Posts Tagged ‘DAILY KOS’
ABC NEWS, ALAMO, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANDREW JACKSON, ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHARLES VII, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DONALD TRUMP, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCE, GAVIN NEWSOM, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), JOAN OF ARC, KAREN BASS, LONE STAR: A HISTORY OF TEXAS AND THE TEXANS (BOOK), MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL GUARD, NBC NEWS, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SAM HOUSTON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, T.R. FEHRENBACH, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TEXAS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TOM HOMAN, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, WILLIAM BARRET TRAVIS, WONKETTE, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 24, 2026 at 12:10 am
History is filled with examples of men—and women—who in moments of crisis rose to challenge a deadly enemy. One of these is California Governor Gavin C. Newsom.
On June 6, 2025, protests erupted in Los Angeles against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The demonstrations were triggered by ICE raids at multiple locations in the city to arrest suspected illegal aliens.
On the evening of June 7, 2025, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum deploying 2,000 members of the California National Guard to the protests for either 60 days or for a length of time “at the discretion of the secretary of defense.”
He did so without the request—or consent—of Governor Newsom.
If a Democratic President did so in a Republican state, Congressional Republicans would scream “STATES’ RIGHTS!” and accuse the President of being a dictator. But since Trump is a Republican, Congressional Republicans enthusiastically supported his action.
National Guard troops in L.A.
In a tweet, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that active duty Marines were on “high alert” at Camp Pendleton.
And Trump later threatened to “have troops everywhere” if the protests spread to other cities. “If we see danger to our country and our citizens,” the Marines would be deployed to Los Angeles.
Newsom retorted that the National Guard—and especially the Marines—weren’t needed. The LAPD and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department were fully capable of protecting Federal property and dispersing the protesters.
He called on Trump to return control of the Guard to California—and withdraw the Marines, who are trained for combat, not handling civil unrest.
Thomas Homan, White House Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations, told NBC News that Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass could potentially face federal charges over their response to the ICE raids.
Homan had previously threatened arrest for anyone who obstructed immigration enforcement. When asked whether that would include Newsom or Bass, Homan did not rule it out.
“I’ll say it about anybody,” Homan said. “You cross that line, it’s a felony to knowingly harbor and conceal an illegal alien. It’s a felony to impede law enforcement doing their job.”
Tom Homan
Newsom quickly responded to Homan: “Trump’s border czar is threatening to arrest me for speaking out. Come and get me, tough guy.
“What the hell are they doing? These guys need to grow up, they need to stop and we need to push back and I’m sorry to be so clear but that kind of bloviating is exhausting. So Tom, arrest me. Let’s go.”
Homan just as quickly backed down: “There’s no intention to arrest the governor right now. I don’t know if he crossed that line.” Homan said he would “leave that up” to the Justice Department.
When asked about the idea of arresting Newsom, Trump said, “I’d do it if I were Tom. Gavin likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing.”
On June 11, Newsom addressed not only Trump’s response to civil disorders in Los Angeles, but the threat he posed to California, every other state—and democracy itself.
GOVERNOR GAVIN NEWSOM’S ADDRESS TO CALIFORNIA: DEMOCRACY AT A CROSSROADS ON JUNE 11, 2025
I want to say a few words about the events of the last few days. This past weekend, federal agents conducted large-scale workplace raids in and around Los Angeles. Those raids continue as I speak.
California is no stranger to immigration enforcement. But instead of focusing on undocumented immigrants with serious criminal records and people with final deportation orders – a strategy both parties have long supported – this administration is pushing mass deportations.
Indiscriminately targeting hardworking immigrant families, regardless of their roots or risk.
What’s happening right now is very different than anything we’ve seen before. On Saturday morning, when federal agents jumped out of an unmarked van near a Home Depot parking lot, they began grabbing people.
A deliberate targeting of a heavily Latino suburb.
A similar scene also played out when a clothing company was raided downtown.
In other actions: a US citizen, 9 months pregnant – arrested.
A four-year-old girl – taken.
Families separated. Friends disappearing.
In response, everyday Angelinos came out to exercise their Constitutional right to free speech and assembly. To protest their government’s actions.
In turn, the State of California and the City and County of Los Angeles sent our police officers to help keep the peace, and with some exceptions, they were successful.
Like many states, California is no stranger to this sort of civil unrest. We manage it regularly … and with our own law enforcement.
But this, again, was different.
What then ensued was the use of tear gas. Flash-bang grenades. Rubber bullets. Federal agents, detaining people and undermining their due process rights.
Donald Trump, without consulting with California’s law enforcement leaders, commandeered 2,000 of our state’s National Guard members to deploy on our streets. Illegally, and for no reason.
This brazen abuse of power by a sitting President inflamed a combustible situation … putting our people, our officers, and the National Guard at risk.
That’s when the downward spiral began.
ABC NEWS, ALAMO, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANDREW JACKSON, ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHARLES VII, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DONALD TRUMP, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCE, GAVIN NEWSOM, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), JOAN OF ARC, KAREN BASS, LONE STAR: A HISTORY OF TEXAS AND THE TEXANS (BOOK), MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL GUARD, NBC NEWS, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SAM HOUSTON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, T.R. FEHRENBACH, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TEXAS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TOM HOMAN, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, WILLIAM BARRET TRAVIS, WONKETTE, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 23, 2026 at 12:10 am
History is filled with examples of men—and women—who in moments of crisis rose to challenge a deadly enemy.
Among these have been:
- Joan of Arc
- William Barret Travis
- Volodmyr Zelensky
Volofmyr Zelensky (January 25, 1978 – ) is a former attorney, actor and comedian who, as the sixth president of Ukraine, now leads his country in a life-or-death struggle against the aggressive Russia of Vladimir Putin.
In 2021, his administration came under mounting pressure from Russia. On February 24, 2022, Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
During the assault by Russian troops on the capital of Kiev, the Biden administration urged Zelensky to evacuate to a safer location and offered to help him do so. Zelensky refused, saying: “The fight is here [in Kiev]; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
As CBS correspondent Scott Pelley put it: “The moment Zelensky told his people he refused to flee, they refused to fall.”
Russia expected Kiev to fall in three days. But more than four years after the invasion, Kiev still remains defiant—and in the hands of Ukrainians.
When Zelensky wasn’t broadcasting defiance at Russia and rousing Ukrainians to heroism, he was often visiting the battlefront. Zelensky sees Ukraine’s struggle as the opening round of Russia’s war against the West:
“Some are….saying, ‘We can’t defend Ukraine because there could be a nuclear war.’ I think that today, no one in this world can predict what Russia will do.
