Trump and his airheads are the real danger to national security, not immigrants

If anyone needs any more proof that the Trump administration has replaced Diversity, Equity and Inclusion with Dangerous, Embarrassing and Ignorant, you need look no further than the latest episode proving the complete unfitness of the so-called Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, VP  JD Vance, the so-called “Director of National Intelligence” Tulsi Gabbard, and  so-called “national security advisor” Mike Walz. They were involved in a “conference” in a public messaging chat room discussing bombing Houthis sites in Yemen. 

Supposedly Signal uses "encrypted" methods, but there is no doubt that Russian and Chinese intelligence have figured out how to hack into it by now. However, "worse" according to Fox News is that  they “accidentally” allowed into the chat Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, from whom we learn

VP: I understand your concerns — and fully support you raising w/ POTUS. Hegseth: Important considerations, most of which are tough to know how they play out (economy, Ukraine peace, Gaza, etc). I think messaging is going to be tough no matter what — nobody knows who the Houthis are — which is why we would need to stay focused on: 1) Biden failed & 2) Iran funded.

Translation: When we screw this up, just blame Joe Biden. No doubt these incompetents have done this before, and it also just by “luck” that we find out that Elon Musk, who has major business connections with China, was nearly allowed into one top-secret meeting discussing China war planning; oh, so Musk wouldn’t “trade” such information with his Chinese “friends” in a “business deal”? But hey, what did you think Trump was going to do with all those classified documents piled up in his bathroom?

Here in the Senate hearing, nobody knows anything, including the CIA director, another Trump sycophant. Tulsi Gabbard wouldn’t admit she was siting in on the “chat” using her personal cell phone; she claims  that the “chat” didn’t involve classified information. Well, it wasn’t “classified,” then why not release the text of it?

 

Of course we found out from Goldberg that there was in fact what should have been classified information divulged. Trump of course claims he didn’t know anything about any of that, which of course proves only one thing—that Trump himself defines the dangerousness, embarrassment and ignorance in his administration. 

Trump's cluelessness in allowing completely unfit and unqualified people to decide what qualifies and “national security” should inform us that it is Trump and his airheads who are the real national security danger to this country—and not those alleged gang members who had their heads shaved so that they looked like “gang members," since the only crime many of them, it is admitted, have committed was being Venezuelan. 

For the many who are not gang members and  committed no actual "crime," they found themselves not actually "deported" but  to be warehoused in hellish conditions as described in this TIME report 4 for a $6 million "fee" to the El Salvadoran government, and to face an unknown fate, although to simply "disappear" from the world of the living seems the most likely "fate."

So while Fox News goes into panic mode as witch doctors like Bartiromo, Ingraham, Hannity and the like steer their zombified listeners into a catatonic state to fit into the alternate universe they have created for them…

 

 

…and whose dissembling of the propaganda of hate and division is “contrasted” in equal measure with their pathetic and shameless Trump bootlicking.  On Fox News, “press secretary” Karoline Leavitt simply repeated the false claim that those being deported under the Alien Enemies Act “are some of the heinous monsters, criminals, gangsters, violent murderers and rapists who have invaded our country.” 

However, like the Venezuelan legal resident who was a professional soccer player and now soccer coach arrested as a “suspected” gang member because ICE agents thought his soccer tattoo portraying the Real Madrid soccer team “looks” like it is “gang related,” just anyone is being deported. I mean, if you are going to do this "randomly," why not puppy-killers who look crazed:

 

 

Noem, by the way, appeared in front of the CECOT prison "cell" in El Salvador for a photo-op; members of MS-13 were lined up bare-chested to show their tattoos. Behind them all clothed were those alleged Venezuelan "gang members."

Others suspected of being “gang members” have "records" like a barber with no criminal record in either this country or in Venezuela, as ABC News is reporting 1. Trump is using the Alien act not because the people being deported are all members of gangs, but because since the Tren de Aragua gang is Venezuelan, anyone who is Venezuelan can be declared a “suspect” and the act as it is being used does not require U.S. officials to provide due process rights or any information justifying their actions, such as proof that the deportees are actual members of the gang or have even committed any crimes. 

