Nothing is Sacred

I apologize for not posting yesterday; we were in the midst of snowstorm recovery. I figure we got at least 8” at the old Chateau Bluz. Shoveling out was a 2-day operation. The second day, there was a solid 2” layer of compacted ice and snow that we had to pry up in frozen planks.

This was after about an hour of wintery mix, which compacted the snow on our patio table by at least an inch.

Now to the business at hand.

There’s nothing really to talk about except the latest heinous ICE murder of an innocent protester. You’ve all seen the footage by now. A VA nurse goes to the aid of a woman ICE had just pushed down, they tackle him, take him to the ground, begin beating the shit out of him, then they find a gun in his back holster. They remove the gun and then unload their weapons into his back. He was hit with 9-10 shots. (I’ve seen differing reports.)

I had a lot to say about all of this, but in the days since the murder, most of it has appeared as memes in my FB feed.

We hadn’t even wrapped the previous ICE killing before this new one. MAGA and the Administration were still referring to Renee Good as a paid protester/terrorist.

Before Alex Pretti’s body was even cold, the Trump Administration’s talking heads were lying about what happened, calling the victim out as someone who was attacking the ICEholes. Again, they had the lies locked and loaded for immediate use.

The most common theme from the Administration, and then from the obedient MAGA masses, was that the victim deserved his death because he brought a gun to a protest. This line of defense essentially negates 50 years of Republican Second Amendment activism.

With one incident, MAGA has invalidated both the First and Second Amendments.

As is their way, Republicans are ready, willing, and able to pivot from any position they’ve taken and support the exact opposite if it serves their immediate needs. This party literally stands for nothing but their own continued power.

As the number of protesters increased exponentially after the Pretti murder, the Administration added another angle of defense for future use: Don’t hurt the ICEholes’ delicate feelings:

My local paper, newly turned conservative mouthpiece, the Baltimore Sun, covered TFG’s inevitable backpedal from the controversy, to blame his staff for following his own orders.

If you think ICE Barbie or the ghoul Steven Miller used talking points that TFG hadn’t supported, you’re not paying attention. But at the first sign of trouble, he hung them out to dry. After all, priority one is that nothing is ever, EVER, Trump’s fault. That’s what underlings are for: convenient receptacles for blame.

Also note the underlined portion of the article for the incredible soft-pedaling of what could be a major flip by Republicans turning on the Teflon President, by saying the Administration’s “accounting of events may face bipartisan scrutiny.” That’s more evidence of a partisan news outlet shilling for the party they back.

The biggest but least acknowledged portion of all this is where AG Bondi announced that they would pull ICE out of Minnesota if the state turned over its voter rolls.

And there it is. This has nothing to do with immigration and everything to do with rigging elections. There is no legitimate purpose for the Federal Government to parse state voter registrations, especially this lot. This whole thing is a revenge operation to punish a Blue State and attempt to turn it Red.

They underestimated how severe the backlash among Minnesotans would be. I’m proud of them and deeply awed by their dedication to not buckle under pressure from the federal overlords. These are people who are putting their own asses on the line for freedom.

I just hope the rest of us do the same when ICE eventually comes to our towns.

Impeachment Now

I’ve seen some stories about how various unnamed Republicans have stated that invading Greenland would be their bridge too far and cause them to support impeachment. That strikes me as closing the door after the horse left the barn. By the time troops are involved, it’ll be too late. We will have damaged our status with Europe, NATO, and the world to a level that may be beyond repair. I hope there are aides or cabinet members on whom Russia does not have Kompromat, so that there may be someone left in the building who can talk him out of such a disastrous move. Every day, the Current Occupant is demonstrating his inability to do the job through nationally destructive, self-promoting, and self-rewarding activities.

Parking Venezuela's oil money in a Qatar account that he alone controls? Charging a billion dollars per nation to join his little self-glorification panel and demanding enrollment? Letting his personal army loose on blue states (this month, Minnesota) to cause chaos and destruction on immigrants and citizens alike? Leaking Ukrainian spy intel directly to Russia? Blowing foreign boats out of the water because they might be up to something, even though they are not equipped to reach US soil? And, of course, demanding the right to buy Greenland or take it by force? It’s all madness.

Congress should be looking at impeachment right now. And by Congress, I mean Republicans. They used to at least have a veneer of respectability while they were fleecing the taxpayers to reward the rich. Today, the grift is right out in the open. He needs to go now because we cannot count on fair elections this fall. His actions are NOT those of a man who expects to have his power diminished in the midterm elections or leave office peacefully in 2028.

We all know that legally, he does not technically have the power to stop elections. But he sure as hell has the power to alter the results to his liking. There are several ways he can accomplish this.