“If they invade further into our territory, then they will definitely move closer and closer to Europe. They will only become stronger and less predictable.”
Millions of Americans—such as those who took part in nationwide “No Kings” protests on June 14, 2025—feel the same way about Donald Trump and his own dictatorial regime.
Which leads to:
Gavin Christopher Newsom (October 10, 1967) has been the 40th governor of California since 2019. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, he imposed strict lockdown measures, thus saving countless lives by preventing a far greater spread of the virus.
Gavin Newsom
In doing so, he aroused the wrath of then-President Donald J. Trump, who promoted false “cures” such as drinking bleach and shining UV light up people’s rectums. Trump’s goal: “Keep America open” so he could take credit for a robust economy—and win re-election—no matter how many people died.
And Newsom has continued to challenge a re-elected Trump’s lies and illegal actions:
- Trump has targeted the governor on social media, often referring to him as “Newscum.”
- And Newsom has proven he can give as good as he gets: He has highlighted U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data demonstrating that California created more jobs than any other state between the first quarters of 2025 and 2026.
- He has openly criticized Trump for policies that cut good-paying clean energy jobs and weaken environmental safeguards.
- The two routinely trade personal barbs on X over state issues like wildfire management, homelessness and California’s high-speed rail project.
- In January 2026, Trump gave a speech at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. Afterward, Newsom publicly mocked it as “boring” and “boorish.”
- Newsom’s team accused the White House of blocking him from accessing the “USA House” headquarters at the summit.
On June 15, 2026, Newsom accused Trump of launching a politically motivated investigation into him and his wife: “They have not found a crime—they are simply trying to find one.
“He’s coming after me because I’m considering running for president, because he hates that I’ve consistently called him out over and over again for his lies and deceit.”
He added that federal agents had in recent days knocked on the doors of his friends and former employees, asking for records.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
On June 6, 2025, protests erupted in Los Angeles against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The demonstrations were triggered by ICE raids at multiple locations in the city to arrest suspected illegal aliens.
The first raid occurred within the Los Angeles Fashion District; two other raids occurred at a clothing wholesaler and a Home Depot in upscale Westlake.
Word of these arrests quickly spread, and so did demonstrations, with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stating that 44 people were arrested for suspected immigration violations and one person was arrested for obstruction.
David Huerta, the California president of the Service Employees International Union, was arrested for blocking a vehicle and charged with felony conspiracy to impede an officer.
The epicenter of the protests became the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center at 535 N Alameda Street. About 200 protesters remained at the facility by 7 p.m., when the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) declared the protest to be an unlawful assembly and ordered protesters to disperse
Some protesters hurled chunks of broken concrete toward officers; the LAPD responded with tear gas, pepper spray and flash-bang grenades to disperse the crowd. At 8:24 p.m. a citywide tactical alert was announced.
On June 7, the protests continued. About 1,000 people surrounded a local branch building used by Homeland Security.
Newsom deployed California Highway Patrol units to protect Los Angeles freeways.
By June 7, 118 illegal aliens had been arrested in Los Angeles, according to the DHS.
ABC NEWS, ALAMO, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANDREW JACKSON, ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHARLES VII, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DONALD TRUMP, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCE, GAVIN NEWSOM, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), JOAN OF ARC, KAREN BASS, LONE STAR: A HISTORY OF TEXAS AND THE TEXANS (BOOK), MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL GUARD, NBC NEWS, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SAM HOUSTON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, T.R. FEHRENBACH, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TEXAS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TOM HOMAN, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, WILLIAM BARRET TRAVIS, WONKETTE, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 22, 2026 at 12:10 am
On November 30, 1954—the 80th birthday of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill—he gave an uncharacteristically modest assessment of his World War II legacy:
“It was the nation and the race dwelling all around the globe that had the lion’s heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.”
But author William Manchester was having nothing of it. In his monumental trilogy, The Last Lion, he wrote:
“It wasn’t that simple. The spirit, if indeed within them, lay dormant until he became prime minister and they, kindled by his soaring prose, came to see themselves as he saw them and emerged a people transformed, the admiration of free men everywhere.”
History is filled with examples of men—and women—who in moments of crisis rose to challenge a deadly enemy.
Among these have been:
- Joan of Arc
- William Barret Travis
- Volodmyr Zelensky
Joan of Arc (c. 1412 – 30 May 1431) was an illiterate peasant girl who, in France’s darkest hour, became its greatest hero. After she arranged an interview with King Charles V11, he sent her with a relief army to lift the siege of Orléans.
Joan of Arc
She had never wielded a lance or sword, or even ridden a war horse. She had never studied military strategy nor even seen a battlefield. Yet nine days after arriving with an army at Orléans, she lifted the English siege of the city on May 8, 1429.
On May 4, her army attacked the outlying fortress of Saint Loup. She arrived just as the French soldiers were retreating after a failed attempt. Her sudden appearance roused the soldiers to cheer and launch another assault—which overwhelmed the fortress.
In June, Joan decisively defeated the English at the Battle of Patay. She then advanced on Reims, entering the city on July 16. The next day, Charles, the rightful heir to the French throne, was consecrated as the King of France in Reims Cathedral with Joan at his side.
These victories paved the way for the final French victory in the Hundred Years’ War at Castillon in 1453.
On May 23, 1430, while relieving the siege of Compiegne, she was captured by Burgundians troops and exchanged to the English. Tried for heresy, she was declared guilty and burned at the stake on May 30,1431.
Only 19 when she died, she had, through her inspired leadership, restored the kingdom of France.
William Barret Travis (August 1, 1809 – March 6, 1836) was a South Carolina lawyer whose courage and eloquence inspired 200 Texans at the Alamo to hold back an army of 2,000 Mexican soldiers.
William Barret Travis
Few of the defenders had known each other before finding themselves besieged. None of them had had professional military training. Some had served in local militias or as irregulars fighting Indians under the command of frontier officers such as Andrew Jackson. Since the vast majority of the garrison were volunteers, they could have deserted the fortress at any time.
Holding them in place was Travis. Gifted with an eloquence beyond his 26 years, he gave purpose to their stand. As historian T.R. Fehrenbach writes in his monumental book, Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans:
“From the Alamo, from his first message before the arrival of the Mexicans to his last, his words had the ring of prophecy. The Texas historian who stated publicly that few people would want to have a son serve under William Barret Travis had forgotten, in the comforts of long security, the reasons why men make war.”