The only “crime” they need to commit is being Venezuelan, and proof that Trump is motivated by racial animus is that while he is ending TPS for Latin Americans and Haitians, he apparently intends to allow TPS for Ukrainians and is even inviting white South Africans (you know, like Musk) to come to this country as "refugees." 

The “irony” of this of course is that as I have already posted about is that the U.S. declared Venezuela a “dictatorship” that abused human rights, thus promoting the idea that there were people living there who had valid reason to come to the U.S. as asylum seekers and refugees. 

The other “irony” is that El Salvador’s  dictator is good friends of the far-right in this country (appearing at CPAC conventions and the like), and that his “problem” with gangs are those who were refugees (or the children of such) who came to the U.S. to escape the right-wing murder regime that the U.S. armed and supported, and found out that the U.S. wasn’t exactly much better, and learned from the "locals" and found “support” in forming such gangs as MS-13 here in this country—members of which were in turn (thanks to the 1996 immigration “reform” law) were deported back to El Salvador to deal with.

Why is the mainstream media so block-headed when it comes to immigration and “crime”? Neo-Nazi Tom Homan is simply lying when he claims that "most" of those detained and deported committed actual "crimes." One or two anecdotes hardly account for 7,000 murders that occured in this country last year, the vast majority by U.S. citizens. We are told that the Justice Department has deleted a link on its website to a study that showed that illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes than other groups. 3. 

Why would they do that? Because they want to continue promoting the lie that everyone being deported  are “heinous monsters, criminals, gangsters, violent murderers and rapists.” They don’t want you to know that most of those now being deported are working people who happen to be “collateral” to increase the "quota."

In fact, let’s go beyond that—if you can stand the truth. Now, you remember that Trump said he wasn’t going after working people, just the “worst” criminals in order to con especially Latinos to vote for him, and many now feel he and his Republican vote panhandlers betrayed them? Well, it seems those studies were correct after all, the “illegal” people were mostly just hard-working people and not the “criminals” the Trump administration is making them out to be. And maybe all those “guestimates” about how many illegal immigrants there are in the country are wrong—especially those on the “high” side.

Which of course would also explain why the Gestapo ICE is now going after legal residents including Green Card holders for the “crime” of utilizing their freedom of speech rights. And what about those born in the U.S.? Would the Trump administration revoke the citizenship of those who were born in this country 30, 40 years ago if their parents were “illegal”?

Who is the real danger to this country? There is no doubt in this mind that the true national security threat to this country is Trump and his incompetent stooges. And it isn’t just about passing state secrets to enemy countries through their incompetence, but putting diplomacy in the hands of an easily fooled moron (Steve Witkoff), and putting the people's health security in jeopardy with the installment of a non-health professional conspiracy nutjob and a junk "scientist," and of economic security, and not just about those on again, off again tariffs. 

The Republicans ‘“big, beautiful” budget claims to “help” working people, but in fact harms them by gutting social programs such as Medicaid in order to keep paying for those tax cuts for the rich, while merely reducing the percentage of income taxes withheld from working people's paychecks (adding a barely noticeable “increase” in after-tax income and reducing savings from tax refunds), and of course not helping the poorest people in this country most in need at all.

But this country and most of the legacy media is not interested in telling the truth, especially in regard to mass deportation, where racism “Trumps” the economic benefit of “illegals’ who fill needed jobs that most Americans don’t want to do (I know, I’ve “been there”—being forced to wake up early school mornings to clean the stall of and feed my unmistakably Caucasian sister’s horse), but apparently Trump and Musk expect former government employees to grab those shovels and start shoveling that manure.

