Finally Friday Reads: Rolling Chaos
Posted: May 22, 2026 Filed under: "presidential immunity", #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, #We are so Fucked, 2026 MidTerm elections, American Fascists, cartoons, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Constitutional Crises, Corrupt and Political SCOTUS, Donald Trump, Incontinentia Buttocks Cabinet picks, Injustice system, Insurection, January 6 | Tags: Bogus Weaponization, Civil Rights Collapsing, IRS, Slush Fund, Trump attack on Voting and Voting Rights, Trump family crime syndicate and grift rodeo, Trump Tax Immunity 5 Comments
“Had enough? Obviously, the Mobsters Are Governing America bunch haven’t.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Things continue to look bleak for our country as Orange Caligula’s physical and mental conditions become more obvious. The Anti-Weaponization Fund looks more shady than ever. The continued coverage of its impact on our budget and rule of law gets more shocking with each elucidation. None of Trump’s songs and dances has gotten the voters’ attention as much as our difficult economy. It is evident with each grocery store and gas station visit and bill to pay that something is very wrong. The worst, massive insider-trading crimes appear to be going on within Trump’s circle.
Forbes has this headline this morning. “Trump’s Tax Immunity Could Save Him More Than $600 Million. The president secures a get-out-of-jail-free card for tax improprieties, just as he’s hauling in record amounts of cash.” Dan Alexander has the analysis and the story.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed a document Tuesday giving Donald Trump, his two eldest sons and his company broad immunity for potential tax disputes with the federal government. It’s the clearest way that the president is personally benefitting from his settlement with the Internal Revenue Service, which he sued days after taking office for failing to prevent the release of his personal tax returns.
The settlement lands at a convenient moment. Donald Trump earned an estimated $1.4 billion from crypto and licensing ventures in 2025, as he turned his first year back in the White House into the most lucrative year of his life. If the president received an extension for his 2025 return, his preparers may be sorting through exactly how to present this year’s welter of income right now. Trump has never hidden the animating principle. When Hillary Clinton accused him of paying no taxes in the 2016 debates, he replied: “That makes me smart.” Also much richer. If Trump is able to conjure up theories to avoid taxes for his 2025 income, he could save more than a half-billion dollars, according to Forbes estimates.
The conflict-of-interest underpinning all of this is so obvious that even Trump has acknowledged it. “I’m the one that makes the decision, right?” he mused in the Oval Office in October. “You know, that decision would have to go across my desk. And it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.” Trump first suggested he would send whatever judgement he received to charity, before settling on a more creative approach. The government would not pay Trump. Instead, Trump would get a pass enabling him to pay less to the government. The move harkens the old cliché—a penny saved is a penny earned—with the same result: more money in Trump’s pocket.
Asked about all this, the White House referred questions to the Trump Organization. The president’s business did not dispute the estimates but opted to issue a lengthy statement attacking the IRS that said, in part, “This settlement seeks to provide meaningful accountability for the IRS’s prolonged and systemic failure to safeguard sensitive taxpayer data.”
Like the settlement itself, Trump’s massive earnings are a product of the presidency. Heading into the 2024 election, Trump announced a new crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, which sold tokens to anyone interested in buying. The tokens offered no financial interest in World Liberty, which helps explain why so few people noticed initially. But after Trump won the election, sales exploded. The economics of the deal were tailored to funnel vast sums of cash to the Trump family. After the first $15 million of sales, 75% of the proceeds went to the Trump family—with 70% of that flowing to the president-elect. More than $50 million went into this machine by the end of 2024, before ramping up in the new year.
Tokens were not the only thing Trump was selling. As Forbes first reported, he also struck a secret deal to offload a chunk of equity in World Liberty Financial in January 2025. The Wall Street Journallater identified the purchaser of that stake, an entity backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, which promised $500 million in the deal. The agreement reportedly excluded the proceeds from token sales, which appeared to be World Liberty’s principal business at the time. World Liberty went on to launch a stablecoin that another entity connected to Sheikh Tahnoon propped up with a multibillion-dollar investment. Trump walked away from the sale with an estimated $375 million in pre-tax earnings. That windfall would theoretically trigger a roughly $140 million federal tax bill.
Every sucker that voted for this man needs a good thwap upside their head. This Reuters Exclusive is shocking. “Trump official tried to ban voting machines used by half of US states.” The lede is shared by Erin Banco, Jonathan Landay, and Alexandra Alper.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s election-security czar last year sought to ban voting machines used in more than half of U.S. states by asking whether the Commerce Department could declare their components national-security risks, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
White House adviser Kurt Olsen, a lawyer Trump has tasked with proving widely debunked election-rigging conspiracy theories, pushed the plan to target Dominion Voting Systems machines. The idea emerged, the sources said, as Olsen and other officials brainstormed about how the federal government could take control over elections from U.S. states, an idea publicly aired by Trump.
Olsen wanted a national system of hand-counted paper ballots, the sources said, a frequent Trump demand some election-security experts say would be less accurate and potentially riskier than the current system of machines with auditable paper trails that almost all cities and states use.