When the final assault came before dawn on March 6, 1836, the roughly 200 defenders killed and wounded about 600 of their enemies—inflicting a casualty rate of 33% on the Mexican army.
Travis’ body was found near his cannon on the north wall. He had been shot through the forehead.
The garrison’s sacrifice inspired Sam Houston’s ragtag army to fall on the Mexican army at San Jacinto on April 21. Slaughtering about 800 soldiers, the Texans captured Mexican dictator Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna—and forced him to surrender control of Texas in return for his life.
Volofmyr Zelensky (January 25, 1978 – ) is a former attorney, actor and comedian who, as the sixth president of Ukraine, now leads his country in a life-or-death struggle against the aggressive Russia of Vladimir Putin.
After earning a law degree from Kiev National Economic University, he pursued a career in comedy. He created his own production company, Kvartal 95, which produced films, cartoons, and TV shows. His comedy, Servant of the People, starred Zelensky as the president of Ukraine.
Volodymyr Zelensky
In 2019, he announced his candidacy for president of Ukraine. He opposed the corruption that had been rife under the country’s luxury-loving president, Victor Yanukovych.
(In 2014, Ukrainians had rioted in Kiev and evicted Yanukovych. And that didn’t sit well with his “sponsor”—Russian President Vladimir Putin.)
A second feature of Zelensky’s presidential campaign: He promised to resolve the Russia-sponsored separatist movement in Donbas and end Ukraine’s protracted conflict there with Russia.
Zelensky won election by a landslide, with 72% of the vote.
In 2021, his administration came under mounting pressure from Russia. On February 24, 2022, Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANIMAL FARM (BOOK), AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BC NEWS, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BRIAN KILMEADE, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHARLIE KIRK, CNN, COVID, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, DONLD TRUMP, FASCISTS, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX & FRIENDS, FOX NEWS NETWORK, GEORGE ORWELL, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOMELESS, HUFFINGTON POST, J.D. VANCE, JOHN HOFFMAN, JOSEPH R. BIDEN, KATIE BRITT, MARK HORTMAN, MEDIA MATTERS, MELISSA HORTMAN, MIKE LEE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, MUNICH SECURITY CONFERENCE, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUDY GIULIANI, SALON, SEAN DUFFY, SEAN PARMELL, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, STEPHEN MILLER, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE PENTAGON, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIM WALZ, TIME, TRUTH SOCIAL, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TURNINIG POINT USA, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, X, YVETTE HOFFMAN
In History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 19, 2026 at 12:27 am
On September 10, 2025, Right-wing propagandist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at a Turning Point USA public debate event on the Utah Valley University campus in Orem, Utah.
Immediately afterward, President Donald Trump and his Republican allies threatened retribution (“consequences”) for people who spoke callously about his killing.
Both in and out of Trump’s administration people were fired, suspended or reprimanded for exercising their Constitutional right to freedom of speech.
Charlie Kirk
Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Among those so far fired or punished: Teachers, an Office Depot employee, government workers, a TV pundit.
Over the weekend following Kirk’s death, Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted that American Airlines had grounded pilots who he said were celebrating Kirk’s assassination.
On September 15—five days after Kirk’s death—Vice President J.D. Vance hosted Kirk’s podcast: “So, when you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out and, hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility.”
At the Munich Security Conference in February, Vance had criticized the preceding Biden administration for encouraging “private companies to silence people” who spread misinformation about the COVID pandemic:
“Under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree.”
J.D. Vance
At the Pentagon, military leaders declared a “zero tolerance” policy for any posts or comments from troops that joked about or celebrated the death of Kirk.
“It is unacceptable for military personnel and Department of War civilians to celebrate or mock the assassination of a fellow American,” wrote Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s top spokesman.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller vowed to use law enforcement to go after Americans who mocked Kirk’s death, calling that domestic terrorism:
“We will not live in fear, but you will live in exile, because the power of law enforcement under President Trump’s leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and if you have broken the law to take away your freedom.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suspended an Army colonel for a post criticizing Kirk after his death and said the Pentagon was “very closely tracking responses celebrating or mocking Kirk’s death.”
Trump ordered the lowering of the American flag on all public buildings from September 10 to the 14th in honor of Kirk.
Yet he refused to do so following the June 14, 2025 murder of Minnesota State Representative and Speaker of the House of Representatives Melissa Hortman in her home in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota.
Also shot—and killed—was her husband, Mark.
Melissa Hortman
Office of Governor Tim Walz & Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan, PDM-owner, via Wikimedia Commons
Earlier that morning, Democratic state Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, had been shot in their home in nearby Champlin. Both were hospitalized and survived.
And how did Republican United States Senator Mike Lee react to the shootings?
Writing on X, the Utah Senator posted: “This is what happens when Marxists don’t get their way.”
On the contrary: Vance Luther Boelter, the alleged shooter, was virulently anti-abortion and anti-Democrat—and voted in the Republican Presidential primary.
And in a second post, Lee posted a picture of Boelter under the caption “Nightmare on Walz Street,” parodying the title of the slasher film, “Nightmare on Elm Street.” It was also a slam on Minnesota Democratic Governor Tim Walz.
On Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Senator Katie Britt (R-Ala.) blamed news outlets for having guests on who called Trump a “fascist” or compared him to the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
Yet it is Republicans who have repeatedly called Democrats “fascists.”
For example: On August 14, 2023, a Georgia grand jury indicted Donald Trump and 18 allies for election interference in that state following the 2020 Presidential election. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani responded: “We’re going to beat these fascists into the ground.”
Trump has repeatedly called “radical left Democrats” “fascists.” On his website, Truth Social, he claimed that his “persecution” by the “Biden Crime Family” was “reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.”
On the September 10 edition of “Fox & Friends,” Fox News host Brian Kilmeade advocated the execution of mentally ill homeless people.
Kilmede was talking with co-hosts Lawrence Jones and Ainsley Earhardt about the August 22 stabbing murder of Iryna Zarufska on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina.
A homeless and mentally ill man, Decarlos Brown Jr., was arrested for the murder.
Kilmeade’s solution: “Involuntary lethal injection, or something. Just kill ‘em. I will say this, we’re not voting for the right people.”
The Fox Network made no move to oust Kilmeade for calling for the executions of more than an estimated 120,000 mentally ill homeless Americans.
In George Orwell’s classic political fable, Animal Farm, the dictatorial pig, Napoleon, decrees that a sign be posted:
ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL.
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.
According to Republicans’ behavior: All violent deaths of politicians are terrible. But the violent deaths of Right-wing politicians are more terrible than others.
