban soldiers.

This is about Greenland, the world’s largest island, sitting in the Western Hemisphere mostly within the Arctic Circle, a colony of Denmark – a member of NATO — since before the United States declared its independence from Great Britain. As all who care are aware, given the Trump Regime’s repeated threats in recent weeks to capture Greenland by force if the Danes, Greenlanders, and other NATO nations are unwilling to voluntarily accede to the United States’ usurpation, some eight members of NATO have responded by stationing troops in Greenland on the professed pretext of assuring Mr. Trump that the island is safe from Mr. Trump’s expressed fears of a Russian or Chinese invasion (a completely fabricated concern; Vladimir Putin has his hands full in Ukraine and Xi Jinping is eyeing Taiwan; neither has imminent plans to invade a NATO territory now significantly less strategic to him), while clearly signaling their intent to militarily resist any assault on Greenland by American troops. Today, Mr. Trump will be in Davos, Switzerland, at the world’s most renowned annual meeting of political and financial bigwigs. If credible reporting is accurate, Mr. Trump plans to pressure NATO leaders to enable him to assume control of Greenland.

Make no mistake. I remain a foreign policy disciple of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, and there is a lot to be said about securing Greenland’s strategic position for all of NATO as well for the United States in areas such as missile paths, emerging commercial waterways, and rare earth minerals, most of which you already know, much and perhaps all of which could be achieved through deft diplomacy. There is also a lot to say about Mr. Trump’s increasing erraticism and seeming detachment from reality as he completes the first year of his second term (there does seem to be something that’s changed in the President’s behavior in the last several months – even by the standards we judge him — beyond his aging reversion), but perhaps we’ll get back to that in a future post. The focus here is on the impending – and extraordinarily silly, if the matter wasn’t so serious — military crisis brought about by the Regime’s thuggish, blatantly illegal approach to wrest control of Greenland from Denmark. I was initially frustrated by the NATO nations’ response to the Regime’s bellicose overtures – to the effect that aggressive action by the Regime “would mean the end of NATO” – because such tepid responses seemed to indicate an obliviousness to the reality that Mr. Trump wants to destroy NATO, and to invite a Greenland assault would provide him a way to do so. I have since been incredibly encouraged by the NATO nations’ stationing of troops in Greenland. The question now is whether the NATO leaders have the internal fortitude to stand up to Mr. Trump’s formidable personal pressure. If they do, I would submit that no matter how outraged Mr. Trump may be – unless he is now truly delusional, which one can no longer rule out – he will see that he has been checkmated.

The bulk of this note addresses somewhat antiseptically the domestic political ramifications Mr. Trump may face if he orders a military assault on Greenland – how such an order might affect him, which is all he cares about. What can’t be ignored at the outset are the moral, legal, and potentially tragic personal consequences of what would be a deranged order to invade the island: Denmark and Greenland control Greenland. They have for centuries. We don’t. We’ve offered to take control of the island. (If they were willing, I’d support it.) They’ve said no. There is no legal or moral gray area. In a civilized world, that is the end of the story. As to the potential personal consequences: As the NATO nations with troops in Greenland make clear their readiness to confront any offensive American assault, I am outraged and terrified for the American troops and for the NATO troops — who have each sworn to serve their nations and NATO as a whole – whose lives may be forfeit, as was National Guardsman U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom’s to a Trump Regime publicity stunt, to Mr. Trump’s attempt to fulfill a totalitarian vision of hemispheric conquest which can no longer be distinguished from the Nazis’ 1930s claims of their need for Lebensraum (“Living Space”). (Don’t forget the President’s ongoing references to Canada, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s current spirited defense of Greenland. Mr. Carney clearly recognizes that if Greenland falls – I deliberately use a wartime battle reference – Canada is next.)

Credible polls indicate that an overwhelming majority of Americans – including an unusually notable segment of Mr. Trump’s hardcore base — think his designs on Greenland are completely unwarranted. Although many of these Americans may not have cared about dead Cubans, and may not understand the importance of preserving NATO for America’s security, I would submit that they will care about dead Danes, dead Canadians, dead Brits, dead French, dead Germans, dead Swedes, dead Finns, and dead Norwegians (I may be leaving a nation out; if so, I apologize) if we launch a military assault against an ally when we are so clearly in the wrong.

And much more than that: they will most certainly will care about dead Americans. NATO troops know how to shoot. I suspect that in the Greenland meetings taking place this week, one or more of the NATO leaders will make it clear to Mr. Trump — make it, as they say, crystal: If the United States makes an aggressive incursion into Greenland, there will be dead Americans.

A second factor with which Mr. Trump should be considering when pondering his malign invasion: that Congressional Democrats’ recent video reminding American military personnel about their obligation to disregard illegal orders, taken together with the Regime’s vitriolic counterattacks against those members, have made every U.S. service member acutely aware of his/her oath to disregard illegal orders. Any order to invade Greenland – an ally — will place all American troops, from commander to grunt, in a grotesquely unjust ethical quandary. If Mr. Trump orders the invasion, how many will demur? Aside from the troops’ dilemma, Mr. Trump should realize from his own self-interest – again, all he cares about — that if he loses command of the military, his presidency is effectively emasculated.

The first dead American in Greenland – and perhaps even the first dead NATO soldier – will not only mean the end of NATO; I will venture that it will mean the end of Mr. Trump’s presidency (although it may be the beginning of his dictatorship). Some Americans will reflexively jump to an “America, Right or Wrong” stance; I submit that the a vast majority will not. The domestic paroxysm resulting from a Greenland invasion added to the continuing protests related to Renee Good’s killing and ICE’s brutal immigration enforcement activities will inflame protests and violent skirmishes across this country.

Unless Mr. Trump is willing to go the final mile – declare Martial Law, and declare himself a de facto dictator (again, assuming that the American military will even follow him) — a united NATO front in Davos will effectively checkmate his designs in Greenland. I understand the NATO leaders’ continuous coddling of this President Manchild; they have seen it as their best approach to ensure that he continues to provide his lukewarm assistance to their efforts to support Ukraine. That said – and I suspect that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would agree – no amount of appeasement will deter Mr. Trump from abandoning NATO and Ukraine if he gets it in his head to do so, and NATO leaders’ obsequiousness regarding Greenland is at least as likely to encourage Mr. Trump’s arbitrary abandonment of Ukraine as deter it. I would further venture that Mr. Trump’s tariff threats against these NATO nations are strategically toothless. He can tariff these NATO nations all he wants; but for a very brief respite in the 1990s through the early 2000s, they have lived under the threat of Nazi and then Soviet/Russian aggression since 1933. Given principles of sovereignty and democracy as fundamental as exist here, tariffs are not going to cow them. (Any Supreme Court decision hereafter holding that Mr. Trump cannot use tariffs to effect his whimsical non-economic initiatives will obviously sharpen an impending Constitutional crisis.) Politically, these democratic NATO leaders can blame America for their citizens’ ensuing economic hardships, and their citizens will support them.

