In this story in Newsweek 1 we are provided what passes for the “human” side of Donald Trump, at least for the benefit of farmers and those in the hospitality industries, proposing that “undocumented immigrants employed in sectors such as agriculture and hospitality could self-deport and return legally, provided their employers vouched for them.”
With the agriculture industry expecting losses of up to $60 billion yearly due to the loss of 40 percent of its labor force from mass deportations, he went on to say that "So a farmer will come in with a letter concerning certain people, saying they're great, they're working hard. We're going to slow it down a little bit for them, and then we're going to ultimately bring them back. They'll go out. They're going to come back as legal workers,"
Uh-huh. It sounds like Stephen Miller hasn’t scolded him about it yet. We’ve heard talk like this before, you know, when Senators Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin met Trump after being left with the impression that he was fully supportive of a bi-partisan immigration bill that included a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients. We were told that Miller stepped in to stop this, and Graham and Durbin were left stunned when Trump went on a temper tantrum about people from “shit-hole” countries.
So don’t hold your breath that Trump will “fix” what was broken when the Bracero program was ended 60 years ago, which led directly to the increase in illegal immigration because farmers simply needed their old workers back because the “natives” were too “good” to do such work. Neither farmers nor farmworkers have reason to trust Trump as long as neo-Nazis like Miller are calling the shots behind the scenes.
It is a measure of the essential apathy of most people in this country that after Trump’s press conference on Monday with Bukele that people just walk around as if nothing terrible just happened. It might not happen today, or tomorrow or even next year. But what went down could go down in history as the beginning of the end of democracy in America as we know it.
But before we get into that, remember the “good old days” when the national news was typically ones like the Gene Hackman death case, where we now learn here 1 some “disturbing” details of the conditions that he and his wife lived in, free from intrusion from maids or house cleaners…
…or about people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert shooting off their stupid mouth again, while Jim Jordan and James Comer do what Republicans in the House usually do, waste taxpayer money with sham investigations? Of course you don’t hear much from them today, do you—except if they do little things like take advantage of White House “insider trading” like Greene is accused of doing, which is par for the course for the lawless Trump administration.
Today, every day it is an “update” on old stories: Trump’s incompetence at foreign policy (claiming that stopping Putin's illegal war is "unimportant"), that he still hasn’t learned from his own incompetence as a “businessman” peddling his Trump-branded merchandise (that you can’t force people to buy your “product” if it is over-priced garbage), and is engaging in a “final solution” of mass deportation because the racist Trump and his racist henchpersons have decided that there is no law to prevent them from acting out on their racism.
Then there is one of Trump's DEI hires, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, justifying the killing of civilians in the cause of “maximum lethality,” and HHS is shutting down the collection of data on the number of infectious disease cases, and the Defense Department is investigating “leakers” for revealing embarrassing details like Elon Musk (almost) being allowed into a top-secret meeting on China, and the pausing of intelligence aid to Ukraine (like the Ukrainians were not going to report it themselves?).
Oh, and MTG finds herself back in the news with her cowardly “town hall” meeting replete with insulting people’s intelligence about “fake news” and removing constituents who believe she only represents the needs of one pathetic excuse of a man, and not the people in her own district:
Meanwhile, Trump is targeting prestigious universities like Harvard with ridiculous, confusing “demands”3 because he thinks certain “inferior” people should not be able to attend, say, an Ivy League school like he did. Of course the only reason why this “very stable genius” even got into Penn was because the father he inherited his real estate “empire” from probably “influenced” the school to do so is some way; after all, we were told by one professor at its business school that Trump was the “dumbest” student he ever had—and that was back in 1981. Harvard, with its $53 billion endowment, can afford to do what needs to be done, which is to simply say “Go Fuck-Off.”
What is so “ironic” about this is that while Trump is attacking universities for allowing “anti-Semitic” pro-Gaza rallies and such rallies on campus grounds and even inside buildings, but what about those 1,500 insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol Building to overturn an election that Trump pardoned? How much hypocrisy can you stomach? Is it hypocritical that Jewish organizations like Mothers Against College Antisemitism is being accused of being a secret "cell" to effectuate deportations of anyone who is Palestinian?
Trump has been targeting students and faculty green card holders for deportation simply because they said something deemed “anti-Semitic,” yet this is a man who white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups who espouse anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial are completely comfortable supporting, because they know, deep down in the dark recesses of his black soul, he supports their ideology (his former wife Ivana said a book of Hitler’s speeches was his favorite bedtime reading material).