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECT, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANTONIN SCALIA, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BERNIE SANDERS, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, D-DAY, DAILY KOS, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GEORGE S. PATTON, GREAT BRITAIN, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HEINZ GUDERIAN, HENRY CLAY, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, ION, JIMMY CARTER, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, STALINGRAD, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TERRORISM, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE PRINCE, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WAFFEN-SS, WORLD WAR 11, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on June 18, 2026 at 12:10 am
Most Americans believe that Nazi Germany was defeated because “we were the Good Guys and they were the Bad Guys.”
Not so.
The United States—and its allies, Great Britain and the Soviet Union—won the war for reasons that had nothing to do with the righteousness of their cause. These included:
- Nazi Germany—–i.e, its Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler—made a series of disastrous decisions. Chief among these: Attacking its ally, the Soviet Union, and declaring war on the United States.
- The greater material resources of the Soviet Union and the United States.
- The Allies waged war as brutally as the Germans.
On this last point:
- From D-Day to the fall of Berlin, captured Waffen-SS soldiers were often shot out of hand.
- When American troops came under fire in the German city of Aachen, Lt. Col. Derrill Daniel brought in a self-propelled 155mm artillery piece and opened up on a theater housing German soldiers. After the city surrendered, a German colonel labeled the use of the 155 “barbarous” and demanded that it be outlawed.
- During the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, Wilhelm Hoffman, a young German soldier and diarist, was appalled that the Russians refused to surrender. He wrote: “You don’t see them at all, they have established themselves in houses and cellars and are firing on all sides, including from our rear—barbarians, they used gangster methods….”
German soldiers in Stalingrad
In short: The Allies won because they dared to meet the brutality of a Heinz Guderian with that of a George S. Patton.
This is a lesson long ignored by the liberals of the Democratic Party. That’s why Republicans now hold both houses of Congress and the Presidency.
An example of this occurred on March 25, 2017: On CBS’ “Sunday Morning,” former President Jimmy Carter said that even if Special Counsel Robert Mueller found evidence that President Donald Trump had broken the law, “my own preference would be that he not be impeached.”
Instead, Carter would want Trump to “be able to serve out his term, because I think he wants to do a good job. And I’m willing to help him, if I can help him, and give him the benefit of the doubt.
“You know, I have confidence in the American system of government. I think ultimately the restraints on a president from the Congress and from the Supreme Court will be adequate to protect our nation, if he serves a full term.”
Jimmy Carter
After becoming President on January 20, 2017, Trump:
- Fired FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty—and for investigating documented ties between Russian Intelligence agents and the 2016 Trump Presidential campaign.
- Threatened to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was assigned to take over that investigation after the Comey firing.
- Repeatedly attacked the nation’s press as “fake news” and “the enemy of the American people.”
- Contemptuously dismissed the warnings of American Intelligence agencies that Russia tried to subvert the 2016 Presidential campaign—and planned to do the same for the mid-term elections in November, 2018.
Trump, in short, was not going to be “helped” by the humility of a Jimmy Carter.
Donald Trump
Former President Barack Obama believes in rationality and decency. He felt more comfortable responding to attacks on his character than attacking the character of his enemies.
As a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama was one of the most academically gifted Presidents in American history.
Yet he failed—like Carter—to grasp and apply a fundamental lesson taught by Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science.
In The Prince, Machiavelli warns:
From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved.
The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved….
And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Obama’s failure to recognize the truth of Machiavelli’s lesson allowed Republicans to thwart many of his Presidential ambitions—such as picking a replacement for deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Throughout 2016, liberals celebrated on Facebook and Twitter the “certain” Presidency of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders or former First Lady Hillary Clinton.
They fully expected to win the White House again, and even retake the Senate and House of Representatives.
But Donald Trump had a different plan—to subvert the 2016 election by Russian Intelligence agents and millions of Russian trolls flooding the Internet with legitimately fake news.
Former Kentucky U.S. Senator Henry Clay famously said: “I’d rather be right than be President.” Trump’s attitude can be summed up as: “I’m always right, so I want to be President.”
For Democrats to win elective victories and enact their agenda, they must find their own George Pattons to take on the Waffen-SS generals among Republican ranks.
1968 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, 2003 IRAQ WAR, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLACKS, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CIVIL RIGHTS, CNN, COMING APART: AMERICA IN THE 1960S (BOOK), CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD TRUMP, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GEORGE C. WALLACE, GEORGE W. BUSH, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HUFFINGTON POST, JAMES MEREDITH, JOHN F. KENNEDY, MAFIA, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT F. KENNEDY, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WILLIAM L. O'NEIL, WOMEN, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 5, 2026 at 12:10 am
Fifty-eight years ago, Robert Francis Kennedy aroused passions of an altogether different sort from those aroused by Donald Trump.
Kennedy had been a United States Attorney General (1961-1964) and Senator from New York (1964-1968). But it was his connection to his beloved and assassinated brother, President John F. Kennedy, for which he was best known.
Kennedy himself remained haunted by the assassination for the rest of his life. He had spent most of his adult life in service to his brother’s ambitions—first as Congressman (1946), then as Senator (1952) and finally as President (1960).
For the last five years of his life (1963-1968) Robert Kennedy had to chart his own course and find his own voice.
As Attorney General, he had waged an unrelenting war against the Mafia. But he also championed civil rights and guaranteed protection for James Meredith, the first black student to enter the all-white University of Mississippi (1963).
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, in October, 1962, his wise counsel had helped steer America from the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
As a U.S Senator he continued to support civil rights and urge greater Federal efforts to fight poverty. Like his dead brother, he called on Americans to improve their own lives while aiding the less fortunate.
Robert F. Kennedy campaigning for President
Millions saw RFK as the only candidate who could make life better for America’s impoverished—while standing firmly against those who threatened the Nation’s safety.
As television correspondent Charles Quinn observed: “I talked to a girl in Hawaii who was for [George] Wallace [the segregationist governor of Alabama]. And I said ‘Really?’ [She said] ‘Yeah, but my real candidate is dead.’
“You know what I think it was? All these whites, all these blue collar people who supported Kennedy…all of these people felt that Kennedy would really do what he thought best for the black people, but, at the same time, would not tolerate lawlessness and violence.
“They were willing to gamble…because they knew in their hearts that the country was not right. They were willing to gamble on this man who would try to keep things within reasonable order; and at the same time do some of the things they knew really should be done.”
Campaigning for the Presidency in 1968, RFK had just won the crucial California primary on June 4—when he was shot in the back of the head.
His killer: Sirhan Sirhan, a young Palestinian furious at Kennedy’s support for Israel.
