So yes, my title says it all and is not news to anybody. What follows below will not be a surprise, but rather is what you now expect. This is what happens when you elect a liar, fraudster, and convicted felon to the highest office.
So let’s just dive right in.
- Due process exists for a reason.
- Our government just sent people without a trial or a hearing of any kind to a concentration camp run by mercenaries in a foreign land under the false pretence of an 18th century law. Using our tax dollars. No proof. No evidence. Court order barring it was ignored. We are now living in a fascist state right now – resist, don’t comply.
We also learned that we can now expect the tourism industry to be wiped out because of stuff like this …
There was also the deportation of a French Researcher whose “terrorist crime” was having texts on his personal phone that criticised Trump…
- Here is yet another link to The Guardian with the above French Researcher story reporting the details
- It’s also worth pointing out that it’s the people working at the airport that did this. The millions that are implementing his orders are the real danger here. All authoritarian regimes need ordinary people to function. – Resist, don’t comply.
Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, and now also the UK has this past week issued warnings to anybody considering travel to the US because of the multiple and many incidents such as the above now happening to their citizens …
Exactly what sort of message does it send when a tourist, a young girl, was shipped back to the UK this past week in chains after being imprisoned for 19 days by ICE …
- Her “crime” was that she agreed to help hosts out around a home in exchange for accommodation. When ICE found out about that they immediately detained her.
- In the face of this utterly insane hostility against tourists, a huge drop off in tourism is now quite certain. That will impact all those that depended upon tourism for their income.
What else has been happening?
We learned about more people being fired, and so here is an example of the utter incompetence of that. So what could possibly go wrong now that people working in a top secret facility have been fired …
- They have created rather a lot of unemployed disgruntled former nuclear weapons experts who currently have knowledge that is in high demand by many hostile foreign states. The quantity of loyalty they most probably feel right now is, I would guess, more or less zero.
Digital Book Burning has been happening …
- Don’t worry. Schumer thinks reasonable Republicans will stop this any day now.
- How much money has DoD spent deleting black people from their websites? – This seems like a pretty easy case of waste, fraud, and abuse.
- Deleting black history from official gov’t sites is literally racial oppression. I can’t think of a more clear-cut example of blatant racism. The line between right and wrong here is crystal clear. If you agree with this whitewashing, you’re a disgusting bigot. Period.
The convicted felon continues to break the law …
- Yes, the Trump admin wants the Supreme Court to overrule Humphrey’s Executor, allowing him to fire anyone he wants. It has already teed up test cases that give SCOTUS the chance to do that! The DC Circuit heard two today. This assault on the FTC is a gratuitous flaunting of power he doesn’t have.
- The correct/accurate headline should read – TRUMP ILLEGALLY FIRES FTC COMMISSIONERS
Vaccine “hesitancy” is now a banned word …
- hesitancy is a verboten word in any grant proposal, because, one can’t now be permitted to study vaccine hesitancy.
RFK Jnr is doing the stupid stuff we all expected …
If you don’t get your Social Security and then complain, that is now apparently “fraud” …
- Ron is spot on, this guy is the day-time ad that dems need to splash across TV’s across the country during early morning shows and afternoon soaps.
- It is also deeply ironic that complaining is fraud … given that his boss is the king of complaining.
- Meanwhile, his name Nutlick is a fantastic name to have.
… and also via Ron we learn that the vindictive orange bastard continued doing vindictive shit and does not care who he hurts as long as he gets them grovelling to him …
So what other lunacy has been happening?
Let’s get into some of that now.
Other Crazy stuff
- If I asked you to guess which party he represents, then yes, your first answer is the right one – it’s always the people you most expect.
- Since he is a pedophile, then I can only speculate that he will be in trump’s cabinet by the end of the week.
- I love the people who use the phrase “Trump Derangement Syndrome” as though he and Musk aren’t doing literally every f**king thing we said he would, and then some.
- Perpetual reminder – Not a drag queen.
The article below is supposed to be about FDR. I don’t think the Heritage guys realized what else this headline could mean when they wrote it …
The FBI apparently has a new priority …
- If Epstein was alive today then he could have been AG by now.
Reminder: refusing to endorse the CR was the right move, doing so was not …
Destruction of Education
Fascism 101 – keep them ignorant …
Christian Nationalists
The right-wing religious fanatics are as nutty as ever.
Ralph Drollinger is a right-wing pastor who leads Bible studies for members of Congress and the White House. This week, he’s teaching them that LGBTQ rights, feminism, abortion, Islam, communism, and liberal Christianity are all “schemes of the devil.“
- The now well established tradition suggests that next week he will be arrested for diddling kids.