          

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As an aside, I wonder how Leavitt sleeps at night after telling lies all day and then has the audacity to call reporters asking questions requiring truthful answers “scum” and “assholes” on far-right podcasts. Amazing that Saturday Night Live seems afraid to send-up Leavitt, or maybe actresses are afraid to do it. I have a perfect candidate for the job: Brie Larson, not because I think she has any talent for comedy, but because I think they have similar personalities. 

We know how the micro-skinned Leavitt, who has several times “critiqued” SNL’s mocking of the Trump administration, would respond to being laughed at herself, but how would Larson respond to being subjected to Leavitt’s estimation of her “talent”? “Personally” like Leavitt—or just mock Leavitt in a skit by referring to comments about herself (playing Leavitt) in the third person?

 

Even the "famous" can pass away unnoticed in an insular society

 

Now for a “change of pace”—sort of.  I like watching YouTube videos about abandoned and “ghostly” places. The 1962 film Carnival of Souls utilized what was the second incarnation of the Great Saltair pavilion outside of Salt Lake City, which had long been abandoned as the lake shoreline receded into the distance. It would “mysteriously” burn down just as its first iteration did, and “replaced” yet again. Today the closest shore of the Great Salt Lake is miles away, the new Saltair serves as a music venue. 

But it’s “spookiness” back then was an obvious setting for a horror film:

 

There are other true tales with a certain grimness that reaches the level of horror. I suppose that some people might remember this scene in the 1950 film classic Sunset Boulevard, when William Holden’s character is trying to use the phone, except that he can’t at the moment because this young woman is busy with it:

 

Although uncredited in her first screen appearance, she is Yvette Vickers. According to IMDB she appeared in some pretty good films; in my film collection those would include Boulevard, Pressure Point and Hud, but “appeared in” are the operative words. The other film she is in that I have in my collection is probably her most memorable “performance,” in the grade-z horror film Attack of the Giant Leeches. The year that came out Vickers was also a Playboy Playmate (she didn’t “show” anything though), but she was the “best” thing in a film that was lampooned by Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Anyways, the reason why I bring this is up is because when Vickers died in her Beverley Hills home in 2010, it was of some interest of those interested in the macabre.

 

 People Magazine reported that

“She was bright and intelligent, but she became very paranoid about people stalking her and talking about her behind her back,” her longtime friend Boyd Magers, 70, of Western Clippings magazine tells PEOPLE. “She lost her looks. She became very overweight.”  She also became “delusional” after she was no longer being invited to film festivals that tended to be “an ego boost for a lot of actors and actresses who have been forgotten from Hollywood,” says Magers.

“She would say she owned property in places that she didn’t,” he says. “She thought a casting agent was doing her harm, and I don’t think that was true. She drank too much alcohol, no doubt about that.” And she began cutting important people out of her life because she thought they were trying to harm her.

People naturally assumed she just wanted to be left alone, and so they did. But it came to the point when neighbors and “friends” started to forget the last time they saw her. One day a neighbor noticed that there were cobwebs in Vickers’ mailbox full of yellowing letters. She decided to pay her neighbor a visit, found a door that was barely hanging on, and investigating the collapsing infrastructure found what appeared to be the mummified blob of “something” with blonde hair sticking to it in an upstairs room.

Although the remains were unidentifiable, it was assumed to be Vickers, and that she had been dead for at least a year—which, frankly is a long time for a neighbor to decide to suddenly become “concerned” about what happened to her.

A couple of years ago I composed this post 1 concerning people living alone and dying alone, sometimes unnoticed for months and even years in the case of an Italian woman; she was found still sitting in a chair. In New York City, 1,500 people are discovered dead in their homes with no apparent living relatives, or at least none who want to admit they are relatives. 

In Japan, there is such a disconnect between parents and children that every year an estimated 30,000 people commit what is called kodokushi, in which aged people simply decide to quit life and lay in bed until they die.