Kennedy died at 1:44 a.m. on June 6, 1968. He was 42.
On June 8, 1,200 men and women boarded a specially-reserved passenger train at New York’s Pennsylvania Station. They were accompanying Kennedy’s body to its final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery.
As the train slowly moved along 225 miles of track, throngs of men, women and children lined the rails to pay their final respects to a man they considered a genuine hero.
Little Leaguers clutched baseball caps across their chests. Uniformed firemen and policemen saluted. Burly men in shirtsleeves held hardhats over their hearts. Black men in overalls waved small American flags. Women from all levels of society stood and cried.
A nation says goodbye to Robert Kennedy
Commenting on RFK’s legacy, historian William L. O’Neil wrote in Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960′s:
“…He aimed so high that he must be judged for what he meant to do, and, through error and tragic accident, failed at….He will also be remembered as an extraordinary human being who, though hated by some, was perhaps more deeply loved by his countrymen than any man of his time.
“That too must be entered into the final account, and it is no small thing. With his death something precious disappeared from public life.”
America has never again seen a Presidential candidate who combined toughness on crime and compassion for the poor.
Republican candidates appeal to negative emotions—hatred, greed, fear. They constantly seek new “enemies” to frighten their voters: Asians, Hispanics, blacks, “uppity” women, liberals, “socialists.”
They constantly attack the Federal Government as a source of repression—especially when it reins in predatory businesses or levies taxes on the rich. And they try to convince their voters that if only “government gets out of the way” of these businesses and doesn’t tax billionaires, wonderful riches will “trickle down” to those far below.
They champion “law and order” when they control law enforcement—as governors or Presidents. But when the Biden Justice Department started investigating former President Donald Trump for illegally withholding classified documents, Republicans demanded the defunding of the FBI.
And Democratic candidates try to appease the Right by supporting its foreign and domestic agendas. In 2003, liberal Democrats—such as then-Senator Hillary Clinton—supported President George W. Bush’s unprovoked attack on Iraq.
Democrats have aided Republicans in opposing anti-poverty programs and efforts to combat pollution and climate change.
RFK had the courage to fight the Mafia—and the compassion to fight poverty. He called on Americans to act on their best qualities, not their worst.
At a time when Americans long for candidates to give them positive reasons for voting, his kind of politics are sorely missed.
ABC NEWS, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, AFGHANISTAN, ALEXANDER THE GREAT, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANDREW JACKSON, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHARLIE KIRK, CIVIL WAR, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FOX NEWS CHANNEL, GATES OF FIRE (BOOK), HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, JACK SMITH, JOHN C. CALHOUN, JOSEPH BIDEN, LIZ CHENEY, MEDIA MATTERS, MERCENARIES, MERRICK GARLAND, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, ORGANIZED CRIME, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, PROJECT 2025, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SPARTA, STEVEN PRESSFIELD, STORMY DANIELS, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE AFGHAN CAMPAIGN (BOOK), THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE PROFESSION (BOOK), THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE VIRTUES OF WAR (BOOK), THE WASHINGTON POST, THERMOPYLAE, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TREASON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, UPI, USA TODAY, X
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 4, 2026 at 12:10 am
Upon being sworn in as the nation’s 46th President on January 20, 2021, Joseph Biden faced the most important decision of his life.
On July 1, 2024, the Republican-dominated Supreme Court conferred almost unlimited criminal prosecution immunity to Presidents. This gave Biden the opportunity—and authority—to save, at least temporarily, the American republic.
Joseph Biden
Instead, he chose to go down in history as the man who presided over the end of the American republic.
To save it, he could have:
- Purged, through arrests and trials, almost the entire treason-conspiring Republican party, starting with Donald Trump, its Fuhrer-in-waiting.
- Done this officially, because the Court had ruled that he (and future Presidents) could only be prosecuted for unofficial acts.
- Done this while he still commanded the full resources of the military and Justice Department.
- Swept clean the Federal courts of all Right-wing, treason-supporting judges—such as Aileen Cannon, who had repeatedly thwarted efforts to try Trump for stealing and hiding almost 300 highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
- This would have included the six Right-wing Supreme Court Justices who have given future Presidents the legal authority to assassinate rivals, take bribes and/or foment coups.
If Biden had done this, he would have been damned as the first President since Abraham Lincoln to brutally crush political opposition.
But he would also have been hailed for having—at least temporarily—prevented a wholesale Right-wing takeover and dictatorship under Project 2025. Its’ goal: Replace existing federal civil service workers with tens of thousands of radical Right-wingers.
To preside over the end of the American republic, all Biden needed do was what he had done for the previous three years: Nothing.
Example #1: Only on November 18, 2022, did then-Attorney General Merrick Garland appoint Jack Smith Special Counsel to investigate Trump’s attempt to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 Presidential election and become “President-for-Life.”
This was clearly treason—and Garland should have appointed Smith, at the latest, by mid-2021.
Merrick Garland
Example #2: Trump’s accomplices included 147 members of Congress who voted to invalidate the 2020 Electoral College vote count. A total of 139 served in the House of Representatives, and eight served in the Senate.
To date, not one of these accessories has even been indicted, let alone convicted, for treason.
Arguably, Biden’s worst appointment was Merrick Garland as Attorney General.
In 1961, when Robert F. Kennedy became Attorney General, he moved quickly and forcefully to wage war on America’s organized crime syndicates. Unprecedented numbers of mobsters found themselves facing vigorous FBI investigations, indictments and/or convictions.
By contrast, Garland’s timidity in prosecuting the crimes of Right-wing Republicans served as not only a national embarrassment but a mortal threat to national security.
On May 30, 2024, a Manhattan jury convicted Donald Trump of 34 felonies for falsifying New York business records in 2016. He had done so to conceal his hush money payoff to porn “star” Stormy Daniels for his extramarital tryst with her.
Donald Trump
Even though the Biden administration had nothing to do with the case, Republicans immediately blamed the President—and demanded wholesale prosecutions of the Left.
Right-wing propagandist Charlie Kirk urged Republican prosecutors to get “creative” in bringing charges: “Indict the left, or lose America,” he said on X.
And Trump quickly issued his own calls for “vengeance”:
“Wouldn’t it be terrible to throw the president’s wife and the former secretary of state, think of it, the former secretary of state, but the president’s wife, into jail? Wouldn’t that be a terrible thing? But they want to do it,” Trump said in an interview on Newsmax.
“It’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to. And it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them.”
Nor did Trump forget former Republican Representative Liz Cheney, who chaired the House 1/6 Committee investigating the Trump-inspired attack on Congress.