In the last months, I have obviously made a number of provocative comparisons between the designs and actions of the Trump Regime and past autocratic regimes, mostly in reference to the Regime’s ICE forces’ immigration enforcement measures. It is clear that the Regime’s autocratic inclinations do not stop within our borders. Although I could cite a dozen of Mr. Trump’s own comments to make the point, instead I’ll quote comments about Greenland made by Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller a couple of weeks ago. As all who care are already aware, Mr. Miller, who wields tremendous influence in the White House, said the following in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper:

“Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland. … We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

Compare that to the following:

“In this case we must not let political boundaries obscure for us the boundaries of eternal justice. … [L]et us be given the soil we need for our livelihood. True, [the nations possessing the land we covet] will not willing do this. But then the law of self-preservation goes into effect; and what is refused to amicable methods, it is up to the fist to take.”

Who do you think said that? (I know; I made it too easy.)

Adolf Hitler; Mein Kampf, Vol I, Ch. IV

In an earlier note, I commented that there was a lot to unpack in the Greenland situation; I was referring to the various substantive geopolitical issues related to the island. In the context in which we are now speaking, there is very little to unpack: there is right, and there is wrong. My use of the checkmate analogy in this note is also arguably inapposite: chess is an intellectual, antiseptic exercise; a player readily sacrifices pawns to win the game. What we are facing here is not antiseptic. It is about sovereignty and the rule of law. It is about the potential sacrifice of innocent lives. If Mr. Trump comes to understand this week that forces are resolutely arrayed against him, may he have enough remaining sense of reason – I have no illusions that he has any sense of humanity – to stand down.

We’ll see what happens.

They Ignored Samuel

I have mentioned here several times since President Donald Trump was reelected that I assumed that Mr. Trump and his cohort recognized that on their best day, they only had the support of half of the American public, and understood that they would need to employ the Nazi model of the 1930s to quickly consolidate their control of our country if they were going to be able to reshape it to their vision. More recently, I offered that through its deployment of National Guard and active military troops to “Blue Cities” and its intimidating immigration tactics, the Trump Regime might initially have been attempting to subdue the citizens who oppose it by employing the war strategy of ancient Chinese General and Philosopher Sun Tzu, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” Yet more recently and a bit whimsically, I suggested that the then-seemingly-mixed signals from the Regime perhaps offered a dark silver-lining hope that Mr. Trump wasn’t going to use the powers of the presidency to impose a dictatorship but to merely achieve the goal of the fictional Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man of Broadway and Hollywood – i.e., enrich himself and his family at the expense of the gullible who believed in him before departing the scene, but leaving our democracy intact if battered.

The Regime’s actions since the killing of Renee Good have made clear: that Mr. Trump and his acolytes recognize that their best day is past. And that the strategy urged by Sun Tzu is not achievable.

And that he’s not the Music Man.

The Regime has intensified its brutal immigration enforcement tactics in Minneapolis, and ICE agents have felt emboldened by the Regime’s aggressive defense of the killer’s actions. The Regime’s Department of Justice has announced that it will not initiate an investigation into whether Ms. Good’s civil rights were violated. Six Minneapolis-based federal prosecutors have resigned over an expressed Justice Department intent to investigate Ms. Good’s widow and the department’s unwillingness to investigate the shooter. On January 14, there was a second ICE shooting in Minneapolis. Credible outlets are reporting that there are now 3,000 ICE agents in Minneapolis, as contrasted with 600 police officers who are generally available to provide public safety for the area. Unrest in Minneapolis has been increasing as state and city officials plead for calm; even so, credible sources also report that the Justice Department is planning to issue subpoenas to MN Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey in a criminal probe alleging that they are obstructing federal law enforcement.

You don’t need me to draw a better picture for you.

I haven’t seen any federal officials pleading for calm. They want this. They want to assert their power against those whom they consider their enemies – their fellow citizens.

At the time this is typed, the President of the United States is threatening to invoke the federal Insurrection Act, which, among other provisions, authorizes the president to deploy U.S. active military against American citizens, “Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.” Let it be stated plainly: Anyone suggesting that such an extensive ICE presence in Minneapolis is required to enforce our immigration laws is either a fool or a knave. If Mr. Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, he will, through the unnecessary deployment of ICE agents to Minneapolis and their Nazi Sturmabteilung-like activities, have incited the very unrest that he will cite under the Act as enabling him to deploy our military forces against American citizens. Such an invocation under the circumstances he has created will be none other than a fascist exertion of power.

Neither Adolf Hitler nor Vladimir Putin could be orchestrating this any more effectively.

[Since I think that immigration has actually become a pretext – a means for the Regime to force a confrontation with those it perceives as its enemies, rather than an end – this is admittedly an aside, but one expressed here just as aptly as in any other post, regarding the far right’s so-called “Replacement Theory”: You show me a white, male, English-speaking, sexually-straight Christian American citizen who isn’t savvy enough to realize that being a white, male, English-speaking, sexually-straight Christian American citizen is still the demographically best thing to be in America, and I’ll show you a gullible, aggrieved, excuse-ridden, white, male, English-speaking, sexually-straight Christian American citizen who wouldn’t be successful in America even if this nation consisted entirely of white, English-speaking, sexually-straight Christian American citizens. The suspicion lurks that many of the Regime’s ICE agents now roaming Minneapolis fit into this category, and that these men, given a meaning and an “other” to hate, provide the Regime with an informal paramilitary force that can be readily deployed against anyone that the Regime perceives as its enemy.

And … as long as we’re clearing the decks. After listening to Trump supporters at Trump rallies wearing MAGA hats, T-shirts bearing Mr. Trump’s picture, and American flag pants covering their behinds, loudly proclaim for a decade that Mr. Trump “Tells the Truth – Tells It Like It Is,” … let’s … for once … Tell the Truth, Tell It Like It Is: Unless you’ve already got a million bucks in the bank, Mr. Trump has done nothing for you. He’s conned you. You think that because he hates those you hate, he respects you. He doesn’t. He has nothing but contempt for you. He thinks you’re suckers. He doesn’t give a damn about you. Those of you whom he has pardoned for January 6^th crimes may think he did so out of kinship, or perhaps due a shred of guilt because you went to jail and he didn’t for an insurrection he incited, but I would submit that he did so because he wants you free to be riot fodder the next time he stages an unconstitutional coup to stay in power.]

