Putting a 30 percent tariff on Mexico because it isn't "doing enough" to stop American drug use just shows you how ignorant Trump really is about everything

 

Since polls show that not everyone—especially those who voted for Trump—is disturbed by news reports and scenes of ICE thuggery perpetrated against Hispanics in this country (80 percent in this country who are U.S. citizens, including those of “Mexican” descent), we shouldn’t be surprised by the  explosive growth of neo-Nazi “clubs” in this country and in Europe 1 …

 

…and whites-only “return to the land” communities  2 which harken back to the Nazis “blood and soil” propaganda, which Hitler envisioned to create a “farming class” that would work in conquered lands in order to feed all those Germans repopulating the world. Joseph Goebbels and his wife did their part, bringing six children into the world—only to poison them all and themselves in Hitler’s Berlin bunker as the Soviet Army was closing in on them. Of course this is all quite ironic since most farm workers in this country are Hispanic migrants, helping to feed those very white people who despise them.

But it isn’t just white Trump supporters; it is my impression that some black people, principally older ones, who do not like the fact that “attention” is being taken away from their belief that their lives “matter more,” and are angered that the media is spending too much time showing that it isn’t people with black skin who are being pummeled and dragged around on the streets and in businesses, but mostly hardworking Hispanics. DHS spokespeople can lie all they want about all the “criminals” they are brutalizing, but the images and statistics tell a much different story.

Hispanics can be “disappeared,” but the truth cannot be: it is Hispanics who are what sick neo-Nazis like Miller, Homan and Noem are using for stand-ins for what Jews were in Nazi Germany, with ICE and CBP Gestapo agents and storm troopers carrying out their orders in the most brutal ways because brown-skinned people are a subhuman species who have no “human” rights. For some people, this disturbs them only in the sense that it is happening to them, and not to “us,” and thus it is a question of who is really the victim of racism more than others these days.

In the meantime we have been told that the Trump administration and the EU have reached an agreement for a "framework" of an agreement. This "agreement" only benefits "big oil" and the defense industry--not American businesses which also have to deal with those tariffs. Trump in a press conference with the EU head absurdly criticized wind generators, obviously because he thinks they are a threat to “big oil” profits and his contempt for climate change mitigation. 

We'll see how long this "deal" lasts with someone as easily upset by any suggestion of being made to look like an ignorant fool--especially given the fact that EU spokespersons are already now saying that Trump's "targets" are only just that, since the EU doesn't have the authority to force European businesses to follow the "framework" and increase its purchases of American product.

On the other hand, the "deals" Trump made with Canada and Mexico he has already reneged on, putting  a 30  percent  tariff on Mexican goods because, well, despite the fact that hardly anyone or anything is getting through the border these days, Mexico still must be punished because it can't control this country's addiction to illegal drugs that goes back to the time when the Sears catalogue advertised heroin as a cough suppressant and cocaine as a cure for hay fever.

A report by David Kuntz PhD whose specialty is “analytical toxicology” has written a study entitled “Opioid History with Fentanyl Evolving Trends: How We Got Here” 3  he points out that back in the “old days” the fascination with new “wonder drugs” that were fit even for children were being sold over the counter, in newspaper and periodical advertisements, and of course in those Sears catalogues:

 

 

Of course there was also Radithor, which was claimed to bring back the vigor of youth...

 

...which if taken in high quantities might result in this:

 

How about some history: The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 did not actually ban heroin, cannabis or cocaine per se, but just be “correctly” labeled for “usage.” The 1914 Harrison Act again did not “ban” the use of cocaine and opioids like heroin, but restricted their use through the means of determining who legally could receive licenses to distribute them. The 1924 Anti-Heroin Act was the first such law to ban a drug for both medicinal and purposes otherwise. Although the original principle source of opioids like heroin is that milky substance held inside the pods of the poppy flower; the actual growing of the plant and the seeds inside them are not “illegal,” in fact the seeds are used for cooking. 

Fentanyl was an opioid that was created in the U.S. in 1959 as a more powerful painkiller than morphine, and remains “legal” to use for medical purposes; its potential for abuse was only established with the focus on “less” dangerous heroin and other drugs that are illegal entirely.

Of course the Great Depression had to be blamed on someone, and people who claimed that Herbert Hoover wasn’t doing enough to help them were probably on “drugs,” or so seemed the belief of the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics founded in 1930, Harry Anslinger. This fanatic served in that capacity for over three decades, advocating a “jail ‘em and throw away the key” approach to those who used illegal drugs.  Users of even marijuana were all “violent criminals” and “murderers,” according to Anslinger—and mostly they were minorities like blacks and Hispanics, which “explained” why they were mentally “deficient,” even “insane,” and prone to “violent crime and murder." White “kids” were of course their “victims” as well; they were all “innocents” preyed upon by the morally inferior races.

The Nixon administration started its own “war on drugs” for cynical political reasons. John Ehrlichman admitted to Harper’s magazine that

The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.