Trump himself has acted on anti-Semitic stereotypes in the past; not just that thing about only wanting “short men wearing yarmulkes counting my money,” but the fact he seemed to believe that only Jewish men like Allen Weisselberg and Michael Cohen were crooked enough to do his dirty dealing for him, and both ended up in prison for lying for him, and unlike those 1,500 January 6 insurrectionists, they were deemed insufficiently “loyal” to be pardoned for their “service.”
The hypocrisy of far-right ideology can be found in the most bizarre places. We are told that the Georgia legislature is hoping to pass into a law a statute banning “Hinduphobia.” Not necessarily against people from South Asia mind you, but “phobia” against their religion. Oh, so you can’t critique a religion that like Islam has a difficult time coming to terms with the modern world (of course the same could be said about fundamentalist Christianity).
Perhaps more than any other religion, that of the Hindu separates people into separate “classes”—i.e. castes—which are inherently unequal and discriminated against (the lowest class, the Dalits, are what was once called the “untouchables”). Perhaps this "explains" the racist actions of the new head of the Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon, who is South Asian of the Sikh variety, a religion that also is defined by caste prejudice?
The “culture” inspired by this religion can easily be seen in practice in this country, such as all these convenience stores that once hired people from the local community, but who are now considered “untouchables.” I discussed this issue in more detail in this post 1. Perhaps it is not “unusual,” then, that plantation-mentality Republican lawmakers in Georgia find a certain “commonality” with a religion which supports their own prejudicial beliefs against other “classes” of people.
Well, at least the Catholic notion is that all people (at least those of the “faith”) are created “equal” in the sight of God, and they show their “faith” by practicing “good works.” Which brings us to Karoline Leavitt, who claims to be a “good” Catholic, which she apparently bases on the fact that she married a millionaire 32 years her senior, because being a “good Catholic” means that after having pre-marital intercourse with this man, she became pregnant and gave birth to a child, and then decided that the “Catholic” thing to do was to marry the man.
Nicolas Riccio will likely pass away long before she does, so once she is "free" she will set for life and she doesn’t have to worry about being too toxic for anyone to give a job to after she spends her time lying for a liar, while threatening journalists with “accountability” for exposing her lies. This is the kind of cynicism that such people inspire.
Hypocrites like Leavitt send you off into metaphysical binges. For example, one of the grand hypocrisies of Christianity—Catholic or otherwise—is that you are “saved” if you go to church and say yeah, yeah, yeah to everything, or if you did “bad works” and were a non-believer, all you have to do is confess and tell the priest that you “believe” on your death bed and all is “forgiven” and you will go to heaven.
But simply doing “good works,” according to the Catholic religion, isn’t good enough alone because it is akin to “buying” salvation; it is thus suggested by religions of any sort that they are overseen by some divinity who like a narcissistic dictator who demands that you grovel before them, and that is sufficient to “please” them. Thus “good works” based on “love” is only necessary to prove that "as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me."
It’s hard to see “good works” happening anywhere in the Trump administration, when everything they do is based on lies and gaslighting to defend their unlawful actions. Sure, Leavitt claims to be a “devoted” Catholic, but the falsehoods ejaculating from her mouth that demonizes and dehumanizes people who are mostly hard-working and “Catholic” like she claims to be cannot be seen as “good works,” and can only be seen as evidence that there is no “God” worth believing in.
Of course in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Leavitt's inhuman "qualities" are borne out by the fact that it means nothing to her "Christian" faith that immigration officials couldn't care less that he was the breadwinner for a family with three disabled children; the media should be continuously pointing this out while this gangster administration insists that Garcia is an "illegal alien MS-13 terrorist."
It’s hard not to
allow cynicism to creep into everything going on today, but then there are Jews
like Stephen Miller and Catholics like Leavitt who have no semblance of simple
human decency (if they can even be described as “human”) and will knowingly
make completely false claims about Garcia, whose business family
was threatened by gangs in El Salvador as revealed here 2
and that not only Garcia never been charged with a crime here or in El
Salvador.
The "evidence" that Garcia was a "gangster" were made by an “anonymous informant” who clearly made up the story to benefit his own situation. He claimed that Garcia was a top leader of an MS-13 cell that happened to reside in Long Island in New York, and Garcia had never even been to New York. Further, the lead police investigator who based his “findings” on this fraudulent information was subsequently suspended for an unrelated case involving a sex worker.