In this case reported by The Guardian about a woman named Sandra Drummond

…who left few possessions when she died. Police found in her bedroom a pot of Vaseline, a hot water bottle, a stuffed koala, a roll of Sellotape and a child's snow globe. It wasn't much to show for 44 years. But these scattered items were the only clues to her identity. Her body had lain undiscovered for almost 12 months until the gas company forced the door to her upstairs flat in Hulme, Manchester, in July 2007. The corpse was so decomposed that an inquest could not determine the cause of death. No living relatives could be traced. No mourners attended her funeral.

Another  British woman, Joyce Carol Vincent, was dead in her flat for three years, and according to The Sun, "with the TV still tuned to BBC when she was found due to accumulated unpaid rent.” I mean, the landlord waited three years to make an inquiry about unpaid rent?  In the case of the Italian woman, it might have been a few more years if it hadn’t been if people were “concerned” after a storm had felled a tree. Homeless people who die on the streets have a better chance of being “discovered” than people who actually have a place to live.

Now why am I talking about this? Well, obviously in regard to the strange case of film legend Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa, both discovered not moving by the caretaker eight days after the 95-year-old Hackman’s death of heart failure and effects of Alzheimer’s Disease, and two weeks after Arakawa died of hantavirus, a disease contracted from the feces of rodents that has no known cure. The BBC notes that

Medical experts say it's possible the 95-year-old, who was in declining health and suffering from advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease, did not even realize his wife of more than 30 years was dead in the home where he was living. If he did, experts told the BBC, he likely went through various stages of confusion and grief, trying to wake her up before the disease caused him to become distracted or too overwhelmed to act - a process that likely repeated for days before he, too, died.

Although authorities ruled the deaths by natural causes, police still thought their deaths were “suspicious,” and in fact there were “suspicious” circumstances. Arakawa was last seen alive on February 11 making errands about town and seemed chipper and fit despite her 65 years. However it was believed she died later that evening, since she did not respond to emails or text messages.

But that narrative changed when it was discovered that she had made contact with a local clinic the next day, reporting that she had “congestion.” Arakawa apparently had some kind of health issue for which she had an appointment at the clinic on February 10, but perhaps feeling “better” she canceled the appointment. But two days later she apparently felt ill again with “congestion” and called the clinic; hantavirus can “incubate” quickly and cause unexpected and rapid deterioration of body organs, and cause fluid to fill the lungs, and cause instant death.

Arakawa was told that a doctor would not go to her home because she didn’t have a doctor-client relationship at the clinic, and that she would have to make a personal appearance. Several attempt were made to set-up this appointment, but Arakawa did not respond to such attempts.

Now, the question is why didn’t anyone at the clinic wonder if there was something seriously amiss and contact police to make a “welfare check”? They must have known that her husband was very old and had Alzheimer’s, so unless someone was just annoyed by the canceled appointment and didn’t want to deal with someone who was making a “habit” of “wasting” their time, simply decided to ignore the worst scenario.

The caretaker didn’t have access to the house since the doors were locked, but he could see through the windows that the bodies lay in nearby rooms. Now what would have happened if Hackman and his wife had died, say, in upstairs rooms? How long would it have taken to discover their bodies? The Hackmans were living a secluded life and hadn’t been seen in public for over two decades. His wife kept his contacts with “fans” down to a minimum, and friends apparently had little incentive to visit. The fact that Hackman’s three children were not named in his will indicates that there was some lasting effect to what Hackman admitted to not spending much time with his children when they were growing up.

What is interesting about this is that even a famous actor (at least for people in my age group) like Hackman could have been dead for months without being “discovered.” Both his and his wife’s bodies were already in the process of “mummification” when they were found. If that had been the case, then we might actually have a serious discussion about how we live in a world—even in “first world” countries—where there can be so little human connection. 

And let’s face it: we live in a country where we see the "trickle-down" effect of hate, divisiveness and narcissism that if it continues in the way it is going, civil society may die an equally lonely "death"--although to be honest, if the principle perpetrator of this state of affairs today was to pass away "suddenly," I wouldn't waste any time in "mourning," but only to wonder if this society even wishes to be a "family" again.