Regarding the midterms, he may try to conjure up an emergency that gives him the cover to declare the elections are postponed (until such a time when the heat dies down and he expects to win fairly, OR just indefinitely!) Yes, it’s illegal, but who is going to enforce that? He still has SCOTUS in his pocket (until they prove otherwise), and it’s not like the Justice Department or military will do anything to defy him. They’re all loyalists now. So just because he gives an illegal order that’s beyond the scope of his power doesn’t mean it won’t happen. All the guardrails are gone.

Update: Apparently, there are still some grown-ups in the room from the US military.

Further, he can influence Red State governors to postpone their states’ elections and use that to claim that it wouldn’t be fair to only allow Blue State electees to the new Congress. Again, it doesn’t make sense, but who’s going to hold him to the law? He's got Fox "News" and the rest of the Right Wing Media bubble to make the case for him.

He can also count on the GOP owners of voting machine companies (like the new owners of Dominion) to convert some blue votes to red. And there’s Elon Musk, who he may convince to repeat whatever he did in 2024 to deliver the presidency (but surprisingly few Senate seats) to the Republicans.

Probably the easiest (and most likely) way to sway the Midterms has already begun. With the new rules regarding the Post Office delaying the date-stamping of mailings, plus banning mail-in voting via executive order (again, beyond the scope of presidential powers), it creates more reliance on in-person voting, which he can then suppress by physical means. Then all he has to do is send his ICEholes to the Bluest precincts’ voting stations, especially in Latin-heavy areas, where their mere presence will suppress turnout. I’m sure they can determine with precision which places will provide the most bang for their buck in sandbagging Democratic candidates. And again, to whom can the Democrats appeal? Trump loyalists are at every enforcement point. Checkmate.

Then, with two MORE years to insulate himself, it won’t be much of a reach to create a way to give himself a third term, despite it being 100% unconstitutional. He’ll find a way, and his flunkies will rubber-stamp it.

That’s why Congress needs to start the impeachment ball rolling now. The GOP needs to grow a pair and a spine to go with them, and call out the Emperor with no Clothes. They can start with a public Congressional investigation of the Epstein files. Screw what Justice is withholding; there are tons of evidence that’s already public, or under someone else’s control. Start taking public testimony from the victims about how, in addition to chasing little girls, they were also buggering little boys and killing people who became inconvenient. Maybe that might jar a couple of Republican consciences enough to seek better leadership.

And they need to go after Vance and the rest of the Cabinet, too, who are likely to continue in the direction TFG is waddling. This administration has turned a great nation into a joke. The whole world is laughing at us, a once-great nation and player on the world stage, reduced to a self-destructive, self-absorbed, and self-fellating bunch of crooks.

Fargin' ICEholes

Well, they did it. No one’s talking about the Epstein files anymore. In addition to the invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, the administration has engineered a civilian killing at the hands of ICE and threatened Greenland with an armed invasion. He is literally producing more criminal outrages than we can deal with at a given time.

The execution of Renee Good was especially chilling. This wasn’t someone who was throwing Molotov cocktails or waving signs; she was dropping off her child at school. The worst you can say about her is that she stopped to give her two cents to the ICE Brigade and momentarily blocked the road. One bull clawed at her door, then told her to move along. Meanwhile, after she offered pleasantries, the other one yelled to stop, put himself in front of her car, then executed her in “self-defense,” once he took a step to the right to get out of her way, like he was doing the Time Warp. You can clearly see the front wheels turning away from him as she tried to leave the scene.

Almost immediately, ICE Barbie Noem declared the victim was a terrorist/paid protester trying to run her guy down, despite video evidence aired almost immediately that offered proof to the contrary. These were charges that would take time to establish, but they levied them before the body even went cold.

That’s how we know the fix was in. They had that story locked and loaded for when this incident occurred. I suspect there may have been a direct order to create such a shooting, all the better to sow fear and demand public compliance. I wonder if anyone is investigating such communications, either directly to the executioner, Jonathan Ross, or to his superiors for relaying down to the boots on the ground. Someone get ahold of that editor for The Atlantic. Knowing these Bozos, he was probably on the thread too.

Here’s another reason this shooting could have been premeditated:

This guy knew he was going to shoot. He put himself in front of the car he knew was fleeing, to secure the “personal danger” excuse, put the phone in his left hand, to grab his gun with his shootin’ hand, and shot an American citizen in the face, while recording the whole scene. I mean, what’s the point of killing some uppity liberal if you can’t show the action to the boys back at the base?

As commanded, Republican Congress people, assorted political hacks, Fox “News,” and MAGA idiots publicly backed the shooting. They’re always fine with shootings, as long as it’s not one of theirs getting shot. They demanded reverence and half-staff flags for Charlie Kirk. They made dyke jokes about Renee Good.

And as is their MO, the Republicans are asking people to believe what they’re telling them, rather than their own eyes. They claim she was trying to kill the ICE men, that she was a terrorist, and that she was a paid protester. None of that was remotely true. But the main point is that even if all of that were true, none of those charges carry the death penalty, let alone the Getting Shot in the Face in Front of Your Neighbors, For Trying to Go Home penalty.

I hope there are repercussions from this, I really do. I doubt it, but I hope it. Already, they’ve announced they’re sending more ICE holes to Minnesota. They want more confrontations, not less. All the better to drive home the point that they’re in charge and resistance is futile.

The only hope for justice for Ms. Good will have to be from state charges. The fix is already in as far as the Justice Department goes. His innocence is already signed, sealed, and delivered at the federal level. That’s where they truly have us in a vise. To whom can we complain to seek justice? All the apparatuses of justice are rigged in their favor, with loyalists at every key position, all the way up to the rigged Supreme Court.

I was going to mention the Greenland fiasco-in-the-making, but I figure it will be the top story next week after the invasion, so I might as well wait until then.

Oil Be There

Some shitstorm they stirred up last weekend, huh? He actually had to go and invade another country, kidnap their president and his wife, and bring them back here for trial. Regardless of what anyone thinks of Maduro, there are so many things that don’t pass the smell test for a nation with integrity. Nothing makes sense in any benign way; only in the most corrupt readings.

AG Bondi says she’s charging them with breaking arms laws. American arms laws. Jesus H Christ, since when do American laws apply to citizens of other countries, who are located in other countries? So can the Philippine government kidnap US citizens and cane them for spitting gum on the sidewalk or spraying graffiti? National laws start and stop at their own borders. WTF is wrong with these idiots?

TFG justifies the invasion by saying, “They took our oil.”  How in the actual fuck is oil buried deep under Venezuela the property of the United States? How totally presumptuous. And I know there were oil deals made and broken, but they’ve already been long resolved:

This thing is 50% about stealing oil for the big fossil fuel industry donors to Republicans, and 50% about distracting from the Epstein file mess, for which the explanation for excessive redactions was due yesterday. We are literally living through the great movie Wag the Dog; war as distraction from problems at home.

TFG says we’re “going to run Venezuela,” and Little Marco had this to say in defense of the indefensible:

The US creates “court orders,” so the US has grounds to topple a foreign government. It’s basically the Fox “News” practice of bringing up various charges lobbed at Democrats and then later broadcasting: “Many people are talking about these charges about Democratic Democrat politicians…” And again, since when does a US court order have any sway in another country?

I wonder why they took the wife, though. As leverage to make him do what they want? Or maybe she has too many Venezuelan parking tickets, or owns an exotic animal that’s illegal in Alabama. Or maybe they just don’t want Maduro to get lonely.

Deep down, there is no rational rationale; there are only piles of shit to throw at the wall to see what sticks. Ultimately, they don’t care if they can’t defend these actions because the system is set up to allow them to do as they please. Thank you, Supreme Court, for creating an 800-pound monster with a Sultan’s desires and a toddler’s impulse control.

The BS about defending the nation against drugs rings hollow when he just pardoned another South American president/drug lord who had been convicted here. It’s key to remember that Republicans don’t have many core beliefs; they believe strongly in whatever they need at that moment, and are ready to do a full 180 should that need disappear. State’s rights, bodily autonomy, it’s all negotiable depending on what they want to do today.

Republicans are lining up to support whatever he does, because I’m sure they realize that if he can disappear a foreign president, he can do the same to a US Congressman. Or worse, he might call them mean names.

When I heard the news on Saturday morning, the first thing I thought was that if this is the new normal, maybe we could work out a little quid pro quo with another country like Canada or Denmark. But by midday, that notion was all over the place. Thus is the drawback of doing a weekly blog.

There’s been more talk that this was prearranged with Russia years ago, where we would allow them to take Ukraine, and they would allow us to take Venezuela. I believe it, because TFG doesn’t do anything on the international stage that doesn’t benefit Putin. I’m sure they’re in lockstep on this.

So, here we are, in another foreign war brought on by oil. Republicans kill any movement on increasing development or renewable energy sources, so the money continues to flow to oil companies/donors. And now, they’re replenishing the fossil fuel troughs with more oil, to keep those big donations coming. Palatial ballrooms don’t build themselves, you know.

There's nothing like starting a new year with a giant kick in the face.