We need not list other recent Regime violations of our democratic order. If you’re reading this note, you can name a dozen or more such activities – those more recent seemingly even more aggravated than those earlier – that I could list here. [I deliberately defer to a future post the Regime’s bellicose (a word derived from the Latin bellum, meaning “war”) statements regarding its intent to usurp Greenland. There’s a lot to unpack there.]

I admit to extreme exasperation with media commentators’ continued somber descriptions of the Regime’s autocratic actions while they simultaneously intone about how the Regime’s actions are going to result in a Democratic takeover of at least one House of Congress in 2027. I find their nonsequitous observations almost as aggravating as I find the Regime’s autocratic policies terrifying. I would submit that the Regime’s actions have made clear that when pushed to the wall, it will not allow for free and fair elections, or nor willingly relinquish power. Not in 2026; not in 2028; not ever.

Mr. Trump and his minions are no fools. Credible reporting indicates that they are well aware that his approval ratings are plummeting. Given their seemingly unalterable course, no bettor would wager that his approval ratings will substantially rise between now and November. As I’ve mentioned here before, when in a contest always assume that the other guy (in a genderless sense) is at least as bright as you are, and knows at least as much about the given circumstances as you do. In this case, add another factor: the other guy is completely unscrupulous. I mentioned in a recent post a number of the tactics that the Regime might take to ward off a Democratic takeover of a House of Congress, including purging of Democratic-leaning voter rolls and voter (particularly Latino voter) intimidation, perhaps culminating – if polling near the election projects truly dire electoral results for the Regime – in consideration of a declaration of Martial Law to suspend elections. (Indeed, earlier this week, when asked about his falling poll numbers, Mr. Trump told Reuters, “When you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election,” – a statement quickly taken back by the White House Communications Team.) But I ignorantly left one out, which was in effect also recently suggested by Mr. Trump himself in a New York Times interview: seizing voting machines after the election in swing Congressional districts (which Republicans now seem destined to lose) — presumably based upon what will be, if past is prologue, bogus claims of voter fraud.

I recently had a friend tell me that it’s an embarrassment to be an American. What does one say?

My exasperation with media commentators’ seemingly (at least, on-air) obliviousness to the authoritarian threat that Mr. Trump poses to our election and democracy is, I admit, exceeded by my frustration with the marginal Trump voters who put him in the White House despite the fact – I realize I am obsessing – that he told us what he was going to do. In a note posted here not long after Mr. Trump reassumed the presidency, I ventured, “Although we will never know … it would seem worthy of betting a dollar that each of the following will occur: the impoverished mother, who voted for Mr. Trump because of the price of eggs, who loses her SNAP payments; the elderly farmer, who voted for Mr. Trump because he hates the Woke, who has a family member die because the hospital formerly nearest to him closed for lack of Medicaid revenue; the Latino male, who wouldn’t vote for a woman, who watches undocumented family members deported, never to be seen again; and the black male, who voted for Mr. Trump because he was so manly, who is gunned down somewhere by some police officer emboldened by Trump rhetoric.” [I now realize that I could have added, but didn’t: and the Wall Street trader, so obsessed with tax cuts, further Trump deregulation and short term market performance, who didn’t see that the foundation of American financial economic credibility and stability would be damaged by Mr. Trump’s stated intent to (and/or the blatantly obvious likelihood that he would) extend the 2017 Trump tax cut (thereby unnecessarily exponentially increasing the federal debt), and impose idiotic tariffs, bully the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, and intimidate federal financial analysts into manipulating economic data (thereby accelerating inflation and undermining business and investor confidence)].

In a note posted here not long before the election, I observed: “[If Mr. Trump wins the election], [a]t some point [thereafter], some of the citizens who vote for Mr. Trump this November will say, ‘This is wrong. This is too much. I never intended this.’ By that time, it will be too late. In this context, the shame will be on them, not on him; he has made his designs perfectly plain [Emphasis in Original].”

What Trump voters wanted was a king to rule them, to fight their battles; a Messiah, to make it all better.

As many are aware, Catholic Masses are said around the world every day of the year. Each parish employs exactly the same Scriptural passages in that day’s Masses, translated into the native language of the given congregation. This is the first reading for yesterday’s Masses, from the First Book of Samuel:

“All the elders of Israel came in a body to Samuel at Ramah
and said to him, ‘Now that you are old,
and your sons do not follow your example,
appoint a king over us, as other nations have, to judge us.’

Samuel was displeased when they asked for a king to judge them.
He prayed to the LORD, however, who said in answer:

‘Grant the people’s every request.
It is not you they reject, they are rejecting me as their king.’

Samuel delivered the message of the LORD in full
to those who were asking him for a king.

He told them:

‘The rights of the king who will rule you will be as follows:
He will take your sons and assign them to his chariots and horses,
and they will run before his chariot.
He will also appoint from among them his commanders of groups
of a thousand and of a hundred soldiers.
He will set them to do his plowing and his harvesting,
and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots.
He will use your daughters as ointment makers, as cooks, and as bakers.
He will take the best of your fields, vineyards, and olive groves,
and give them to his officials.
He will tithe your crops and your vineyards,
and give the revenue to his eunuchs and his slaves.
He will take your male and female servants,
as well as your best oxen and your asses,
and use them to do his work.
He will tithe your flocks and you yourselves will become his slaves.
When this takes place,
you will complain against the king whom you have chosen,
but on that day the LORD will not answer you.’

The people, however, refused to listen to Samuel’s warning and said,

‘Not so! There must be a king over us.
We too must be like other nations,
with a king to rule us and to lead us in warfare
and fight our battles.’

When Samuel had listened to all the people had to say,
he repeated it to the LORD, who then said to him,

‘Grant their request and appoint a king to rule them.’

1 Samuel 8:47, 10 – 22a

Of course, by this time you have realized that this post is titled misleadingly 😉. Samuel was only the Messenger. It wasn’t Samuel’s warning they ignored.

At this moment, all Americans, no matter whom they voted for, and the many millions across the globe whose lives are affected by the American election but didn’t get to choose, are — as did the Elders’ sons, daughters, and servants, not only the Elders themselves – reaping the whirlwind of a gross miscalculation by the decisive segment of tragically deluded American voters last November.