“ELIZABETH LYNNE CHENEY IS GUILTY OF TREASON,” Trump posted on his social media website Truth Social. “RETRUTH IF YOU WANT TELEVISED MILITARY TRIBUNALS.”
There could be absolutely no doubt that Trump would pursue “vengeance” against everyone who has ever opposed him if he was re-elected President.
There could also be no doubt that he would remain in office until he died as “President-for-Life.”
When Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States from 1829 to 1837, was close to death, he asked his doctor: “What act of my administration will be most severely condemned by future Americans?”
“Perhaps the removal of the bank deposits,” said the doctor—referring to Jackson’s withdrawal of U.S. Government monies from the first Bank of the United States.
“Oh, no,” said Jackson, his eyes blazing. “I can tell you. Posterity will condemn me more because I was persuaded not to hang John C. Calhoun as a traitor than for any other act in my life!”
John C. Calhoun had once been Vice President under Jackson and later a United States Senator from South Carolina. His fiery, pro-slavery rhetoric and radical theories of “nullification” of Federal laws played a major role in bringing on the Civil War (1861-1865).
Like Jackson, Biden had a chance to prevent catastrophe. But through his own natural decency, he brought catastrophe to the country he loved.
Like Jackson, he will be simultaneously praised and damned by future generations of Americans.
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI), BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEMOCRATS, DOMINION VOTING MACHINES, DONALD TRUMP, FBI, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IRAN, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JOSEPH BIDEN, Kamala Harris, MEDIA MATTERS, MELANIA TRUMP, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NARCISSISM, NBC NEWS, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, OBAMACARE, ONE MORE PALLBEARER TWILIGHT ZONE EPISODE, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROD SERLING, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SENATOR JOHN KENNEDY, SLATE, STRAIT OF HORMUZ, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUMP TOWER, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TULSI GABBARD, TWILIGHT ZONE, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, X
In Entertainment, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 3, 2026 at 12:23 am
On May 11, 2026, for three hours, President Donald Trump posted over 50 messages on his website, Truth Social. The posts mainly consisted of:
- Reposting;
- Attacking political opponents;
- Calling for prosecution of enemies;
- Posting AI-generated images of himself; and
- References to foreign policy, including the war in Iran.
The posts occurred just before a scheduled trip to China and amid rising economic pressures in the United States. These, in turn, stem from Iran’s blocking the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% to 25% of the world’s oil passes, after Trump ordered a naval blockade of Iranian ports.
The Wall Street Journal reported that between 10:14 p.m. and 1:12 a.m., Trump posted 55 times, with other reports citing over 50-54 posts within that timeframe.
He posted a 400-word attack against The New York Times at 1:12 a.m. on May 12. His complaint: It had revealed that his renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool would cost more than $10 million over what he had previously said.
Donald Trump
He also falsely claimed the Times of losing subscribers. On the contrary: On May 6, the company reported:
“The Times has added an average of 330,000 total subscribers a quarter, including print, since the start of last year” and “now has 13.1 million subscribers…after adding about 310,000 digital-only subscribers in the first quarter of the year.”
Most of his venom was aimed at Barack Obama. Trump reposted messages from his supporters, who accused the former president of sedition, wiretapping Trump Tower and creating the “Russia Hoax” to steal the 2016 Presidential election.
It’s clear that Trump—a lifelong racist—harbors jealousy of the black, still-handsome, articulate, witty and beloved former president. When Trump was being assailed in 2016 for his “grab-em-by-the-pussy” comment, he complained that no one was accusing Obama of sexual infidelities.
Barack Obama
For good reason: Unlike Trump—who bedded a porn “star” while married to his third wife, Melania—there has never been a hint of scandal about Obama.
In one post, Trump—who incited a deadly attack on Congress on January 6, 2021, to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 Presidential election—accused Obama of plotting a coup against him.
As always with Trump, he offered no evidence to back up his slander.
He also lied that:
- Obama profited $120 million from Obamacare;
- Obama wiretapped Trump Tower;
- Dominion voting machines changed votes in 2024; and
- Neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris was running the previous administration.
Obama was not the only public figure Trump attacked. Others included:
- Former presidential opponent Hillary Clinton;
- Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, who has urged members of the military to disobey illegal orders;
- Former FBI director and Trump critic James Comey;
- Former independent counsel Jack Smith, who investigated Trump’s inciting the January 6 coup attempt
Trump is clearly still hung up on his 2020 re-election loss to Joe Biden, lying that Dominion voting machines “DELETED 2.7 MILLION TRUMP VOTES NATIONWIDE. INCLUDING OVER 1 MILLION PENNSYLVANIA VOTES SWITCHED FROM PRESIDENT TRUMP TO BIDEN.”
He can’t accept that a majority of voters would prefer anyone else to him—even though his loss largely stemmed from his refusal to tackle the mushrooming COVID-19 crisis.
Trump’s tweeting rampage echoes the theme of a 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone: “One More Pallbearer.” The central character in it is millionaire Paul Radin (played by Joseph Weisman) who nurses decades-old grudges against three people.
With a few slight alterations, he could be Trump himself.
Radin invites three people to the bomb shelter that he has built in New York City. But they aren’t family or friends. He holds deep grudges against all of them.
One is high-school teacher Mrs. Langsford, who gave him a failing grade when he was caught cheating on a test. The second is Colonel Hawthorne, who had him court-martialed when Radin endangered lives by disobeying orders. The third is Reverend Hughes, who made a public scandal out of a young woman who later committed suicide over Radin.
Radin has equipped his shelter with sound effects and fake radio messages to convince the trio that nuclear war will occur in just moments. He offers them refuge in the shelter if they beg his forgiveness for their treatment of him. They refuse his offer, making it clear they would rather die with loved ones than survive with him.
A TV screen playing footage of a nuclear explosion—and the accompanying sound effects—convince Radin that his fantasy is in fact real.
When he emerges from the shelter, the city is intact. But the sheer intensity of the illusion he created has led Radin to lose his mind. He sobs helplessly at the foot of a fountain outside his intact building—a victim of his own overweening pride and hatred.
And, as happens at the close of every Twilight Zone episode, Rod Serling, the series’ host and narrator, is on hand to offer his moving commentary:
“Mr. Paul Radin, a dealer in fantasy, who sits in the rubble of his own making and imagines that he’s the last man on Earth, doomed to a perdition of unutterable loneliness because a practical joke has turned into a nightmare. Mr. Paul Radin, pallbearer at a funeral that he manufactured himself in the Twilight Zone.”
ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS FIENNA, ADOLF HITLER, ALBERT SPEER, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DONALD TRUMP, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HITLER AND THE POWER OF AESTHETICS (BOOK), HUFFINGTON POST, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN F. KENNEDY MEMORIAL CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, JOSEPH STALIN, KAROLINE LEAVITT, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THIRD REICH, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, WHITE HOUSE, WHITE HOUSE BALLROOM, X
In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on June 2, 2026 at 12:05 am
On December 18, 2025, The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts became The Donald Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
This happened in three steps. In 2025, Trump:
- Purged most of the board that governs the institution;
- Replaced its members with Right-wing ideologues and sycophants; and
- Installed himself as the new chairman.
Specifically, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on X: “I have just been informed that the highly respected Board of the Kennedy Center, some of the most successful people from all parts of the world, have just voted unanimously to rename the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center, because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building.”
Donald Trump
This totally ignored three vital truths:
First, in 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower established a commission for a new public auditorium to showcase the performing arts in the nation’s capital. It was to be called The National Cultural Center.
Second, in January, 1964, two months after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Congress passed and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law legislation renaming the Center as a “living memorial” in his honor: The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
Third, adding Trump’s name to the Center legally would require a similar act of Congress—which has not occurred. Without that, putting Trump’s name on the building is the equivalent of a graffiti vandal spray-painting his name on the Center.
On May 29, 2026, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., ruled that Trump’s name was illegally added to the Center: “The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so.
“Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
And he ordered that Trump’s name be removed from the building within two weeks—by June 12, two days before Trump’s 80th birthday.
When artists and audiences—outraged by the takeover—had boycotted the Center, an embarrassed Trump ordered its closure, claiming a two-year repair renovation was necessary.
The judge addressed that as well in his ruling: The Kennedy Center board’s March 16 vote to close the facility was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained” without regard for its legal obligations.
Trump’s response on X: “Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, bring this Institution back, physically, financially, and artistically, I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND.”
He claimed he was backing away from his proposed renovation and returning control of the arts institution to Congress.
In seeking to remake the arts in his own image, Trump is following in the footsteps of propaganda-obsessed tyrants like Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler.
Adolf Hitler, for example, installed himself as the arbiter of culture in Nazi Germany.
In Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics, Frederic Spotts argues that Hitler saw the world corrupted by “evils” he must first destroy so he could re-create it to conform to his artistic ideals.
Hitler considered himself an unappreciated artist. At 18, he had applied for admission to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, but was rejected twice.
If he had a friend, it was the architect Albert Speer, with whom he felt an artistic kinship.
Even as the Third Reich collapsed, Hitler found time to pore over architectural models he intended to turn into gigantic buildings.
This did not prevent him, however, from issuing his “Nero Order” for the destruction of all German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants.
Only Speer’s courageous intervention prevented this from happening.
In Hitler’s Germany, culture was not only the end to power but the means of achieving it. His artistry—expressed in spectacles, festivities, parades, rallies and political dramas, as well as in architecture, painting and music—destroyed any sense of individuality and linked the German people with his own drives.
Like Hitler, Trump sees himself as an unrecognized artist. Of the 515 entities he owns, 268 of them—52%—bear his last name. He often refers to his properties as “the swankiest,” “the most beautiful.”
Upon his return to the Presidency in 2025, he turned his “artistic” gifts on the White House. On June 9, contractors began paving over the grass of the White House Rose Garden with stone tiles to create a patio.
Again like Hitler, Trump believes that “bigger is better” in architecture.
On July 31, 2025, the Trump administration announced that a 90,000 square feet addition would be made to the White House to incorporate a 650-person capacity ballroom. In October, Trump ordered the demolition of the White House’s historic East Wing to clear space for it.
The estimated cost has ballooned from $200 million to $400 million.
Trump has repeatedly pushed to enlarge the ballroom—from a 90,000-square-feet addition capable of seating 650 guests to one that can seat, first, 999 guests and then to 1,000 guests at formal dinners.
Tyrants always hail such projects as “gifts for the nation.” In reality, they are self-glorifying monuments to the dictator’s own ego.
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BC NEWS, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BRENDEN CARR, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHARLIE KIRK, CIVIL RIGHTS, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DISNEY, DIVERSITY EQUITY AND INCLUSION (DEI), DONALD TRUMP, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, GOODFELLAS (FILM), HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, J.D. VANCE, JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JIMMY KIMMEL, JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!, MAGA, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PAM BONDI, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, SALON, SEAN PARNELL, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, STEPHEN MILLER, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TEXAS FLOODS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE PENTAGON, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, X, ZOHRAN MAMDANI
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 1, 2026 at 12:10 am
“Jimmy Kimmel Live! will be pre-empted indefinitely,” an ABC spokesperson said in a brief statement to media outlets on the evening of September 17, 2025.
This followed criticism by Republicans of on-air comments Kimmel had made after the September 10 shooting of Right-wing propagandist Charlie Kirk.
Early that day, Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), called Kimmel’s remarks “truly sick” in an interview with Right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson. And he said the Disney-owned network should hold Kimmel accountable or face punishment.
Speaking like a Mafioso in Goodfellas, Carr added: “This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Brendan Carr
During his monologue on September 15, Kimmel actually called the murder “senseless.” What enraged Right-wing Americans was Kimmel’s noting that “the MAGA gang is desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
This was actually true—and all the more embarrassing to Republicans because of it. The Trump administration and its MAGA cult have tried to portray Tyler Robinson, the man accused of shooting Kirk, as a radical liberal.
He is not.
Debbie Robinson, his grandmother, said most of the family are Republicans—and that Tyler’s father, Matt, is a staunch supporter of Donald Trump.
Jimmy Kimmel
Kimmel then showed a clip of a reporter asking Trump how he was holding up in the wake of Kirk’s death.
“I think very good. And by the way, right there where you see all the trucks, they just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House, which is something they’ve been trying to get, as you know, for about 150 years, and it’s gonna be a beauty.”
“Yes, he’s at the fourth stage of grief: construction,” Kimmel said. “Demolition, construction. This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.”
Donald Trump
After Kirk’s death, Trump and his Republican allies threatened retribution (“consequences”) for people who spoke unflatteringly about him.
On September 15—five days after Kirk’s death—Vice President J.D. Vance hosted Kirk’s podcast: “So, when you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out and, hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility.”
J.D. Vance
Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s top spokesman, wrote: “It is unacceptable for military personnel and Department of War civilians to celebrate or mock the assassination of a fellow American.”