Out on a trail ride with Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton claims “the Founding Fathers talked about how people who live in the country, you don’t have the problem with atheism or morals or anything else because the work ethic is so different out here.“
- I guess it is natural for con-artists such as Barton to claim that not having a religious belief is a “problem”. I’d counter argue that a world without all the religious grifters would be a far better one and that it is his constant promotion of a historical fantasy as fact that is devoid of morals.
- It is also worth noting that 32% of Louisianans are on Medicaid and 34% receive WIC payments, yet Louisiana’s unemployment rate is just 4.5%. It’s not the work ethic; it’s the wage ethic.
- This is a very blatant call for right-wing political violence dressed up with religious imagery to make it socially acceptable.
- He says … “I’m not calling for violence, necessarily, but …” … yes, that’s a “but”.
- Trump Delusion Syndrome: The mistaken belief that a felon and con-artist from NYC would make a good president. Dozens of felonies later they are still clinging to that delusion.
- Meanwhile “The woke ideology” that he deems to be bad is basically this – “minority rights are human rights, and human rights are minority rights“. Pushing back against that tells you all you really need to know about Mr Hibbs.
On Wednesday, a group of religious-right activists and Christian nationalists were invited to the White House for a meeting with faith adviser Paula White and to pray over President Donald Trump. Among those in attendance were David Barton, Jim Garlow, Mario Bramnick, Samuel Rodriguez, Robert Jeffress, Gary Bauer, and William Wolfe. Following the meeting at the White House, Wolfe posted a video on social media marveling about his opportunity to meet with Trump, saying that had Kamala Harris won the 2024 election, he and other Christians would have been rounded up by the government and shipped off to a gulag. Wolfe declared. “This is our land and we’ve had it really sort of violently taken away from us by radical leftists who are fundamentally steeped in a Marxist worldview that is anti-God, anti-human, anti-family, all those things. That was coming down the line.“
- This is not just your average cult, it is a cult of deeply paranoid and profoundly delusional individuals.
- By gulags, does he mean high security prisons in El Salvador? Because I don’t think Kamala would have ever been that cruel.
- “This is our land. We stole it from the Native American tribes fair and square, dammit!“
- As for detention centres, it’s Canadians to ICE detention centres … literally.
- What is clear is that these are all people who have swapped Jesus for the least Christ-like figure they could find. Access to power is more important to them than any principles.
Christian nationalist judicial activist Phillip Jauregui calls on God to stop judges from ruling against the Trump administration: “It’s wicked, Father. It’s unconstitutional and it’s wicked.“
- Yea God, please make sure that all those judges fall in line with the convicted felon and don’t stop him from breaking well-established constitutional law.
- #performative_weirdness – the essence of ineffable slime that Christian nationalists now embody
The False Profit$
Self-proclaimed “prophetess” Kat Kerr claims that God told her that Elon Musk is “exactly who he needs” and that God calls Elon “The Exposeinator.“
- If there was a god applying accurate labels to individuals, then there are a few rather different terms that this god would deploy for Musk.
Disappearing people
Disappearing people really is bad …
Political Cartoons from the past week
As always, there are many excellent cartoons. Here are a few samples. Each comes with a link to the cartoonist putting the cartoon out via BlueSky. If you are on Bluesky then you can use the link to follow them.
Media Sanewashing of Tyranny
NYT caught leaving out a rather important detail …
- Nice moral panic you’ve got there…it would be a shame if somebody put it into context
- Here is what actually happened: Penn followed NCAA rules and allowed a trans woman to swim on their team many years ago, and now years later Trump is illegally withholding funds because years ago, Penn followed NCAA rules!!!
- As always these days, it is The Onion that nails it on Mar 20 with this: – It is Journalism’s Sacred Duty To Endanger The Lives Of As Many Trans People As Possible
- I’m old enough to remember when the fool argued that he could declassify things with his mind.
Reminder: The J6 pardons and much much more that has been done by Trump was signed with Autopen, so if we apply that same standard … but wait … of course the media fails to point out that rather glaring elephant now in the room when he makes his Autopen claim. Thankfully others will …
- ICYMI, Trump emphatically, unmistakably, and unambiguously announced that any presidential order signed by autopen has no legal force or effect in the view of the federal executive branch. There was absolutely no fuzz on the declaration; everyone assumed it meant he did his own signatures, but no.
You are wholly entitled to remain confused by anyone in media describing what has happened in Gaza in the last month as a ceasefire. On the first day a ceasefire was announced, the IDF attacked Gaza. There have been more such attacks near-daily, coupled with the media asking if Israel should withdraw from the ceasefire. What??? …
- What is going on is a US endorsed genocide. Full stop.