Gaslighting in order to justify its unlawful actions is what the Trump administration tries to be “good” at. Yesterday, they “found” the request for a protection order in 2021 by Garcia’s wife; she claims she filed it because of her experience from a previous relationship that a confrontation they had might “escalate.” Since it didn’t “escalate” she didn’t pursue the case further and it was dismissed; Garcia was never charged with domestic abuse, let alone sexual assault like Trump and Hegseth. She is now saying that in the past four years their marriage has been “strong,” but that original claim may cost him his life in that concentration camp, since the Trump administration is using that as an excuse to never allow him back in the U.S.
In the same press conference this “damning” information was revealed, Rachel Morin’s mother was brought in as a prop to further gaslight people into believing that most of the 19,000 homicides committed in 2023 were by people “like” Garcia. With all due respect for her loss, I think mother and daughter (like Laken Riley and the law passed in her name) are not only being used to promote a racist immigration policy, but are being used to deport even green card holders for minor "crimes."
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin put in her two-bit, with this tweet to see how much mileage could be gotten from a bald lie:
The problem is that once more we are still supposed to believe the lies that this administration tells us, like another one about Garcia being a "human trafficker." Even some in the "liberal" media don't even bother to read the "evidence." Garcia was standing at a Home Depot for day work, and two people identified as MS-13 members happened to be there. According to the police report 6 (go ahead, read it) the only reason Garcia was arrested was because he was “suspected” of being a gang member too.
McLaughlin's lies are exposed in the police report that states that Garcia was not found with “rolls of cash” or drugs; it in fact states that he was wearing a Chicago Bulls cap and a “hoodie” that had images of “rolls of money.” As noted before, the "reliable informant" made a fool out of police by claiming that Garcia was a member of a New York gang that he could not possibly be in, and he likely knew that police would not be able to verify that claim in Maryland and discover it was a lie.
The report also stated when they were approached, two men were seen discarding what police found to be marijuana; Garcia was not stated as being one of them. This administration is stupid enough to believe that we will take their “word” for anything and not actually be able to read for ourselves what the truth is. But there are of course people who will believe this because they are too lazy to do the research; you can’t even trust the “liberal” news media to do it they way it is reacting to this "new" information.
Of course Garcia isn’t the only one subjected to an atmosphere of lies which as noted in the film Pressure Point is what far-right extremism is dependent upon ; here as reported in Newsweek 3 the “wrong” teen was detained than the one ICE was looking for, but they decided to “keep him anyways” and sent him to CECOT despite the fact that he was not a gang member and committed no crimes.
The Trump administration continues to peddle the falsehood that “all” of the people being sent to CECOT are “terrorists” and “dangerous criminals.” But as we are learning from CBS News 5 that of the 238 Venezuelans initially deported to the concentration camp in El Salvador in defiance of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg court order stopping it, only 22 percent had actually committed a crime—and only 12 out of 238 had committed a "violent crime.”
In this story concerning deaths and human rights violations in El Salvador's prisons 7 it is revealed that officials have been forced to release 7,000 inmates arrested in sweeps in the country for "lack of evidence" of being gang members. While Garcia was identified in this photo...
Let's be "real" about this: Garcia cannot be returned because that would open up the door for the return of that soccer coach and the barber who had committed no crime and are sitting in CECOT, along with many others who have been detained and deported regardless of their legal or criminal status simply because they had a tattoo or wore “suspicious” clothing.
While the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the attempt by the Trump administration 9 to halt due process in Garcia's case, calling it "shocking" and reducing the "rule of law to lawlessness," the Trump administration is still hoping that gaslighting people will save them from its lawlessness.
What makes this more dangerous to everyone is that even if someone is identified as a gang member, that is not in itself a crime; the First Amendment states that there is the right of freedom of assembly, and if simply being a “gang member” is a “crime,” then so too should be white supremacist, neo-Nazi and militia groups. Yet according to Trump, there are some “fine people” in such groups—but not any, say, in the anti-Nazi groups opposing them.
Immigration authorities have gone 100 percent rogue with new reports seemingly every day about U.S. citizens being detained 4, 8 or “mistakenly” sent letters like this:
When contacted to explain these "no-reply" letters, there is no response, since only “illegals” are supposed to know about these threatening letters.
So back to that “press conference” of lies on Monday. It was clear that Trump, Bukele, Bondi and Miller all got together beforehand to figure out how they were going to justify defying a U.S. Supreme Court order to return Garcia to the U.S. I mean, just how “stupid” does Trump think we are? He goes around bullying our own allies and friends with tariffs to force them to bend to his will, he threatens schools, law firms and media outlets—and we are supposed to believe that all of sudden he bends to the will of a tin-pot dictator in a tiny country?