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller vowed to use law enforcement to go after Americans who mocked Kirk’s death, calling that domestic terrorism:
“We will not live in fear, but you will live in exile, because the power of law enforcement under President Trump’s leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and if you have broken the law to take away your freedom.”
Thus the penalties for celebrating the death of a Fascist.
On September 15, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi told Katie Miller, the former DOGE aide, on her podcast: “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech. And there is no place—especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie—in our society. We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.”
Pam Bondi
At Kirk’s funeral on September 22, Trump gave his own example of hate speech: “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry.”
Meanwhile, Kirk’s critics have accused him—both in life and death—of being the real exploiter of hate speech.
- At a 2024 Trump election rally in Georgia, Kirk said Democrats “stand for everything God hates.”
- He promoted Trump’s false claim that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” against him by a vast Democratic conspiracy.
- On January 5, 2021, the day before Trump’s followers attacked the United States Capitol, Kirk wrote on Twitter that his Turning Point Action group and Students for Trump were sending more than 80 “buses of patriots to D.C. to fight for this President.”
- Afterward, Kirk said that the attack on the Capitol wasn’t an insurrection and did not represent mainstream Trump supporters.
- On civil rights, Kirk said: “We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.”
- On race: “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’”
- Speaking of the July 4, 2025 Texas flood along the Guadalupe River in the Hill Country: “You are not being told by the media anywhere, is that the death toll likely would not have been so high if it wasn’t for DEI.”
- He attacked New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani as “a self-righteous, narcissistic parasite on New York City and should be expelled from politics.”
The difference between Kirk and his opponents: Kirk didn’t face “retribution” from a powerful, Right-wing government for his hate speech.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
ABC NEWS, ALAMO, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, ANDREW JACKSON, ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHARLES VII, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, DONALD TRUMP, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCE, GAVIN NEWSOM, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), JOAN OF ARC, KAREN BASS, LONE STAR: A HISTORY OF TEXAS AND THE TEXANS (BOOK), MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL GUARD, NBC NEWS, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, SALON, SAM HOUSTON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, T.R. FEHRENBACH, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TEXAS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TOM HOMAN, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, WILLIAM BARRET TRAVIS, WONKETTE, X
A CHURCHILL FOR CALIFORNIA–AND AMERICA: PART THREE (OF FOUR)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 24, 2026 at 12:10 amHistory is filled with examples of men—and women—who in moments of crisis rose to challenge a deadly enemy. One of these is California Governor Gavin C. Newsom.
On June 6, 2025, protests erupted in Los Angeles against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The demonstrations were triggered by ICE raids at multiple locations in the city to arrest suspected illegal aliens.
On the evening of June 7, 2025, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum deploying 2,000 members of the California National Guard to the protests for either 60 days or for a length of time “at the discretion of the secretary of defense.”
He did so without the request—or consent—of Governor Newsom.
If a Democratic President did so in a Republican state, Congressional Republicans would scream “STATES’ RIGHTS!” and accuse the President of being a dictator. But since Trump is a Republican, Congressional Republicans enthusiastically supported his action.
National Guard troops in L.A.
In a tweet, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that active duty Marines were on “high alert” at Camp Pendleton.
And Trump later threatened to “have troops everywhere” if the protests spread to other cities. “If we see danger to our country and our citizens,” the Marines would be deployed to Los Angeles.
Newsom retorted that the National Guard—and especially the Marines—weren’t needed. The LAPD and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department were fully capable of protecting Federal property and dispersing the protesters.
He called on Trump to return control of the Guard to California—and withdraw the Marines, who are trained for combat, not handling civil unrest.
Thomas Homan, White House Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations, told NBC News that Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass could potentially face federal charges over their response to the ICE raids.
Homan had previously threatened arrest for anyone who obstructed immigration enforcement. When asked whether that would include Newsom or Bass, Homan did not rule it out.
“I’ll say it about anybody,” Homan said. “You cross that line, it’s a felony to knowingly harbor and conceal an illegal alien. It’s a felony to impede law enforcement doing their job.”
Tom Homan
Newsom quickly responded to Homan: “Trump’s border czar is threatening to arrest me for speaking out. Come and get me, tough guy.
“What the hell are they doing? These guys need to grow up, they need to stop and we need to push back and I’m sorry to be so clear but that kind of bloviating is exhausting. So Tom, arrest me. Let’s go.”
Homan just as quickly backed down: “There’s no intention to arrest the governor right now. I don’t know if he crossed that line.” Homan said he would “leave that up” to the Justice Department.
When asked about the idea of arresting Newsom, Trump said, “I’d do it if I were Tom. Gavin likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing.”
On June 11, Newsom addressed not only Trump’s response to civil disorders in Los Angeles, but the threat he posed to California, every other state—and democracy itself.
GOVERNOR GAVIN NEWSOM’S ADDRESS TO CALIFORNIA: DEMOCRACY AT A CROSSROADS ON JUNE 11, 2025
I want to say a few words about the events of the last few days. This past weekend, federal agents conducted large-scale workplace raids in and around Los Angeles. Those raids continue as I speak.
California is no stranger to immigration enforcement. But instead of focusing on undocumented immigrants with serious criminal records and people with final deportation orders – a strategy both parties have long supported – this administration is pushing mass deportations.
Indiscriminately targeting hardworking immigrant families, regardless of their roots or risk.
What’s happening right now is very different than anything we’ve seen before. On Saturday morning, when federal agents jumped out of an unmarked van near a Home Depot parking lot, they began grabbing people.
A deliberate targeting of a heavily Latino suburb.
A similar scene also played out when a clothing company was raided downtown.
In other actions: a US citizen, 9 months pregnant – arrested.
A four-year-old girl – taken.
Families separated. Friends disappearing.
In response, everyday Angelinos came out to exercise their Constitutional right to free speech and assembly. To protest their government’s actions.
In turn, the State of California and the City and County of Los Angeles sent our police officers to help keep the peace, and with some exceptions, they were successful.
Like many states, California is no stranger to this sort of civil unrest. We manage it regularly … and with our own law enforcement.
But this, again, was different.
What then ensued was the use of tear gas. Flash-bang grenades. Rubber bullets. Federal agents, detaining people and undermining their due process rights.
Donald Trump, without consulting with California’s law enforcement leaders, commandeered 2,000 of our state’s National Guard members to deploy on our streets. Illegally, and for no reason.
This brazen abuse of power by a sitting President inflamed a combustible situation … putting our people, our officers, and the National Guard at risk.
That’s when the downward spiral began.
Share this: