Finally Friday Reads: Crass Consumerism in a Time of Cruelty

“For those unclear on what is happening.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

It’s been a tough few days for a country celebrating a Feast Day and trying to be thankful! This is supposedly the season to celebrate ‘historical’ migration. These stories are heaped with more cultish propaganda than reality. It becomes increasingly difficult to stomach Crassmass in this nation’s day, marked by crass consumerism, during a time when it’s challenging to put food on the table. Watching the news is more difficult than usual. The Statue of Liberty should be wearing a black shroud.

This is from the AP. “Trump says he wants to ‘permanently pause’ migration to the US from poorer countries.” Just what we need. More selfish people. This news is reported by Josh Boak.

President Donald Trump says he wants to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations and is promising to seek to expel millions of immigrants from the United States by revoking their legal status. He is blaming immigrants for problems from crime to housing shortages as part of “social dysfunction” in America and demanding “REVERSE MIGRATION.”

His most severe social media post against immigration since returning to the Oval Office in January came after the shooting Wednesday of two National Guard members who were patrolling the streets of the nation’s capital under his orders. One died and the other is in critical condition.

A 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan War is facing charges. The suspect came to the U.S. as part of a program to resettle those who had helped American troops after U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Trump’s threat to stop immigration would be a serious blow to a nation that has long defined itself as welcoming immigrants.

Since the shooting not far from the White House, administration officials have pledged to reexamine millions of legal immigrants, building on a 10-month campaign to reduce the immigrant population. In a lengthy social media post late Thursday, the Republican president asserted that millions of people born outside the U.S. and now living in the country bore a large share of the blame for America’s societal ills.

“Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — You won’t be here for long!”

Be prepared to see the nation’s economy and hope sink even further. My heart just hurts this morning. I woke up feeling that I really don’t belong in this world. It creates constant heartbreak. This autocratic regime is tearing our nation apart and murdering people. This is from Reuters. “Officials criticize Biden vetting, but Afghan shooting suspect was granted asylum under Trump.”

The Trump administration on Thursday blamed Biden-era vetting failures for the admission of an Afghan immigrant suspected of shooting two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., but the alleged gunman was granted asylum this year under President Donald Trump, according to a U.S. government file seen by Reuters.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national, entered the U.S. on September 8, 2021, under Operation Allies Welcome. The resettlement program was set up by former Democratic President Joe Biden after the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 that led to the rapid collapse of the Afghan government and the country’s takeover by the Taliban.

FBI Director Kash Patel and Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, both Trump appointees, said during a press conference on Thursday that the Biden administration had failed to conduct adequate background checks or vetting on Lakanwal before allowing him to enter the U.S. in 2021.

Neither official provided any evidence to support their assertion.

Patel said Lakanwal, who had worked with U.S. government forces during the U.S. war in Afghanistan, was improperly allowed to enter the U.S. because “the prior administration made the decision to allow thousands of people into this country without doing a single piece of background checking or vetting.”

The program, which allowed more than 70,000 Afghan nationals into the U.S., according to a congressional report, was designed with vetting procedures, including by U.S. counter-terrorism and intelligence agencies. But the large-scale and rushed nature of the evacuations led critics to say the background checks were inefficient.

You may read more about the suspect’s background at the link. Meanwhile, the young woman who died from the attack was there on a mission that a Federal judge deemed illegal. She died needlessly. My heart aches this morning. This is from the Washington Examiner, as reported by Ross O’Keefe. “Trump announces National Guard soldier Sarah Beckstrom died from her injuries after shooting.”

West Virginia National Guard soldier Sarah Beckstrom has died from her injuries after she and another soldier were shot Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced.

She was 20. Her father, Gary Beckstrom, previously said she wasn’t expected to recover and had a mortal injury.

“I must unfortunately tell you that just seconds before I went on right now, I heard that Sarah Beckstrom of West Virginia, one of the guardsmen that we’re talking about, highly respected young, magnificent person, started service in June of 2023 outstanding in every way. She’s just passed away,” Trump said Thursday evening.

“She’s no longer with us. She’s looking down at us right now. Her parents are with her. It’s just happened. She was savagely attacked. She’s dead, not with us. Incredible person, outstanding in every single way, in every department, that’s horrible,” he added.

West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey confirmed that she had died. “Sarah served with courage, extraordinary resolve, and an unwavering sense of duty to her state and to her nation. She answered the call to serve, stepped forward willingly, and carried out her mission with the strength and character that define the very best of the West Virginia National Guard,” he wrote in a post on X.

“Today, we honor her bravery and her sacrifice as we mourn the loss of a young woman who gave everything she had in defense of others. We will forever hold her family, her friends, and her fellow Guardsmen in our prayers as they grieve what no family should ever have to bear,” he added.

The New York Times spoke with her father, Gary, and a former boyfriend, Adam Carr.

“I’m holding her hand right now,” Gary Beckstrom told the outlet earlier. “She has a mortal wound. It’s not going to be a recovery.”

Carr said Beckstrom was “caring and tenderhearted.” He also said she enjoyed nature, road trips and spending time with her family. “As long as she was with people who cared about her, she was having a good time,” he said.

He added that she wasn’t excited to go to the nation’s capital initially because of people who did not want the National Guard there. She then grew fond of spending time in D.C., wandering museums and memorials.

The other soldier, U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, is still fighting for his life.

Regarding the judicial ruling, Time Magazine has provided an update today. “What’s the Status of the National Guard in D.C. After Court Ruling and Recent Shooting?”  This analysis is provided by Miranda Jeyaretnam.

Last week, a federal judge ruled that the Trump Administration’s deployment of more than 2,000 National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., was illegal. But after a Wednesday shooting that resulted in one National Guard servicemember being killed and another hospitalized in critical condition, President Donald Trump has ordered the deployment of an additional 500 troops.

“America will never bend and never yield in the face of terror, and at the same time, we will not be deterred from the mission these servicemembers were so nobly fulfilling,” Trump said in a video address on Wednesday night.

Trump’s expansive use of military powers has been criticized by legal experts, lawmakers and many others who argue that the President is unlawfully using the military for domestic law enforcement, including in assisting with immigration operations, on the pretext of cracking down on crime. Trump also deployed the National Guard during his first term, when he sent 5,000 troops to D.C. alongside law enforcement officers to crack down on peaceful protests during the Black Lives Matter movement, including clearing Lafayette Park in front of the White House and tear-gassing demonstrators.

Here’s what to know about the current deployments across the country and where things stand after Wednesday’s shooting.

This article contains a wealth of valuable information, including details on the legality of deployment and two notable court decisions.

“On Nov. 10, a West Virginia judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s decision to send troops to D.C. at Trump’s request. The lawsuit, which was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union in West Virginia, alleged that the deployment violated state law.”

As stated that one involved state law.

Trump continues to use the military, Homeland Security, and the Justice Department to terrorize the country. This is from Vox. “How Trump made his Justice Department a tool for retribution. Thousands of DOJ attorneys have left since Trump took office. Here’s where that leaves the department. This is reported by Ariana Aspuru and Noel King.

President Donald Trump has been trying to use the Department of Justice as his personal law firm. Under Trump’s DOJ, cases are dropped for personal political reasons or built without evidence. The DOJ has also sought to prosecute Trump’s adversaries and political foes, including James Comey, the former FBI director, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general whose office filed a civil lawsuit against Trump in 2022.

Those cases have faced some challenges: On Monday, a federal judge threw out the government’s charges against Comey and James.

But Trump’s attempts to use the Justice Department for political ends are leaving their mark inside the department as well. Emily Bazelon, a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine, spoke to some of the thousands of DOJ attorneys who have resigned or been fired since January. Through their stories, she navigated us around the turmoil happening at the department, the pushback to Trump’s directives, and where it all leaves us.

Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There is a wealth of valuable information in many specific cases, so you may want to review the entire article. This excerpt focuses on the potential future of the DOJ.