The plan to exclude the machines, reported here first, got far enough that in September, Commerce Department officials began exploring what grounds could be invoked to execute it, three additional sources said. It eventually collapsed, however, because Olsen and other administration staffers working with him failed to provide evidence to justify such a move, two of the sources said.
This headline is from the New York Times. “Audit Immunity for Trump Family Puts I.R.S. in a Bind
Federal law prohibits the Internal Revenue Service from halting an audit at the direction of the president or his aides.” Andrew Duehren reports the story.
President Trump’s return to office has been an unforgiving crucible for the hidebound Internal Revenue Service. He and his aides have decimated its ranks, fired and replaced its leaders and made repeated attempts to enlist the agency in his quest for political retribution.
Now, as part of an arrangement drawn up this week by Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, the I.R.S. faces its most profound legal and ethical test yet: a demand to drop any audits of Mr. Trump, his family members or their “affiliates.”
Tax lawyers and former I.R.S. officials said such expansive protection would cut to the core of the agency’s mission to collect taxes in a disinterested, nonpartisan way — and could potentially run afoul of the laws governing how it does so.
“It’s just completely contrary to the notion that you’re supposed to comply with the law and the I.R.S. is there to make sure you do that,” said George Yin, a tax law professor and former chief of staff at the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. “The idea that you can get a free pass from the I.R.S. or anyone can get a free pass from the I.R.S. is just completely ridiculous.”
Immunity from I.R.S. scrutiny for Mr. Trump and his family was part of a broad agreement made by the Justice Department to resolve a lawsuit he filed against the I.R.S. over the leak of his tax returns. Beyond the audit provision, the Justice Department committed to creating a $1.8 billion fund to pay victims of “weaponization,” a proposal that has been rebuked by both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill.
While the Justice Department has said Mr. Trump himself will not be paid out of that fund, an end to any and all audits based on tax returns previously filed could be quite lucrative for the Trumps. The New York Times reported in 2024 that an adverse ruling in an I.R.S. audit could cost Mr. Trump more than $100 million, though it is unclear if that examination is still underway.
The nine-page outline creating the $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund was agreed to and signed on Monday by Frank Bisignano, who leads the I.R.S. as its chief executive officer. The one-page addendum calling for the I.R.S. to drop any audits of Mr. Trump and his family members was released the next day and signed by only Mr. Blanche.
That has raised the question of how, and if, the leader of the Justice Department can control decisions made at the I.R.S., which falls under the Treasury Department.
“There’s a genuine question as to whether the attorney general can do this,” said Daniel Hemel, a tax law professor at New York University. “I can’t think of precedent where the attorney general signs a piece of paper that ends audits for a large number of people.”
This guest essay in the New York Times by Representative Jamie Raskin is a must-read. Raskin provides us with a blueprint to stop this particular grift. “There’s a Way to Stop Trump’s I.R.S. Slush Fund.”
These days it takes a spectacular burst of corruption to get the attention of our scandal-weary nation, but President Trump and his administration have managed, once again, to transfix Americans by establishing a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund in the Department of Justice that will undoubtedly be used to line the pockets of Mr. Trump’s partisans and foot soldiers — with your tax dollars.
The creation of this fund is a stupefying feat of self-dealing — part of a “settlement agreement” between the Department of the Treasury, which Mr. Trump controls, and the plaintiffs — Mr. Trump, two of his sons and their family business — who sued the I.R.S. for $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns. It will very likely result in an undeserved windfall to a legion of Jan. 6 rioters who have already unjustly received pardons from Mr. Trump.
Every part of this farce is an affront to the Constitution. It usurps both the exclusive power of Congress to legislate programs and spend money and the power of the courts to decide specific cases and controversies.
It is, quite simply, a scam.
Only Congress has the power to appropriate federal dollars. Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution states that “no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law.” But Mr. Trump and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche seem to think they can conjure this giant slush fund into being without congressional approval.
Further, Article III, Section 1 states that the “judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one supreme court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” Yet the settlement took Mr. Trump’s case out of the hands of the courts. And it calls for oversight by a five-member board, appointed by Mr. Blanche and whose members Mr. Trump can dismiss on a whim. Even if this fund were legitimate, that kind of setup wouldn’t be for Mr. Blanche to decide. Congress has never established a court, tribunal or board to hear pleas from people who believe they are victims of government “weaponization,” much less a fund almost certainly meant to reward supporters and allies of the president who feel they were wronged simply because their actions on Jan. 6, 2021, were prosecuted.
No matter what you think about the events of Jan. 6, hundreds of rioters indisputably broke the law that day when they stormed the Capitol trying to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election and the peaceful transfer of power.
As regrettable as it is that most of the rioters were pardoned, there’s no denying that as president, Mr. Trump has that power. But the same Constitution giving him that power also says that “neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States.” Jan. 6 was indeed an insurrection, and pardon or no pardon, no one can legally be compensated for taking part in it.
As James Madison noted in Federalist No. 10, a cardinal precept of our legal system is that “no man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity.” Here, Mr. Trump’s administration “settled” a case that he brought, effectively making him the judge in his own case. He not only concocted the fund, but his Justice Department threw in a sweetener: shielding him and his sons from audits of any tax returns they have already filed.