- Oh, and just to be clear, here is a useful primer from Michael Hobbs …
- Numbers 2 and 3 above are *far* more important to focus on than #1. *Every* protest movement against injustice has included people with dumb or odious views; that’s how large groups work.
Over in Mexico we get a lesson on how to take the right stance, but I’m guessing that you will not have read about this in the US media…
- The only people supporting Israel are Israel, Trump (who wants to build a resort in Gaza), Evangelicals (who are looking forward to the rapture) and AIPAC (who profit from making everything about anti-semitism). Shockingly enough, most American Jews do not support a genocide.
Meanwhile the NYT really does not grasp what they have enabled with all their sane washing of the current lunacy or why people feel the way they do about it …
This … seriously now, we need lots more of this …
Here is a quick reminder that some Democrats are very, very good at doing what needs to be done …
- When it comes to universal healthcare, all it takes is convincing people that paying $2,000 in taxes if far far better than paying $8,000 for healthcare insurance. Apparently many just can’t grasp that the number 8 is indeed bigger than the number 2. Literally every other nation state on the planet has figured this out, and that includes Canada.
- When Sherrod Brown and Kamala Harris said the same thing about wanting healthcare for everyone, the Republicans warp it into tv ads claiming that the Dems supported gender affirming care for transgender youths. Misled voters ran to the polls to vote against the “radical” ideas. – Their hatred ran them to the polls to take away health care for transgender youths by supporting a party that was gonna take away EVERY person’s health care — including their own!
- It’s totally bonkers that some people see these as “radical” ideas. Bohdi surfing a 200 ft wave off the coast of Australia is radical, AOC’s ideas are just good policies that benefit everyone.
… and to demonstrate it is the right message and really does get traction …
- every single politician with a spine and a pulse should be doing exactly what Bernie and AOC are doing. They are drawing these crowds because the democrats desperately need fighters out there working for them. Good for them and for Tim Walz, and Gov Pritzker, and a few others (you know who) for getting out there. Everyone else seems to be absent.
As is pointed out in this next item by Nebraska state senator Megan Hunt, they really have no plan except to keep you distracted …
The real advantage of a college education …
… is that it takes you outside your bubble and enables you to learn from your encounters with other people …
Finally
Here is a quick 2025 guide to who is on what platform …
- Nobody has ever filled out a perfect bracket, and the odds of doing so are 1 in 9.2 quintillion … Which coincidentally are roughly the same as the odds that Elon will ever fly anybody to Mars.
- We also need to rename it the “Gulf of SpaceX Debris” as a subtle hint to those seriously considering entering.
Regarding the new productions coming to the Kennedy Center, “What if we ran an administration so offensively nobody noticed us looting the treasury department?” …
- Side Note: for those unfamiliar with “The Producers“, then here you go.
Hypocrisy is officially a core GOP value, we have a Judicial confirmation of that …
- … and not just Bud Lite, they also told you to boycott Nike, Disney, Kuerig, Target, and Costco.
- … and just to drive that point home, the GOP is currently CHEERING for the Dept of Education, EPA, USAID, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, FBI, CIA, CDC, NIH, NOAA, FEMA, Veterans Administration, FAA, NASA, NPS, Fish & Wildlife, IRS, PBS, and Dept of Justice to fail.
- When it comes to “disgusting behaviour“, the GOP is a truly the subject matter expert.
Here now, just to drive that point home, is that exact same official House Judiciary GOP account doing what they themselves judge to be “disgusting behaviour” …
Fox News just can’t quite make the leap there …
- I’ve been told that customers not wanting to buy a company’s product is called capitalism. Something about the hidden hand of the market and such, but no, apparently the new rule via Fox News is that this is not applicable when Herr Neo-Nazi demands you sustain his wealth.
Graham MacKay drives that point home with this excellent cartoon this past week …
We also got YouTube taking off Musk’s mask …
- The rather awkward truth about those #Tesla hits is that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are complicit. They basically legalized violence by pardoning all of the J6ers, but they’re shocked by the Far Left? Is terrorism wrong or not? Make up your mind. You can’t have it both ways.
Let’s now lighten up with Elbows up Canada …
- Make note of the back of the Jersey just at the end.
However, let’s lighten up even more and finish with a bit of baseball. Here is the new Chesapeake Oyster Catchers Logo … (and apparently the guys on the team still can’t find the ball) …
- Oh come on now, somebody on that graphic design team ABSOLUTELY knew what they were doing
- Least you doubt it, and suspect it is a prank, they really did go with this (until they realised) – Here is their minor league twitter account promoting it …
There is no denying that it really does have Vermont Maple Syrup vibes …