As the year progresses, how does the Trump administration start divvying up resources at the DOJ? What do we see Trump prioritizing?

There’s a really important order that happens where about a third of the manpower and resources of law enforcement agents is supposed to start going to immigration work. And that means that these FBI agents are not going to be doing the things they were doing before because their work hours are a finite resource.

Prosecutors told us that they saw these agents being pulled off of cases involving white collar crime or national security, counter-terrorism, child exploitation. Those are the kinds of big cases that just take a lot of labor. And so if you have your FBI agents out on the street picking up people for immigration detention, then they’re not going to be able to do these more longer-term cases that, in the view of the prosecutors, are very important for keeping Americans safe.

Moving forward to late September, Donald Trump has demanded that the DOJ pay him $230 million for investigations into him that happened during the Biden administration. How does that play out within his Department of Justice?

This is a really unprecedented demand. And also remember that the people who are going to decide whether Trump gets this big payout are his appointees, his former lawyers in the Justice Department, right? Pam Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche.

From the point of view of the Justice Department lawyers we interviewed, this just seemed comically corrupt to them. They just really couldn’t imagine how the president could think this was an appropriate use of federal funds.

One of your sources told you it would take a lot of restraint not to retaliate in the next administration. This person said they have a list in their head of career people who are helping the administration they want to hold to account. Did you come away from this reporting concerned that there is a cycle of retribution here that may be becoming entrenched?

It’s too soon to say there is going to be a lot of temptation to move in that direction because some people are going to feel like they’re surrounded by people who they watched do things that were unethical or traitorous to the colleagues around them. It’s hard to let all of that go.

I think there are different ways that could be addressed. There are employment repercussions, like questions of whether everyone gets to stay in the job. And then there’s the much more serious question of whether they’re going to be criminal investigations. That’s the kind of tit for tat retaliation that I think could really send the justice system into a tailspin.

Another of your sources tells you that the average American does not really care what is happening at the Justice Department because we think it doesn’t affect us. Is there an argument that this does in fact affect us, that we should really care what’s going on here?

I think there is: the rule of law. The idea of the stability of law is vital to American prosperity and social well-being, right? I mean, stability is honestly the most important thing we get from law. And when you live in a country where the president can turn the huge might of federal law enforcement against anyone he wants, then you’re kind of betting it’s not going to be you. But the odds are not the same as they were before when this kind of retribution was just off the table.

And since Watergate, we have lived in a country where there was a very deliberate, carefully erected separation between the White House and its political influence and investigations and criminal prosecutions from the Justice Department. So once that is gone, eventually you see that play out in all kinds of ways in Americans’ lives. Even if it starts by seeming it’s just about a few people like James Comey and Letitia James.

There are still a lot of good reporters on the beat. You just have to search for them. Here are some alternative media sources, starting with Paul Waldman of Public Notice. “Why MAGA is coming apart at the seams. Turns out they’re not in it for Trump, they’re in it for themselves.”

Never in modern times has a president enforced absolute loyalty in the way Trump does, not only by attempting to destroy any Republican who opposes him but by demanding regular public displays of sycophancy, such as the North Korean-style cabinet meetings in which everyone competes to see who can offer the most effusive praise of the president’s magnificence.

For the most part, it has worked: The atmosphere of fear surrounding Trump’s cult of personality has kept Republicans from criticizing him even when they think he’s wrong.

But consider the list of issues on which notable Republican officeholders and influencers are now breaking with Trump, or at the very least fighting amongst themselves in ways that weaken his movement:

• After months of resisting the release of the Epstein files, Trump faced a revolt from his own party in Congress, where both houses voted nearly unanimously for a bill to force a release, which he signed.
• Ideas Trump has floated recently, including 50-year mortgages and $2,000 checks given to Americans supposedly from tariff revenue, have landed with a thud in Congress, with few members coming out to back them. His demand to eliminate the filibuster has received little support from Republicans in the Senate.
• Trump’s apparent interest in invading Venezuela has caused a negative reaction from supporters who believed him when he said he wanted to break with our history of foreign adventurism. Republican officeholders have begun raising questions about the Pentagon murdering alleged drug smugglers by the dozens without providing any evidence of who they were or what legal authority the administration is operating under. Sen. Rand Paul, for instance, says “I think you’ll see a splintering and a fracturing of the movement that has supported the president” if he invades Venezuela.
• While Republican legislators in many states saluted and followed his order to redraw their congressional maps, Republicans in Indiana said no despite intense pressure from the White House. While it received less coverage, Republicans in Nebraska and Kansas also declined to redraw their maps to eliminate Democratic seats.
• Trump has cheerleaded the unfettered development of artificial intelligence, but many on the right are wary of the technology and the tech companies creating it; when news broke that he wants to prevent any state from adopting AI regulations, state-level Republicans pushed back.
• The right is currently being torn apart over the question of how friendly it should be to Nazis; while Trump’s own position on the question is a bit muddled, his administration is teeming with white nationalists.
• Some Republicans are even worried about backlash from the administration’s nationwide campaign of masked thuggery; in response to the recent invasion of North Carolina, former Gov. Pat McCrory told Politico, “From a PR and political standpoint, for the first time, immigration is maybe having a negative impact on my party.”
• Punchbowl News reports that MTG’s displeasure is just the tip of the iceberg in the Republican caucus in the House. The White House, one anonymous GOP member told them, “has treated ALL members like garbage … More explosive early resignations are coming. It’s a tinder box. Morale has never been lower.

The most immediate explanation for why all this dissension and displeasure is roiling to the surface is that Trump is extremely unpopular right now — especially on the economy, the issue every elected official rightly fears.

My Holiday Craft Project. Whistles for the Whistle Brigade.

ICE has been particularly active at Home Depots around here, but as the National Guard moves in on us today, we’re gearing up for a mess. This is reported by Jenny Taer at the Daily Wire. “Border Patrol Heads To Another Blue City In Latest Round Of Illegal Immigration Sweeps. The city’s Democratic leadership is now bracing for impact.” I must admit that I’m quite anxious. I’m doing my part with the resistance’s Whistle Squad.

Border agents are planning to hit New Orleans with immigration raids after Thanksgiving.

The Democrat-run city is expected to see sweeps similar to the ongoing operations in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Charlotte, where agents have arrested hundreds of illegal immigrants, according to CNN.

Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, who has led the other operations, is expected to descend upon the city with roughly 250 federal agents starting the first week of December in an operation dubbed “Swamp Sweep,” according to multiple reports.

“My first priority is to keep our community safe. The reports of due process violations and potential abuses in other cities are concerning. I want our community to be aware and informed of the protections available under law,” Moreno said in a recent statement.

“We must demand accountability and that people’s rights are not violated. I’m also calling on our legal community to step up and provide whatever assistance they can to help protect and preserve individual rights.”

New Orleans is home to more than 23,000 immigrants who account for roughly 6.5% of the city’s population, according to CNN. Roughly half of the city’s immigrants are noncitizens.

Bracing for impact, some immigrants have already started to call out of work, leaving local businesses scrambling.

Ingrid Ferguson, who owns several grocery stores in New Orleans specializing in Central American products, told CNN that her immigrant employees are fearful to show up to work, forcing her and her family to pick up extra shifts.

Business revenue has been nearly cut in half with fewer Latino customers coming in.

Ferguson has started offering a free delivery service to immigrants hiding out at home and has considered temporarily closing all but one store location next week, according to CNN.

Louisiana is a major staging point for deportation flights and is home to eight federal immigration detention centers. Federal authorities across the country often funnel illegal immigrants with deportation orders to Louisiana as the final step in their one-way journey home.

So, this isn’t exactly the definition of the United States I thought we’d leave our children and grandchildren. I also intend to continue protecting and supporting my friends. Keep us all in your hearts as this long weekend progresses.

What’s on your reading, blogging, and action list today?