The $1.776 billion figure is obviously meant to invoke the year of our founding. But go back and read the Declaration of Independence, which includes a long list of accusations directed at George III. Among them is the charge that the British king “has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.”
Read more. I’ve gifted the link. #FARTUS thinks he’s above the law and also thinks the U.S. Treasury and Laws are his to toy with. NBC News reports that there are many takers for the Fund, even though it’s not open for business yet. “Trump’s $1.8B fund isn’t officially open yet. That hasn’t stopped applications. No commissioners have been chosen, a requirement before claims can be processed, an administration official told NBC News. The Justice Department says millions are eligible.”
Applications are already rolling into the Justice Department from hopefuls aiming for some of the nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, even though the process can’t officially begin until commissioners are chosen to decide how the money is doled out.
The fund was announced this week, part of an unprecedented settlement between President Donald Trump, two of his sons and the Trump Organization and the government he oversees over the leak of his tax returns. He agreed to drop legal claims in exchange for creating the fund.
It’s not clear yet how people are expected to formally apply. The pool of possible applicants is substantial, according to a Justice Department overview that was sent to GOP Senate offices Thursday.
“Literally tens of millions of Americans were subjected to improper and unlawful government targeting, including extensive government censorship and aggressive lawfare,” according to the overview.
Justice Department officials said the five commissioners will be chosen in the coming weeks — the appointments must be made within 30 days from when the settlement was signed Monday. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche will make the decisions, though Congress members will get input on one of them. The president can fire the commissioners at will.
The department is working under a deadline, in part because the money pool — if it isn’t blocked by Congress or courts — would have to be distributed by the end of Trump’s term in 2028. Legal challenges have already begun, and disbursements could be tied up in the courts until well after the deadline, or it could be declared unlawful.
Both Democrats and Republicans have criticized the fund. Opponents have labeled it a massive “slush fund” for Trump’s allies. Its existence has alarmed some legal experts, in part because there will be very little public oversight over how it is managed.
Among the crooks waiting for compensation are Michael Cohen, Enrique Tarrio, Brandon Fellows, Michael Caputo, and Mike Lindell. The Lindell link goes to an MSNBC article with this headline. “Who’s applying for the $1.8 billion slush fund? In today’s edition of The Tea, Spilled by Morning Joe: Trump’s revenge tour, Stephen Colbert’s last show, and more.” George Santos is in that list too.
“I’ve been pushing for this. I think I was weaponized against. I think I’m a good example of that.”
— Proud Boys founder Enrique Tarrio, sentenced to 22 years for Jan. 6 before being pardoned by Trump less than two years later, now seeking $2 million to $3 million from the Justice Department’s new $1.7 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund
Looks like quite the Motely Crew.
People are still shocked by the Supreme Court Decision that basically guts Voting Rights. This is from Talking Points Memo and is reported by Josh Kovensky and Khaya Himmelman. “Their Loved Ones Died for the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court’s Ruling Is a New Injustice.”
Dennis Dahmer was 12 years old in January 1966 when Klansmen stormed his family home and set it on fire, murdering his father, Vernon. He still remembers the shootout; he remembers watching his father die from smoke inhalation. The trauma lingers to this day, 60 years later.
Vernon Dahmer had been a fixture in the African American community near Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He ran a successful local grocery, and, after the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, obtained the right to register voters and collect poll taxes, which were still in effect, at his store. Members of the local White Citizens’ Council started to appear at the family farm, warning his father to stop, Dahmer told TPM, but that didn’t deter him. He recorded a radio announcement in January 1966 offering to cover the cost of poll taxes for African Americans who couldn’t afford to pay. The KKK attacked the next day.
“He would always say to us, ‘do something, dammit,’” Dahmer recalled. “‘Don’t just stand there.’”
With all that in mind, Dennis Dahmer decided late last year to listen in to oral arguments in Callais v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court case that would ultimately gut the remnants of the Voting Rights Act. The law had provided a framework for protecting minority votes in the South for decades.
“It was apparent to me that they had already made up their mind — talking about the MAGA ones for sure,” he said. “They were just laying the groundwork to justify what they were going to do.”
The Callais decision last month threatens to bring the state of Black congressional representation in the South back to the 1960s. State legislatures across the Old Confederacy are gerrymandering away political maps that allowed Black communities a voice in local, state and federal politics, and provided a means for them to elect politicians of their choosing. The rapid democratic backsliding has prompted demonstrations at Selma, the site of key actions during the Civil Rights Movement, and disbelief among Democrats at the consequences.
But for Dahmer and other survivors of people who were maimed or murdered during the Civil Rights movement, it’s deeply personal. For these families, the Supreme Court’s decision in Callais represents a return to the 1960s that isn’t abstract, but very real. They remember learning that their relatives died, they remember death threats against them and other loved ones in the aftermath, they remember how the fear and bloodshed prompted President Lyndon B. Johnson to decide that the time had come to send a Voting Rights Act to Congress. In many of these cases, justice was limited, late, or non-existent: the perpetrators were acquitted, died before they were convicted, or were only held accountable after spending decades free.
Now comes a new form of injustice: the one lasting change to American democracy that their relatives’ deaths brought about has been undone.
You definitely should read this one and all the stories it tells. There are definitely more untold stories, too. This New York Times story by Nikole Hannah-Jones is spot-on. “The Civil Rights Era Is Collapsing Before Our Eyes.”
For students of history, what Tennessee did on May 7 felt like a premonition. One hundred and fifty years ago, when this nation’s first experiment with interracial democracy began to collapse, Tennessee — a former slave state and the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan — was the first domino to drop. In 1870, the Tennessee legislature rewrote the State Constitution to disenfranchise Black men. As the historian Manisha Sinha writes in “The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic,” Tennessee “provided a template to other Southern states” for how to “overthrow Reconstruction.”Within three decades, Black representation, in Congress and in local and state offices across the former Confederacy, would be wiped out.
It was not just Tennessee that echoed history, but the Supreme Court as well. The case that felled the Voting Rights Act was Louisiana v. Callais. Louisiana is the state where in 1896, in Plessy v. Ferguson, another superlatively conservative Supreme Court used the 14th Amendment to license segregation, setting off a race across the South to strip Black people of the franchise and codify their second-class citizenship.
The day after the Callais ruling, Gov. Jeff Landry took the unprecedented action of suspending the state’s U.S. House primary — in which tens of thousands of voters had already cast ballots — so legislators could redraw the election maps. Though one in three Louisiana residents is Black, Republicans intend to jettison at least one of two Black-majority districts. “Well, the failed narrative is actually that people in Louisiana are racist,” Landry insisted, “that basically we won’t elect Black people. I mean, I disagree with that.” In fact, since the Plessy era, Louisiana has sent only four Black people to Congress, and a Black candidate has never won in a white district there.
Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and Florida quickly moved ahead with their own redistricting plans. And the governor of Mississippi — which has just a single Black U.S. representative despite having the nation’s highest percentage of Black residents, at 38 percent — announced his intent to do the same.
Voting and civil rights experts warn that America now sits at a familiar precipice. The Voting Rights Act helped transform the South: In 1965, the region had not a single Black representative in the U.S. Congress; today, it has 31. Now, Black representation may once again disappear in the South, where more than half of Black Americans live. This could lead to the largest decimation of Black political power since the fall of Reconstruction. And just like then, what is at stake is no less than American democracy itself.
This is another must-read article. I feel like we’re living through the darkest days in American history that haven’t quite rivaled the Civil War in terms of loss of life, but certainly rival the Civil War in changing how we live as free people in a democracy.
So, I’ve managed to write a very long post today, but every day with Orange Caligula and his crew of racists, sexist, backward-looking assholes just brings more shit into view and reality. Please hang in there.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: Are we really even the United States Anymore?
Posted: August 25, 2025 Filed under: "presidential immunity", #MAGAnomics, #We are so Fucked, Agency Purges, American Fascists, cartoons, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Climate change, Crime, kakistocracy, Trump Krewe Crime and Punishment, tRump threat to society | Tags: 20th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Deportation and Concentration Camp Madness, FEMA, John Buss @repeat1968, Kilmer Albrego Garcia, Piedmont Grannies, Trump defies Court Orders, Trump Edicts, Trump Maoist 4 Comments
“Time seems to be running out.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I have to admit that watching TV News is about as bad as I remember it when I was a kid, and watching body counts in Vietnam and little children my age being fire-hosed somewhere down south with a name that I’ve forgotten now. Between that and listening to my family history, I suppose it was inevitable that I would grow up with a strong sense of justice.
Watergate was a difficult time, but I always felt that the Supreme Court and Congress would properly deal with it. I was thrilled by the local desegregation efforts forced by the courts. It didn’t impact my school district, but it impacted me the few years I taught high school for the city public schools prior to finishing my master’s with an eye towards my doctorate. I headed to Oklahoma to fight for the passage of the ERA when I was pregnant with my oldest. I’ve never stopped fighting. Positive change was slow as a turtle, but it came, even though many things, but the ERA still rattles around out there waiting for the light of day. I have and will never quit the fight for true social justice.
I don’t know about you, but I dread what will show up in the news the next morning. Cruelty and ignorance are the flavors of the day. It was only a matter of time before we saw a headline like this one from Newsweek. “Donald Trump Issues Order Defying Supreme Court Precedent.”
A new executive order signed by President Donald Trump Monday bans the burning of the American Flag, in direct opposition to a precedent set by the Supreme Court in the Texas v. Johnson case in 1989 deeming the action an act of “symbolic speech”
Trump recognized while signing the order that the action was protected by the court but said that burning the flag was an open door to violence.
“They burn the American flag,” he said, adding “They call it freedom of speech.”
“When you burn a flag is the area goes crazy. If you have hundreds of people, they go crazy. You can do other things. You can burn this piece of paper, you can and it’s but when you burn the American flag, it incites riots at levels that we’ve never seen before,” the Trump said.
The executive order would create a penalty of one year in jail, Trump said during the press conference in the Oval Office.
Evidently, burning the Constitution is acceptable. I can’t wait to see what the creepy, Christofascists that are the Republican Supreme Court Jurists have to say about that. I’m sure the Alitos and Thomases already have something disgusting in mind. Also, there is the sad news that Trump’s racism, xenophobia, ignorance, and cruelty have created an obsession with torturing Kilmar Ábrego Garcia and his family, once again. This is from The Guardian. It’s reported by Dharna Noor. “Kilmar Ábrego García detained after reporting to US immigration agents. Maryland man, back in the US after being wrongly deported to El Salvador, is threatened with deportation to Uganda.”
Kilmar Ábrego García – who has been thrust into the middle of an acrimonious deportation saga by the second Trump administration – has been detained after reporting to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Baltimore on Monday, just three days after his release from criminal custody in Tennessee.
“The only reason he was taken into detention was to punish him,” Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an attorney representing Ábrego, told a crowd of supporters outside a Baltimore ICE field office on Monday. “To punish him for exercising his constitutional rights.”
The attorney also said his client filed a new lawsuit on Monday morning challenging his potential deportation to Uganda and his current confinement.
Ábrego faces deportation to Uganda after recently declining an offer to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for remaining in jail and pleading guilty to human smuggling charges, according to a Saturday court filing.
“The fact that they are holding Costa Rica as a carrot and using Uganda as a stick to try to coerce him to plead guilty for a crime is such clear evidence that they are weaponizing the immigration system in a matter that is completely unconstitutional,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
The lawsuit Ábrego filed early on Monday asks for an order “that he is not allowed to be removed from the United States unless and until he has had full due process”, said Sandoval-Moshenberg.
“The main issue, aside from the actual conditions in that country is – is that country actually going to let him stay there?” the attorney said. “They can offer to send him to Madrid, Spain, and unless Madrid, Spain, is going to let him remain in that country, essentially what it is – is a very inconvenient layover on the way to El Salvador, which is the one country that it has already determined that he cannot be sent to.”
The Costa Rican government has agreed to offer Ábrego refugee status if he is sent there, court filings from Saturday show. A judge in 2019 ruled that Ábrego cannot be deported to El Salvador.
Before walking into his appointment at the Baltimore Ice field office, Ábrego addressed a crowd of faith leaders, activists, and his family and legal team organized by the immigrant rights non-profit Casa de Maryland.
“My name is Kilmar Ábrego García, and I want you to remember this – remember that I am free and I was able to be reunited with my family,” he said through a translator, NBC News reported. “This was a miracle … I want to thank each and every one of you who marched, lift your voices, never stop praying and continue to fight in my name.”
After Ábrego entered the building, faith leaders and activists rallied to demand Ábrego’s freedom, chanting “Sí, se puede” (roughly “yes, we can”) and “we are Kilmar” as well as singing the hymn We Shall Not Be Moved with an activist choir.
“Laws have to be rooted in love, because love does not harm us,” a senior priest at Maryland’s St Matthew Episcopal church identified as Padre Vidal said through a translator.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “Kilmar Abrego Garcia Is Set for Deportation After ICE Arrests Him.”
Indeed, nearly all of the reforms surrounding Due Process and access to the legal system seem destined to be attacked by Orange Caligula. This is from Reuters. It is definitely created to hinder the poor and people of color. “Trump signs orders aimed at ending cashless bail policies.”
U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday that seeks to end cashless bail by threatening to revoke federal funding for jurisdictions that use it, part of a White House effort to push crime fighting to the top of the national agenda.
Trump signed a separate order that instructs police in Washington, D.C. to charge suspects with federal crimes and hold them in federal custody to avoid cashless bail, according to a fact sheet seen by Reuters.
“Cashless bail, we’re ending it. But we’re starting by ending it in D.C. and that we have the right to do through federalization,” Trump said during a signing ceremony in the White House.
Trump has seized control of the police force in Washington and is allowing National Guard troops to carry weapons while on patrol in the city. He is also threatening to expand the U.S. military presence to Democratically-controlled cities like Baltimore and Chicago.
Critics have slammed the administration’s actions as unnecessary overreach.
The focus on crime is seen as a preview of how Trump and his fellow Republicans plan to use the issue as they seek to retain control of both houses of Congress in the midterm elections next year.
Yes, I’m not fond of Joe Scarborough, but I am glad that he focused on the topic of violent crime and the really dangerous places. New Orleans has not seen this low level of shooting and violent crime in some time. This is true of most cities, including the ones where National Guard, like ours, are being sent to Blue Cities to hype a false narrative and scare people into not leaving their houses to do things like vote. The only exception in New Orleans is domestic violence. The rest are lower than the small rural towns of Louisiana, where gun violence is rampant. New Orleans shootings are comparable to what happened in the 1960s. The same cannot be said of Mike Johnson’s part of Louisiana. “Joe Scarborough Hammers ‘Red States’ as ‘Most Violent’: ‘Send’ National Guard to ‘Mike Johnson’s District’.” This is from Mediaite.
Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough hammered “red states” as the “most violent” in his takedown of President Donald Trump’s suggestion on Friday he may send National Guard troops to Chicago and New York City, as he has in Washington, D.C., as part of a crackdown on crime.
The tirade came on Monday morning’s show just days after Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson openly pushed back on the president’s deployment threat, adding he was exploring legal options to block any such move.
As the Morning Joe crew reflected on Trump’s idea, Scarborough unloaded on the decision, defending New York City in particular as “one of the safest large cities” while comparing murder statistics there and in Chicago to “much higher” per capita figures for cities located in “red states.”
You know, the thing about this is, of course, we’ve talked about Washington, D.C., it’s the nation’s capital, a federal government, Congress could get involved, work with the president, and, together, as we’ve been talking about for a long time, figure out how to partner with the city. And that hasn’t happened. And now we’re talking about Chicago. We’re talking about New York City. Neither one of those cities are in the top ten for most violent cities in America.
Rounding on the numbers, the host then took aim at House Speaker Mike Johnson’s own district:
And if you want to look per capita, they need to do no more than look to Mike Johnson’s home state, the Speaker of the House, and look at violence per capita. You have a much higher chance of dying in Monroe, Louisiana, than you do Chicago, Illinois. A much higher chance of dying in Shreveport, Louisiana, than you do in Monroe. A much higher chance of dying in New Orleans, Louisiana, than you do in New York City.
I mean, New York, that’s fabulously crazy. New York City continues to rank as one of the safest large cities in America. And I don’t know that there’s a close second.
So, there are all of these cities and towns in red state America. You could look at Little Rock, Arkansas, you could look at Monroe, Louisiana, you could look at Shreveport, Louisiana. You could look at New Orleans, Louisiana. You could look at Memphis, Tennessee. You could look at one Nashville, Tennessee. You can look at one red state after another – Bessemer, Alabama – and you will see violent crime rates much, much, much higher per capita than Chicago, Illinois, San Francisco.
Throwing up a tweet of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s criticism of the move, Scarborough read it aloud and continued:
The chance of having violent acts committed upon you in Mike Johnson’s Louisiana, in red state Louisiana, red state that Donald Trump carried and every Republican has carried since Bill Clinton, the chances of being murdered in Louisiana 400 times higher than in California.
Let me say that again. Let me underline that again: You have a 400% higher chance of being murdered in red state Louisiana, Mike Johnson’s home state, than you do on the left coast in Gavin Newsom’s California.
There is no emergency. There is no logic to Chicago, to San Francisco, if you’re looking at the numbers, if you’re looking at data, I don’t even think this Supreme Court can turn a blind eye to this. They just can’t because data is data. Numbers are numbers, and the numbers are clear. And the numbers don’t justify – no emergency!
The host began calling on Trump to send the troops “to red states where they need them” and listed out all the cities he’d flagged statistics for:
Send those troops to Shreveport, Louisiana. Send them to Mike Johnson’s district. Send them to Little Rock, Arkansas. Send them to Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee. Send them to red states where they need them.
We have a huge Environmental Accident in Tangipoha Parish requiring evacuation and shutting down rivers, high violent crime in rural districts, and a looming Hurricane Season. Our National Guard will be worn out with all that marching around to deal with the state’s crises that are real.
We’ve finally got the EPA in charge. I was actually thinking they were probably weakened to the point of uselessness. It’s also in a very red parish that needs help. But I suppose our Guard is getting to know these cities so they can block their inner city voting locations later. We have a governor with a need to appease Yam Tits and a bunch of Swampbillies that love him. He’s already expanding his control over the District and labelling it a place with a “crime emergency.”
The White House continues its plot to erase American History. Of course, his entire administration is filled with ignoramuses. “JD Vance flunks the basics on World War II as the White House targets history museums. If anyone would benefit from some quality time at a history museum, it’s White House officials. Take Vance’s line on the end of World War II, for example.” This is from MSNBC.
Donald Trump’s offensive against the Smithsonian reached a dramatic new level last week, with a presidential declaration that the institution and its museums are “OUT OF CONTROL.” To help bolster his point, the president added that Smithsonian history museums focus on “how bad Slavery was.”
The White House confirmed soon after that, as part of Trump’s broader efforts, administration officials want to target other museums, too. “He will start with the Smithsonian and then go from there,” a spokesperson told NBC News.
While the presidential campaign to control what Americans know and learn about history is clearly reflective of his authoritarian agenda, there’s also a degree of irony to the developments — because if anyone would benefit from some quality time at a history museum, it’s Trump and his team.
The president, for example, has talked about American forces having “manned the air” and taking over “the airports” during the Revolutionary War — despite the fact that airplanes didn’t exist at the time. He later said, “If you look at the end of the Civil War, the 1800s, it was a very turbulent time. You take the end day, was it 1869? Or whatever.”
His vice president isn’t much better. HuffPost noted:
Vice President JD Vance fumbled some very textbook facts of world history while talking foreign policy on Sunday’s ‘Meet the Press.’ During the interview, the Yale Law School alum defended President Donald Trump’s decision to entertain Russia’s terms for a peace deal with Ukraine by claiming all wars end in compromise.
NBC News’ Kristen Welker asked the Ohio Republican an important question, “If Russia is allowed to keep any of the territory that it illegally seized, what message does that send to China? Does it give China a green light to invade Taiwan? Does it give Russia a green light to invade other European countries, which is what your European allies are concerned about?”
Instead of answering the question directly, Vance took issue with the premise.
“Kristen, this is how wars ultimately get settled,” he said. “If you go back to World War II, if you go back to World War I, if you go back to every major conflict in human history, they all end with some kind of negotiation.”
No. If one actually goes back and assesses every major conflict in human history, they mostly ended with one force either conquering or repelling a rival force.
Meanwhile, a follow-up on the argument that Trump’s a Marxist and Maoist. Proper Industrial Policy is helping the industry thrive, not shaking it down for money and gifts!
We’re coming on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina (Katrinaversary). This is my statement on it.
Whenever I think of all this, it still brings me to tears. I was lucky to drive out of there with my 2 labs and my munchkin cat. I sat on my friend’s sofa in Omaha, stunned, speechless, helplessly watching the suffering and death, with perpetual tears. What recovery we were granted was imperfect and incomplete. We will never forget. I was glad to come back home, but the sadness of knowing so many were lost just never leaves me.
With all the people we lost, who suffered, whose homes and businesses were gone, I offer up this news from the good people of FEMA. This is from the Washington Post. As if George W Bush didn’t kill a lot of us with Heckuva Job Brownie, and all those deadly Middle East quagmire wars, Trump’s management is upping the likely death count. “FEMA staff warn that Trump officials’ actions risk a Katrina-level disaster. About 180 FEMA employees, many of them anonymous, signed a letter to Congress arguing that the agency leadership has hindered the ability to effectively manage emergencies.” This is reported by Briana Sacks.
More than 180 Federal Emergency Management Agency employees sent a letter Monday to members of Congress and other officials, arguing that the agency’s direction and current leaders’ inexperience harms the agency’s mission and could result in a disaster on the level of Hurricane Katrina.
The letter, on which more than three dozen employees signed their full names, says that since January, staffers have been operating under leaders — Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem, acting FEMA administrator David Richardson and former leader Cameron Hamilton — who lack the legal qualifications and authority to manage FEMA’s operations. This has eroded and hindered the agency’s ability to effectively manage emergencies and other operations, including national security work, the letter says.
After Hurricane Katrina became one of the worst disasters in the nation’s history, in part because of failures of local, state, and federal governments, Congress passed the Post-Katrina Emergency Reform Act to give FEMA more power and responsibility. That hurricane made landfall in southeast Louisiana in August 2005, leading to at least 1,800 deaths and $100 billion in damage. The resulting legislation allowed FEMA to better prepare communities for and help them recover from disasters.
But the letter warns that the Trump administration is sending the agency and country back to a pre-Katrina era, by not having a Senate-confirmed and qualified emergency manger at the helm; by slashing mitigation, disaster recovery, training and community programs; and by thwarting officials’ ability to make decisions because of a restrictive new expense policy.
The letter demands that federal lawmakers defend FEMA from the Homeland Security Department interference, protect the agency’s employees from “politically motivated firings,” conduct more oversight, and ultimately take FEMA out of DHS and establish it as an independent Cabinet-level agency in the executive branch.
“Our shared commitment to our country, our oaths of office, and our mission of helping people before, during, and after disasters compel us to warn Congress and the American people of the cascading effects of decisions made by the current administration,” the employees wrote, adding that they are sounding the alarm “so that we can continue to lawfully uphold our individual oaths of office and serve our country as our mission dictates.”
If you want to know what Retired General Russell Honore, our Katrina Hero, has to say about all this, please follow him on his Facebook. He’s outspoken and frequently gives interviews. Here are his thoughts on NPR. “A retired general recalls Hurricane Katrina’s chaos and lessons still unlearned.”
“It broke my heart when I saw a lady with a toddler and a shopping basket pushing the baby in the water,” Honoré said in an interview with NPR’s Michel Martin. “The water was up to the baby’s chest and she was trying to get into the Superdome to save [the] baby and herself. And I said, ‘We’ve got to get these people out of here.'”
The Superdome was a last refuge for many. And as supplies ran low, it became a symbol of misery.
Before Katrina hit, forecasters warned of catastrophe if people failed to evacuate. But New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin did not issue a mandatory order until Aug. 28, 2005.
Roughly 20% of the local population stayed behind, most of them being poor and elderly. “They want to stay because they know where the medicine is and many of them lived alone,”Honoré said. In some cases, the system failed them. “The city did send people to pick them up, but at that time, you couldn’t take an animal in an ambulance. And the elderly people said, ‘I’m not leaving if I can’t take my dog with me.'”
Since Hurricane Katrina, federal law has changed to include shelter for pets.
I would also like to remind you that, as we speak, the folks who helped us most to recover are the fearless and hard-working men who came here to work. They still work here, and we depend on them. My friend Anne Renee shared this with me. It’s from NOLA.COM. “They came to rebuild New Orleans after Katrina. Under Trump, ICE is trying to deport them. Advocates have identified numerous Katrina workers detained by ICE under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.”
“The cousins fled Guatemala’s rural highlands, seeking stability in the United States. They found it in a city ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Arriving in New Orleans after the storm, Abner Uriel Gomez Velasquez and Ever Eliseo Velasquez Fuentes found jobs in the booming industry Spanish speakers came to call “reconstrucción” — the back-breaking work of ripping mold-infested flooring, sodden drywall and fried appliances from flooded homes, and then, eventually, rebuilding them.
“Many left,” said Giovanni Lopez, a U.S. citizen and 40-year New Orleanian, born in Guatemala, who attends church with one of the men at St. Anthony of Padua in Mid-City, a hub for local Hispanic families. “They were here. They entered those homes first.”
New Orleans remains their home nearly two decades later.
Now, both men are confined to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in north Louisiana, caught in President Donald Trump’s immigration dragnet.
Federal agents arrested the men, who have no criminal records, while they worked a construction job together near Lafayette on June 12 with two other St. Anthony parishioners, church leaders said. They are awaiting deportation at the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center, accused of entering the country illegally on their way to New Orleans after Katrina.
As the city girds for the landmark storm’s 20th anniversary this month, the arrests have highlighted immigrants’ foundational roles in rebuilding.
Demand for workers so outstripped supply after the storm that the Bush administration suspended rules requiring employers to verify workers’ immigration status. A 2006 survey of construction workers in the city found half were Hispanic, and half of those were here illegally. And New Orleans’ Latino population grew by 71%, to 103,000 residents, between 2000 and 2013, according to Census data.
A precise number of Katrina construction laborers who remain in New Orleans is difficult to tally. But under Trump, whose administration has often detained immigrants accused of no other wrongdoing, lawyers and advocates have identified numerous Katrina workers apprehended by ICE. They include a man deported to El Salvador following a May worksite raid at a marquee New Orleans anti-flooding project.
The White House’s immigration strategy has driven up deportations. Yet it has not been applied evenly: outcry from community members and Republican lawmakers has led some detainees to be released, while others remain in jail or face deportation. Supporters of Gomez Velasquez and Velasquez Fuentes have petitioned for a measure of that relief, citing their contributions to New Orleans in letters to their congressmen.
Spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not respond to multiple inquiries about Gomez Velasquez and Velasquez Fuentes’ cases.
The Trump administration has vigorously defended its agenda.
After the May New Orleans raid, an ICE spokesperson said the agency’s worksite enforcement aims to “deter employers who hire unauthorized workers,” and to “promote self-compliance in the business community.” The raids, they said, “protect employment opportunities for the nation’s workforce.”
A New Orleans story
The cousins each crossed the U.S. border with Mexico on their way north from homes in Guatemala’s verdant but impoverished San Marcos province. They entered “without inspection,” said Sue Weishar, a St. Anthony’s volunteer. Velasquez Fuentes came to New Orleans in 2006, and Gomez Velasquez followed in 2008.
They continued their construction careers — both became skilled caulkers — after the rebuild ended. They married. Gomez Velasquez met his wife Olivia in 2008 at a streetcar stop; Velasquez Fuentes met his wife Susana in 2016 in Metairie. They had children, all U.S. citizens.
And they deepened their faith. Gomez Velasquez leads a prayer group at St. Anthony, his home church. Velasquez Fuentes’ 16-year-old stepson was confirmed there.
Both men were unable to secure residency status because they did not qualify for many visa programs, such as those for relatives of adult citizens, people of certain professions and crime victims, church leaders said. They have not been accused of any other offenses.
“Our church recognizes that a country has the right to regulate its borders,” the Rev. Augustine J. DeArmond, St. Anthony’s pastor, wrote to the judge handling Gomez Velasquez’s case. “Our responsibility is also to act with justice and mercy.
On a recent Monday, about two dozen parishioners lined the church’s pews to pen letters calling for the men’s release. They asked the men’s families to describe how their detentions have upended their lives.
“I’ve never been separated from him for so long,” Axle, Gomez Velasquez’s 12-year-old son, said of his father as he fought back tears. “I miss him taking me to church and soccer. I want him to come home.”
I definitely have overdone it here. You may see so much American Spirit in so many. You may also assure yourself that we have the worst regime and the worst people ever in charge of it. Here are a few songs by us old, wrinkly hippies still protesting.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Sunday Cartoons: Duck and Cover
Posted: June 22, 2025 Filed under: 2025 What Fresh Hell?, Breaking News, cartoons, Diplomacy Nightmares, Donald Trump, Foreign Affairs, Iran, Israel, Middle East, morning reads, Political and Editorial Cartoons 4 Comments
Ya know, I grew up with the big threat of nuclear war…up until the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was a serious thing.
Now it’s getting to be another possible scenario.
Here is a complete rundown of the Trump’s Iran war start up:
Banning Calvin and Hobbes? What the fuck?
Cartoons via Cagle:
So, get ready for the worst. It is heading this way.
Tuesday Cartoons: Day One
Posted: January 21, 2025 Filed under: cartoons, just because 3 Comments
Yup.
Here’s some cartoons. Commentary on the first day.
A few more on other topics:
And some observations along the way:
Want to know what executive orders Trump signed yesterday? Don’t want to go to the news media or White House website to read about it? I made a video of what I saw last night:
I’ve tried to think of something to use as a sign off. And I think I’ve found it.
Whatever we had, this democracy that was growing and changing with time is gone. You can use the song as a metaphor for so many other feelings and emotions.
We are struggling.
The Child is Gone.
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