I would submit – at least as of today; events in Minneapolis, or the high likelihood of provocative clashes between Trump forces and protestors during the upcoming summer months, could quickly alter this calculus — that there is still a decent distance for those who believe in American democracy to save it. It may not be a question of how far the Trump Regime is willing to go, but for how long and how far our professional armed forces will follow it. However, if citizens who believe in American democracy don’t recognize and lay plans to contest Mr. Trump’s telegraphed intent to intrude upon our voting processes to maintain control of the government, we have significantly less hope of avoiding its execution.

Let’s hope that we can still find our way – but it is imperative that we remain peaceful.

On the Killing of Renee Good

As we barrel toward the first anniversary of President Donald Trump’s second term of office, we are in an accelerating downward maelstrom of lawless thuggery. Although one must pause and say that a full, competent, and impartial investigation into an ICE agent’s January 7^th shooting and killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis needs to be completed before accurate conclusions can be drawn, by this time all who care have seen video – which, crucially, as far as I am aware, no one is claiming has been doctored – strongly appearing to indicate that before the shooting, one masked ICE agent forcibly attempted to open Ms. Good’s car door while a second masked ICE agent (the shooter) first inappropriately positioned himself in front of Ms. Good’s vehicle, was then able to successfully move himself to the driver’s side of the vehicle away from any risk of being hit, and then fired at point blank range into Ms. Good through an open driver’s door window. At the time this is typed, the Trump Regime is spreading fabrications justifying the agents’ actions that are blatantly at odds with the video. (One can hardly blame them; since they have been able to convince their gullible supporters that the January 6^th insurrection at the nation’s Capitol was a patriotic lovefest, it’s clear that these vacuous citizens can be made to believe anything.) Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem, standing before cameras in her tight little jeans and a ridiculous cowboy hat, was spouting misinformation about the incident seemingly before they got Ms. Good’s body out of the car. Somebody had to wake Mr. Trump up so he could echo her lies in a social media post. I have seen reports from credible sources that Vice President J.D. Vance has vociferously defended ICE and criticized Ms. Good. (I admit that I haven’t heard Mr. Vance’s comments directly; I no longer have the internal fortitude for listening to lying lickspittles.) We have seen an example of the Trump Administration’s Nazi Sturmabteilung-like activities in full fly. ICE agents clearly feel unrestrained, empowered by the Regime’s lawless culture.

Ms. Good was a U.S. citizen. Something the networks we watch have been too politically correct to state directly: Ms. Good was blonde, white woman in the middle of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Not that it should matter, but these ICE agents had to recognize that demographically, the chances that she was an illegal alien were miniscule. It is not hard to conclude that Ms. Good panicked when she was aggressively approached by the masked ICE agents. Those reading these notes who know me are well aware that I am predominately of ethnic Irish descent and if provoked, my temper can sometimes accelerate … well … rapidly. If I had a goon trying to rip open my car door, I might well have done exactly what Ms. Good did – actively resist a masked man’s attempt to enter my vehicle. Even if prior to the confrontation she had been acting in a manner less than supportive of ICE activities, that should not have gotten her killed – not in America.

Based upon my legal training and high regard for our justice system, in less fraught times I would caution that we should await the outcome of the current investigation of the incident before forming firm conclusions. Given accounts that the Regime’s FBI has taken over the investigation and shut out local Minnesota investigators, it takes little prescience to predict that the findings rendered will be a complete whitewash of ICE. There will never be a full, competent, impartial investigation of this incident unless Democrats gain control of either House of Congress in 2026 and thereafter choose to hold hearings.

Ms. Good was an American citizen who didn’t have to die, killed by American federal officials sponsored by an American Regime that has glorified Ashli Babbitt, the insurrectionist rioter killed during the January 6, 2021, assault as she tried to break into a Congressional Chamber. That same Cabal is now in the process of canonizing the ICE agent who killed Ms. Good by what was at the very least a questionable use of lethal force — while simultaneously demonizing Ms. Good.

[An aside: it’s possible that the shooter agent, whom it has been claimed had recently suffered a physically and emotionally wrenching experience on the job (I believe nothing that the Regime says that cannot be confirmed by credible sources), also reflexively panicked as Ms. Good’s car moved toward him. If such is indeed the case, one can have personal sympathy for an individual who was perhaps placed back in the field too soon, and whose life – under normal circumstances – would now also be forfeit to the Administration’s propaganda designed, Sturmabteilung-like activities; but as severe as it sounds – we have a family member in law enforcement, and well recognize that in our sheltered lives we have no real understanding of the dangers members of law enforcement face regularly — cops (speaking generically) don’t get the luxury of panicking. It is part of their job not to panic.]

Despite the continuing reports of the Regime’s brutal immigration enforcement tactics, had you been feeling pretty safe as an upstanding, likely white, U.S citizen? Get over it, my friend. If they are willing to say black is white with regard to this shooting despite the clear videographic evidence, all camouflage of due process under law has been shed. What do you think they’re going to do if some ICE agent simply decides to shoot you in the face at point-blank range while you’re peacefully protesting in the future against ICE or other Trump activities?

I acknowledge that the occasional references to Nazi Germany in this and recent notes regarding the Trump Administration are provocative; I consider the Regime’s actions to warrant them. I would suggest – and indeed did so in these pages, at the time – that there were reflections of the mid-1930s Germany becoming ever more apparent in Mr. Trump’s and his minions’ inclinations during the last 18 months of his first term; I would submit that their actions during this go-around have turned those reflections into neon banners. Too harsh? Don’t take my word for it. Read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer – which I believe is still considered, despite the hundreds of thousands of works completed on the Nazis over the last 80 years, to be the definitive work on Nazi Germany – and decide for yourself.

This is the point in a note where I would normally indicate that you should exercise your right as an American to peacefully protest. Today I would qualify that. Anyone who does elect to protest needs to remain peaceful; otherwise, all is lost practically as well as morally. But as to whether to protest: if you have children (or others depending on you) at home as Ms. Good did, and think any protest you might be considering attending will place you in close proximity to ICE or other federal agents, STAY HOME. Your responsibilities are there. Teach your children how American Constitutional democracy was intended to work. Leave the peaceful protesting to geezers like me whom we can afford to lose.

Stay well.

The Year of Decision Ahead

No, this will not be our year of decision. We had our year of decision in 2024, and it appears tenable to maintain, based upon recent credible polls setting forth our citizens’ collective assessment of President Donald Trump’s performance in what has essentially been the first full year of his second term, that a solid majority of us — including a notable segment of lukewarm Trump voters who believed that he would improve their financial circumstances and be judicious in his immigration enforcement – is currently of the persuasion that we fu… er … fouled up. Knowing what we as a people know today, if a presidential election was held tomorrow, I’m not sure that former Vice President Kamala Harris would beat Mr. Trump – I fear that the prejudices of some against a female candidate of color might, despite everything, still be too strong – but I’d wager that former President Joe Biden would win — that faced with the stark choice of selecting a president either unnervingly infirm or capriciously malevolent, a majority of Americans in the swing states would prefer a grandfather figurehead to what we’ve wrought. But let’s start with the image I consider the best depiction of what I consider Mr. Trump and his regime to have done to America’s democracy at home and standing around the world during 2025; we’ll talk about what 2026 might hold on the other side.

Batman (1989): Joker Museum Scene

So … on to 2026. I am not going to try your eyesight by repeating a litany of pontifications I have made before; let’s just look at the record. Suffice it to say that if, as I believe, it is beyond Mr. Trump’s capacity to radically change his direction in the coming year, we will see more untoward monarchial ostentatiousness and self-aggrandizement, continued blatant disregard for and failure to address the financial stresses of about 80% of Americans (including millions of Trump supporters) (as overall American economic indicators and the financial markets rise, and the fortunes of the top financially secure 20% of Americans continue to multiply), continued brutally-indiscriminate immigration enforcement, continued blatant failure to meaningfully address healthcare access and healthcare cost concerns for millions of Americans (the majority of whom are Trump supporters), continued claims that Americans’ troubles are caused by something President Barack Obama did in 2009 or Mr. Biden did in 2021, continued rigid adherence to unpopular tariff policies and pressure for lower interest rates (which will seemingly collectively increase inflationary pressures on the 80% who are most adversely affected by it), continued purging of federal expertise and resources that it took us over a century to build, continued denial of scientific realities such as vaccine therapies and climate change (leading to outbreaks of diseases seemingly vanquished decades ago and once-in-a-century environmental disasters now occurring annually 😉), increased efforts to manipulate federal statistics that reflect badly on the Administration, increased deployment of National Guard and active U.S. military to locations of increased demonstrations against Administration policies, continued concessions to Middle East nations whose leaders ensure that the Trump Family’s personal financial coffers are enriched, continued erratic foreign policy forays (offending at the same time those Americans who believe in a strategic American foreign policy, and his isolationist MAGA supporters), continued transparent attempts to abandon NATO and Ukraine to Russia (at the same time thereby emboldening acquisitive dictators, offending allies upon whom we rely to aid our defense, those of us at home who believe in a strategic American world presence, and – wait for it – even his isolationist MAGA supporters, whom polls show nonetheless overwhelmingly hate Vladimir Putin), continued pursuit of criminal prosecutions against those he considers his political enemies, continued demonization of those he perceives as his opponents and/or unacceptably unclean (i.e., anybody not white, Christian, and sexually straight) and merciless retribution on those, no matter how previously slavishly supportive of him, whom the President of the United States perceives as being becoming insufficiently loyal.

I know, I know. Did I really have to remind you? Didn’t many of us just get done singing, “Silent Night”?

By this time, I’m sure you’ve already thought of several I’ve overlooked.

At one level, you’ve got to give the Bugger credit. He’s accomplished a lot in a year, hasn’t he?

Let’s look forward.

In response to my inquiry, the now ever-present “AI Overview” indicates that since 1980, a sitting president’s party has lost an average of 20 seats in the House of Representatives in the midterm elections following his inauguration. In 2010, the first midterm after Mr. Obama’s inauguration, Democrats lost over 50; in 2018, the first midterm after Mr. Trump’s first inauguration, Republicans lost over 40. In our increasingly gerrymandered and hyper-toxic political climate – and because I believe that Mr. Trump’s popularity won’t sink much lower; it’s already about down to its unshakeable, rock-hard foundation — it is hard to believe that Republicans will lose as many House seats as they did in 2018. I have seen credible commentators indicate that House Republicans themselves currently – a huge qualifier – consider 15 to 25 of their members at serious risk of defeat. At least under the way American democracy has traditionally worked, if Democrats do grasp firm command of the House in 2027, for the last two years of the President’s term they will have the opportunity to politically neutralize him and his minions by passing populist measures that the Administration will reject; if Mr. Trump comes to be seen both as a lame duck generally and a political albatross for Congressional Republicans, they will magically transform from figurative lemmings (who in reality have more sense than they’re given credit for) to rats (who are indeed savvy survivors) fleeing a sinking ship. (Of course, this is assuming that Congressional Democrats have the political skill to effectively exploit any leverage they acquire. You can take that one.)

[An aside: in a note a while back on the most recent NO KINGS rallies, I indicated that Republican U.S. WI Rep. Brian Steil, who represents the Wisconsin First Congressional District, won his 2024 race by 2 points, and suggested that Mr. Steil was clearly politically endangered if there was indeed a “Democratic Wave” in 2026. When looking at the statistics from Mr. Steil’s race, I clearly read the wrong column; he won by 12 points in 2024. One has to assume that the Democratic Wave would have to be a tsunami for him to lose his seat. On the other hand, his Republican colleague, U.S. WI Rep. Derrick Van Orden representing the Wisconsin Third Congressional District, did, as I indicated in that same note, win his seat by about 3 points in 2024, and must be feeling a little uneasy at present.]

All that said, we’re back to the First Negotiation Strategy Commandment: Always assume that the other guy (in a genderless sense) is at least as bright as you are, and knows at least as much about the given circumstances as you do.

Mr. Trump and his people can read polls. That’s why at least the initial pivotal decisions next year will be theirs, not ours. The President’s advisors could attempt to correct course — try to get Mr. Trump to act less … Trump-like. (There is an eon of time before the midterms, as the late Marquette University Basketball Coach Al McGuire might say; President George H. W. Bush’s popularity was over 50% exactly one year before the 1992 election, and he still lost. Popularity can just as readily go up as down.) I am pretty sure that they are too smart for that. Although Mr. Trump could be saved from his ways in spite of himself – e.g., the economy could inexplicably improve for the financially stressed 80%, or he could get credit for reducing Americans healthcare concerns because enough House Republicans, to save their own political skins and despite Mr. Trump, work with House Democrats to restore Affordable Care Act subsidies — it is blatantly obvious to all with the IQ of a rock that Mr. Trump is viscerally incapable of changing his ways. So unless Mr. Trump receives unexpected political gifts that he doesn’t himself earn, one can seemingly confidently assume that the President’s advisors recognize that if they hope to stave off a Democratic House takeover in 2027, they will need to go on the offensive with division, distraction, intimidation, and lies:

Assume that there will be fears expressed in each of the districts currently represented by politically imperiled Congressional Republicans that a male highschooler transitioning to female is considering joining their girls high school basketball team. It won’t matter that the young person may have no more interest in hitting nor ability to hit a free throw than I do.

Assume that the Haitians in Springfield, OH, will be claimed to be resuming their diet of cats and dogs, joined by Somalis in Minneapolis.

Assume that mountains of federal largesse will suddenly be voted by the Republican Congress for these imperiled Republicans’ districts.

Assume that every murder in a “Blue City” will be reported endlessly in alt-right media following the event – the more heinous the act, the longer the coverage. They’ll get bonus points if the murder is committed by an immigrant or a person of color.

Assume that unprecedented amounts of campaign contributions will shower upon these 25 districts.

Assume an exponential increase of baseless claims of potential voter fraud.

Assume an aggressive effort to purge certain liberal-profile voters from critical districts’ registered rolls.

Assume unprecedented voter intimidation tactics; specifically, assume that ICE will make clear its intent to be in as close a proximity to polling places of heavily Latino swing districts as the law will allow – and that ICE will be stopping all of Latin descent to check their identifications as they attempt to enter and/or exit the polling place perimeter.

Assume lawsuits seeking to limit the times and places that voters can cast their ballots.

Assume that those who follow alt-right media will continue to live in their own alternate reality. We have Fox News Channel on our cable package. Although I can’t stomach it, TLOML will occasionally switch over when CNN is broadcasting an event or major story which tends to reflect badly on the Regime. Fox is NEVER covering it, at least while she is tuned in.

If as of the beginning of October, 2026, credible polls indicate that the above and like efforts seem unlikely to prevent a Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives, expect:

An October surprise. It could involve foreign policy, but more likely a bribe like a $250 “Trump 250^Th Bonus” to every American.

That the Regime will at least consider establishing a pretext to declare Martial Law and suspend elections.

Expecting a more comforting message as we begin the New Year? In what I hope is one of the few areas I share with Mr. Trump, you can’t say that I didn’t let you know what I was thinking. 😉 The religious days of the Holidays are over. The maxim, “Forewarned is forearmed,” is so common that it isn’t even attributed to anybody. (I actually checked.) While I have faith that the Almighty has provided many ways to achieve tranquility in the next life, I would submit that He (using a male pronoun for a genderless being) leaves it up to us to maintain – always peacefully — our tranquility in this one (although I do have faith that He’ll give us a little help if we ask for it 😊). Fortunately, as citizens of the United States of America, we still retain peaceful means to maintain the rights that the Founding Fathers envisioned for us a quarter of a millennium ago. I do believe that Americans who embrace the message of Thomas Jefferson – that all of us of every persuasion should have an equal opportunity to have a say in our nation’s future, and contribute to and be part of the promise of America – can make a comeback this year. So be ready for anything, and make your voice heard throughout the coming year. I do believe that such will make a difference – if in no other way, through the reinforcement of others. There is strength in numbers.

So maybe we do have decisions to make about what we do this year, after all. There is comfort in that.

Happy New Year.

Ketchup on Vichyssoise

May the Chair grant me a moment of personal privilege?

You know, I’d like to like exotic fish dishes and French cuisine; I really would. (Doesn’t it make you feel classy to say words like, “Vichyssoise”?) I just don’t. I like hot dogs with ketchup, steak, pizza, Wisconsin fish fries, and scrambled eggs with bacon (crispy) and hash browns (well done). I just do.

In fact, I seemingly mostly like the food that President Donald Trump is reported to like.

That said, I don’t see a need to rename New York City’s Le Bernardin, “IHOP Bernardin,” or Chicago’s Le Bouchon, “McDonald’s Bouchon.”

You know, I’d like to have a broader taste in music. I’d like to like opera. I just don’t – they’re literally not speaking my language. I’d like to like classical music – I even put it on for a while, while I exercised, thinking it would grow on me – but it didn’t and I don’t. I know millions of Americans like country music; I don’t like twang, and don’t get excited about the fact that you hankered to be a cowboy, your woman left you, your truck broke down, and your dog died. I don’t like rap music, and am pretty sure that I wouldn’t be that moved by your message even if I could make out a single word of you’re saying. I’m a Beatles Baby Boomer. I like soft rock, Muzak, and now in my later years – wait for it – Frank and Tony Bennett. I just do.

That doesn’t mean that I see a need to rename the Metropolitan Opera House, “The Metropolitan Easy Listenin’ Opera House,” or The Grand Ole Opry, “The Deuter Grand Ole Opry,” or Rapper Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club – I bet you’re impressed I have even heard of Jay-Z – “Sinatra’s 40/40.”

You know where I’m going with this. Although there are occasions for formal dress and for cargo pants, they don’t belong together. “The Donald Trump and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts”? Putting aside the fact that there are too many “The’s” there, you’ve got to know your place, man. Even I know that you don’t dump ketchup on fine French cuisine.

Mr. Trump continues to revert. He has spent his entire adult life putting his name on buildings, seemingly thinking it will bring him immortality — that it’ll mean that we’ll have to remember him when he’s gone — that he won’t simply … disappear. This fear, this preservation instinct, is arguably becoming more acute as he manifestly physically degrades and his popularity plummets.

I’ve obviously just taken your time not with a matter of personal privilege, but rather of personal pique, clearly not even remotely related to the areas in which the President poses a true threat to our democracy and those around the world. Even so, Mr. Trump either doesn’t realize – or more likely, refuses to admit to himself – that if our American way of life survives his presidency, before the end of the next President’s first month in office, his name will be stricken from all federal buildings, as were those of the discredited Pharaohs of ancient Egypt.

I Was Actually …

Last night, I did something I almost never do now, to protect my sanity and psychological equilibrium: I actually watched President Donald Trump speak.

Notwithstanding my recent forbearance, I, as you, have seen him speak many times. Many times, I have been infuriated. Many times, I have been terrified. Many times, I have been both.

Last night was different.

As a political junkie, I have been watching Presidents speak for over 60 years. Some have been soaring orators; others, not so much. I have always rated Mr. Trump a compelling if offensive speaker. Even so, his speech last night was, without doubt, the worst Presidential Address I have ever seen. He was the quintessential crazy geezer spouting nonsense as everyone tries to edge away. (I get it; at least you didn’t have to tell me; but I’m not president. 😉) It was … awful.

His “I’m the best, Biden’s the worst, everything I’ve done is good, everything Biden and the radical left has done is bad, this is the greatest anyone has ever seen, this was the worst anyone has ever seen, nobody could believe how great I’ve done” schtick has, until now, been wildly annoying fabrication; this time, it seemed a pathetic careen between delusion and desperation.

I’m the only one either of us know who is enough of an idiot to admit that recently something I said has come back and resonated with me 😉, but it did. In a post about a month ago speculating on Mr. Trump’s ultimate intentions for his Administration, I indicated, “His 2024 campaign was about avoiding jail, making money, and retribution.” The significance of that observation, if true, didn’t strike me until later. All his 2024 campaign may have been about for him was avoiding jail, making money, and retribution. Winning was the thing – his goal would be accomplished the day he won — not governing. While winning undoubtedly is the primary thing – and worrying secondarily about what they’re going to do if they win – is probably true for all major party presidential candidates, I would suggest that for Mr. Trump, winning was the only thing. Granting that he has genuine feelings about a few policy issues – he hates immigrants of color, and loves tariffs, tax cuts, and low interest rates – inflation (now “affordability,” the new buzz word) – the key concern for the decisive segment of voters that put him over the top in 2024 — was just a talking point to him, and he neither knows nor cares what to do about it. Anyone who takes a high school economics class will tell you that tariffs and lower interest rates spur inflation, not squash it, and if our experience through Presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Mr. Trump has proven anything, it’s that cutting tax rates the way they did helps the rich a lot, while the relative pennies that trickle to those of lesser means haven’t come close to counteracting the crippling economic disparity we have seen rise among our people over the last 45 years. When Mr. Trump won, those who voted for him for help on economic issues expected him to help them. For him, when he won, he was done.

An aside, regarding Mr. Trump’s announcement of a $1776 “Warrior Dividend” for, in the President’s words, “every soldier.” In the short time before I turned the TV off, I saw one liberal pundit applaud the move. On a substantive basis, I absolutely support the initiative. (An aside within an aside, from anyone who has taken a sixth grade civics class: “Doesn’t Congress have to approve this ‘Warrior Dividend?’ Answer: Yes; but will any politician from either party running for reelection vote against it? You take that one.) That said, Mr. Trump does nothing that he doesn’t think will benefit him. What I see is White House unease that given the wildly misguided, condescending session Mr. Trump and his moronic Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, recently had with our military’s top officers, and the Administration’s blowing up tiny boats in international waters that many military legal experts have called war crimes – potentially wantonly exposing soldiers who follow those and like orders to later prosecution – the military no longer trusts its the Commander-in-Chief and will not necessarily follow him down questionable paths. He’s trying to buy back its loyalty.

I expected to end last evening infuriated or terrified, perhaps both. There were instead instances at which I laughed out loud at the patent buffoonery, the rapid-fire, scatter-shot, oblivious carnival barker delivery. Not in any way discounting the fact that he remains the most powerful human on earth, or that he has and certainly will continue to try to subvert our democracy for his own gain, I was saddened for those financially stressed Americans who placed their faith in him. For him, I was actually … embarrassed.

On the National Guardsmen Shooting and Its Aftermath

[Note: “Guardsmen” is considered a gender-neutral term by the military, and will be so used here.]

With all of the recent controversy regarding the Trump Administration’s repeated striking of an allegedly drug-running boat in the South Caribbean Sea on September 2, the shootings of National Guardsmen U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, in Washington, D.C. on the day before Thanksgiving have more or less dropped off the news feeds I see. All are aware that Specialist Beckstrom has died. As this is typed, Sgt. Wolfe is reportedly improving despite grievous wounds.

I haven’t forgotten. These shootings continue to resonate with me with a force that I now generally only feel as deeply – a sad reflection of the desensitization seeping into me in our violence-riven society — when hearing of school shootings.

But I’m not only heartbroken. I’m livid.

Because it was so unnecessary. Guardsmen Beckstrom and Wolfe didn’t have to be there. They could have been home celebrating Thanksgiving with their families.

I consider two men responsible for their deaths: Afghani Refugee Rahmanullah Lakanwal; and President Donald Trump.

Make no mistake: Mr. Lakanwal – given the apparently indisputable evidence that he was the perpetrator — pulled the trigger. It makes no difference that he may have saved American lives through his service in Afghanistan, or that he and some similarly-situated Afghanis may not have received as much federal assimilation assistance upon arrival here as might have been preferable, or that he fell prey to radicalization after arriving in this country, or noting any other explanation some rationalizer might attempt to dream up. He killed Specialist Beckstrom. He irrevocably altered Sgt. Wolfe’s life. Assuming that he is found guilty of the shootings after a fair trial according him all the rights to which he is entitled under the United States Constitution, Mr. Lakanwal deserves whatever sentence he receives; if the death penalty is legally rendered, I won’t lose any sleep over it.

That said, I was surprised to see Administration officials so quickly embrace the phrase, “targeted shooting,” to describe Mr. Lakanwal’s act – not because it wasn’t accurate, but because it so clearly was – and as such, a damning indictment of Mr. Trump. Under any reasonable assessment, National Guardsmen – tragically for them, in the persons of Ms. Beckstrom and Mr. Wolfe – were Mr. Lakanwal’s targets. Given the President’s ballyhooed deployment of National Guard to our nation’s capital, media reports of the areas they patrolled, and some simple reconnaissance, any unbalanced individual with much less than Mr. Lakanwal’s military background could easily project when and where Guardsmen would be. These two Guardsmen, walking at midday on a highly-traveled city street blocks from the White House with no indication of imminent danger, were no match for someone with Mr. Lakanwal’s training and experience.

Mr. Lakanwal simply shot the targets set up for him by Donald Trump.

Too harsh, you say? Consider the untaken alternatives: Mr. Lakanwal undoubtedly had hundreds of people in sight between the time he set out that day and the time he opened fire on the Guardsmen. One might surmise that at some point before the incident he had one or more D.C. police officers within easy range, who would have been no more prepared for his sudden assault than the Guardsmen were. He passed them all up to target members of the American military — who were only on that street because they were ordered to take part in what the Trump Administration has called “a crackdown on crime” – i.e., to participate in a quintessentially local law enforcement activity outside their traditional mission as part of an Administration public relations stunt which obviously has as its primary purposes the intimidation of its political opponents and scoring propaganda points with its gullible MAGA base.

So, what of this sacrifice of these two young people who had volunteered to serve their country?

Well, that’s Show Biz.