Oh, by the way,
MS-13—which according to Wiki was originally formed first to provide
“protection” for newly arrived El Salvadoran refugees in Los Angeles from
predation from already established gangs—has only become “international” because
the U.S. deported its own problem of social dysfunction to other countries, like El
Salvador which was ill-equipped to deal with these gangs, which in turn gave
rise to thuggish dictators like Bukele.
Frankly, I don’t know why any self-respecting White House correspondent doesn’t just boycott all Trump administration press conferences because they should know by now that they will only be served lies that have become even more brazen, and be continuously insulted by these brazen liars. Trump and his henchpersons believe they can shout their lies loud enough and intimidate and gaslight reporters.
I don't think it takes much "courage" to simply stand up for themselves and tell people like Trump, Bondi, Miller and Leavitt that they are flat out liars and walk out on them, which is what CNN’s Kaitlan Collins should have done if she had sufficient courage and self-respect. Let them lie to themselves and their far-right media hacks, which will prove what a farce they are.
We have to decide what kind of country this is going to be. Are people just going to walk around like nothing is happening that they should be concerned about, that like in Nazi Germany or Russia today, and that flouting the order of the all nine Supreme Court justices is really “nothing” if it only effects the “others,” and ignoring the bestial and inhuman activities that are not aimed at themselves?
Like in Nazi Germany, the vulnerable "enemy" was identified as a scapegoat for all the ills of this country, and Hispanics--like the Jews in Germany--are provided ugly stereotypes expressed so loudly that people who choose to be ignorant and uninformed believe that the more outrageous the lie, the more likely there is a "kernel" of "truth" in it, and that opens the door for the acceptance of lies as "truth."
Here
Lawrence O’Donnell points out that ignoring the fate of one man wrongly deported to what is in fact a concentration camp, as the United States Holocaust Museum tells is distinguished “from a prison (in the modern sense) is that incarceration in a concentration camp is independent of any judicial sentence or even indictment, and is not subject to judicial review."
By permitting one man to be denied his rights by being repeatedly defamed by the Trump and his racist henchpersons, to be sent to a de facto concentration camp and then claim that they have no power to correct their mistake (and I don’t think was a “mistake,” it was deliberate "mistake"), puts everyone in jeopardy. And if the Supreme Court doesn’t reaffirm its decision in unmistakable terms that leaves no room for “interpretation,” then the court renders itself invisible and powerless.
People can walk around with their heads in the sand and believe that everything is “normal” and Trump is merely ridding the country of people who are being dehumanized essentially because of their "ethnicity." This is only “normal” a society that accepts racism as something that cannot be changed. But even calling it “abnormal” doesn’t do justice to level of crime being perpetrated by this administration on all fronts, not just morally and ethically. As O’Donnell points out here, even Trump’s imposition of tariffs is illegal and unconstitutional…
…yet people—including lawmakers and the courts until now—seem unaware of this fact. California is the first jurisdiction to file a lawsuit against Trump’s unconstitutional tariffs, which is affecting even now companies like Boeing; China is ordering its airlines to refuse to accept even already ordered new aircraft from the company.
How can Trump be stopped now? Judge Boasberg is holding the Trump administration in criminal contempt, but that depends upon learning who “gave the order” to flout his ruling against those deportation flights he ordered stopped. In any other administration we would assume that would be the president himself, unless it was one of those “rogue” types like Oliver North in the Iran-Contra scandal. But it’s not difficult to believe that knowing Trump’s contempt for the law and those trying to stop his unconstitutional acts, it is likely that it was Trump himself who gave the order.
But then what? The U.S. Supreme court has already granted him “immunity” from being accountable for committing unlawful actions. Nixon told David Frost “If the president does it, that means it is not illegal.” But Nixon was a moderate compared to Trump, who is far more out-of-control. Chief Justice John Roberts had to learn that the hard way; assuming Trump would respond to a little nudging and polite suggestion was exactly the wrong thing to do in its ordering of Trump to “facilitate” the return of Garcia.
Instead, what the Supreme Court did was put us all in danger. But as in the reign of the Nazis, if people choose to believe everything is at least “normal” for themselves, it is only a matter time when they themselves can no longer escape that tidal wave that was once so far distant that they thought it would never approach close enough to swallow themselves.
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