I would wager that in stationing Guardsmen in “Blue Cities” – largely against the wishes of local officials — Mr. Trump has been hoping for an incident in which cameras caught protestors behaving aggressively toward Guardsmen. I do not believe that he wanted or intended as tragic a result as has occurred – any more than a tavern patron who has had too many drinks wants or intends any automobile accident deaths that s/he ultimately causes – but anyone with the sense God gave a goose could anticipate that what did happen, might happen. In fact, on November 26^th,the New York Times quoted a California National Guardsman indicating, “he and his commanders worried that [their assignment to patrol Los Angeles] ‘increased our risk of us shooting civilians or civilians taking shots at us.’” In the same piece, the Times recorded that last August, Guard commanders involved in its Capital deployments issued communications “… warn[ng] that troops were in a ‘heightened threat environment’ … that ‘nefarious threat actors engaging in grievance based violence, and those inspired by foreign terrorist organizations’ might view the mission ‘as a target of opportunity’ … and that the mission ‘presents an opportunity for criminals, violent extremists, issue motivated groups and lone actors to advance their interests.’” The inherent risk was blatantly obvious. The President and his cohort just didn’t, and don’t, give a damn.

In the days after the incident, I saw reports indicating:

Item: Trump Administration claimed that Mr. Lakanwal was never vetted by the Biden Administration before being allowed to enter the country. This has now been debunked by so many sources – including sources that indicate that Mr. Lakanwal’s latest clearance came this spring, from the Trump Administration – that I don’t know if the Regime is still spouting this; of course, anything is possible from an organization that loudly continued to repeat a uniformly-debunked lie about Springfield, OH, Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs.

Item: The Trump Administration has halted the processing of immigration requests from anyone from Afghanistan. It’s not unreasonable to assume that many of these applicants are seeking refuge after aiding our efforts against the Taliban. I have seen reports that since returning to power, the Taliban has brutally persecuted those Afghanis suspected of assisting us. The Trump Administration halt is a monstrous overreaction to the evil act of one radicalized Afghani, which could well have fatal consequences for thousands of our Afghani associates ultimately abandoned as an outcome of a wrongheaded withdrawal agreement negotiated by the first Trump Administration.

Item: The Trump administration vowed to conduct a sweeping re-examination of “every Green Card” held not only by all Afghanis already admitted to our country but also those held by nationals from almost a score of other Middle Eastern, African and South American countries which the Regime has subjected to a travel ban. I know – I’m wasting my typing and your eyesight to point out that there is no logical link between a tragically-radicalized Afghani and thousands of other immigrants from across the world legally here under other programs. Given the “Ready, Fire, Aim,” Nazi Sturmabteilung approach the Regime has taken to immigration enforcement, perhaps thousands of unquestionably innocent people will be caught up in this surge. To state the obvious: if it proceeds with such an examination, the Regime will simply have used this incident as a pretext for indulging its racial, religious, and political biases.

Item: That the Trump Administration is looking into the possibility of deporting Mr. Lakanwal’s family. (Any competent criminal investigation will certainly explore whether others were aware of or complicit in Mr. Lakanwal’s act. If there is evidence of others’ culpability, either within or outside Mr. Lakanwal’s family, those whose guilt can be established should be criminally tried and appropriately sentenced, not deported.) Absent sufficient evidence of culpability of specific members of Mr. Lakanwal’s family members, deporting the innocents as a consequence of this incident is every bit as conceptually constitutionally sound as, say … holding Mr. Trump’s wife and children liable for the $88 million he owes E. Jean Carroll for sexual assault and defamation.

These measures, if carried out, smack of fascism – demonizing “others” for political gain with literally no factual foundation.

Are we done? Not quite yet. Let’s consider a potentially even more dire consequence of the assault upon Guardsmen Beckstrom and Wolfe: that patrolling Guardsmen begin to view those walking around them as potential enemies – an approach necessary in foreign war zones, but frighteningly fraught on American soil (while at the same time seemingly becoming understandable). (If you were a Guardsman, wouldn’t this incident make you view those moving around you with greater suspicion?) Recall that the Times piece cited above quoted a Guardsman observing that the deployments increased the “risk of us shooting civilians.”

Let’s end this overly-long rant with the most idiotic irony: Mr. Trump’s announcement that given the shooting, he intends to deploy an additional 500 National Guardsmen to D.C. One just has to sit back, pause, and blink before continuing. As noted above, the pretext for this Administration grandstand is a “crackdown” on what let’s call, for purposes of this note, “commonplace” crime in D.C. If the shooting of Guardsmen Beckstrom and Wolfe was indeed a shooting targeted at U.S. military – a rare point of agreement between the Noise and the Regime – it wasn’t even the type of “crime” that the deployment was intended to address. Not only that: I have seen reports that prior to embarking on his mission, Mr. Lakanwal was living in Washington state, not D.C. – so he could not conceivably even have been among the D.C. criminal element that Mr. Trump was intending to confront through the deployment. If Guardsmen hadn’t been in D.C., there certainly wouldn’t have been as many or arguably as vulnerable military targets in the city as Mr. Trump’s order provided to Mr. Lakanwal. Because of the President’s order, Guardsmen Beckstrom and Wolfe were in place to be shot while taking part in maneuvers beyond the proper military purview by a malign operator who wasn’t covered by the Regime’s expressed mission. So, explain to me the logic of adding 500 additional targets to an already target-rich environment for deranged individuals in our gun-obsessed environment because of a heinous incident that wasn’t within the mission’s scope committed by somebody who wasn’t from D.C.

On the day they were shot, Ms. Beckstrom and Mr. Wolfe’s ages averaged to 22 – which, in turn, is only half of the average age of our three children. These two young victims enlisted to serve their country – something I never did. They had their whole lives in front of them. They deserved a Commander in Chief worthy of them. Theirs, and perhaps the lives of thousands of innocent immigrants, have been irrevocably altered — in sacrifice to a propaganda stunt.

There is an episode of The West Wing in which Martin Sheen’s fictional President Bartlet makes a wrong decision, and a number of U.S. service members are killed as a result. The episode – among the most poignant in a series that all who read these notes know that I consider the best television program in history – ends with Mr. Sheen’s Bartlet standing on the tarmac at the military airport where the deceased service members’ bodies have been flown back to the states. Mr. Sheen is a great actor, and even without seeing the episode one can imagine the agony he shows as Bartlet as the caskets, draped in flags, are solemnly marched, one by one, by pristinely-uniformed, white-gloved honor guards, from the aircraft to where the President stands, with a brief pause in front of him, and then moved to a waiting inner chamber.

Mr. Trump is a father. I wonder: Does he ever think about the damage and destruction he has done to so many lives and careers with his deranged, malicious, shock-jock, made-for-TV machinations? In what is probably the most awful suggestion I have ever made about Mr. Trump in all the years I have been posting in these pages: He doesn’t.

I pray that Specialist Beckstrom can rest in peace.