But that was then. Drugs use had to stopped at their “sources.” Cocaine, for example, principally came from Colombia, where the coca plant was largely harvested. The “war” against the cartels, such as Medellín Cartel founded by Pablo Escobar, eventually led to their fall, only to be replaced by crime groups, many taken over by the very paramilitaries who the government employed to destroy the cartels. The result of this “war’ was to reroute drug trafficking from the Caribbean air and water routes instead through Central America and hand them off to those Mexican cartels—which previously operated “peacefully” under the ruling PRI party in Mexico—and expanding their role from mere “couriers” to “wholesalers”—“handling” drug traffic not just originating from South America, but China and India as well.

The violence and ramping-up of murder we are seeing in Mexico today seems to have originated in 2000 with the breaking of the PRI party with the election of Vicente Fox of the conservative National Action Party, who with the “help” of George Bush started his own “war on drugs.”  Felipe Calderon followed him, but again failed because he didn’t understand the “problem.” Mexico has no “national” police force, and “everyone” knows that local police “work” for the cartels—and if you want to live, don’t piss off the cartels; in the last election, 30 political candidates were murdered because they claimed they were going to “do something.”

But ultimately, the real problem is that if there wasn’t a “market” for a “product,” there wouldn’t be a “business” to supply it to begin with. Back in 2010, Jorge Castañeda wrote for the Cato Institute that

Everyone in Mexico knows that we can’t win this war. The government, acknowledging this, has begun to say that drug trafficking and violence can’t be solved until the United States does two things, knowing full well that those are impossible. One is reducing the demand for drugs. It is well known that U.S. demand for drugs over the past 40 years has remained pretty much stable, although the types of drugs consumed have changed: marijuana was the drug of the 1960s and 1970s, cocaine and crack were the drugs of the 1990s, and methamphetamine is the drug of the first decade of the 21st century. However, the overall number of users has remained pretty much the same. If the United States hasn’t been able to reduce drug consumption in 40 years, it’s very unlikely that it will be able to do it now.

Thus Trump’s tariff increase is just “punitive” for no rational reason. Trump ought to know that; he can’t even control his proclivities for contempt of laws, civil society, human and civil rights, the Constitution, etc., etc., etc.

Unarmed and "dangerous"

 

As I wrote about in this blog post 3 , I’ve had to deal with a lifetime of prejudicial behavior based on the fact that I look “Mexican,” a word when used by some people has the same intent as using the “N-word.” Being held on the ground by white kids having grass stuffed in my mouth, a white kid throwing pebbles at me while watching a softball game until Dad told him to stop it, and white kids throwing firecrackers at me at the beach when I was stranded in Los Angeles after I encountered a white man on a Greyhound bus who claimed he could “help me out.”

Of course back then I thought that anyone who claimed to be my “friend” could be “trusted,” but I should have known something was “amiss” when he told me he was evacuating Texas after he narrowly escaped capture by police when he was loading a pickup truck with goods from a house he and his partner had broken into; I woke up the next morning in a motel room to discover that he had made up for his failed robbery attempt in Texas with an easier one in California, leaving this dumb “Mexican-looking” guy with $9 and change to find a way out of his predicament—which I eventually did by just going to the nearest Army enlistment office to apply for another “term.”

I had learned a hard lesson there, and cynicism about human nature stayed with me ever since.

This cynicism can hardly be overcome in a country that has a history of acting on “impulse” when it comes to wanting to rid itself of the “others,”  and if it can be done only partially “legally,” at least it gives certain orange-tinted and powder-plastered people a wet dream.  Sometimes (or most of the time) this is done without regard to reality, as this Washington Post story 1  about the short-lived effort to recruit high school football players to work in the farm fields after the end of the Bracero program to give back those “good jobs” to “real” Americans that turned out to be not so “good” as advertised, and today 2  trying to find just anybody who is “100 percent American” willing to spend more than a few hours in the fields is a pipe dream.

Who decides who is “good” and who is “bad” is matter of hyper-partisan political ideology these days. In his audio commentary for the film Love Story, director Arthur Hiller mentioned that his father once told him that it was better to be a non-Jew and a good person than a Jew and a bad person. Stephen Miller comes to mind; he may be “good” at his “job” in directing his ICE thugs to conduct mass deportations, but does that make him a “good” person? I think not.

But Miller is not alone; we are learning on a daily basis that it is impossible to locate anyone in the Trump administration who qualifies as a “good” person of any description. The fact that 90 percent of Republicans approve of what Trump is doing—and they don’t even represent anything close to half the country—only underlines the fact that what is happening in this country isn’t “normal,” as posited here 1.

I had another project in mind here, but I was sidetracked (again) by something that occurred at the Seattle Center Armory, which I’ve hung out for a while since the Central Library is not exactly a “quiet” place to work anymore, with it being more of a camp ground for homeless people and those who just want to find some place to plug in their phones and engage in lengthy conversations. At the Armory the noise doesn’t bother me if it is “random” and passing—and not a consistently annoying effort to be rude by a person who I have reason to be offended by their presence.

Of course there are people there who are homeless and have all their earthly belongings in tow. I don’t have a problem with that as long as they don’t start sharing their stories with some “liberal” white person. I don’t understand people like this, I admit. I might “look” like a drug dealer to some people (hardly a week passes when someone doesn’t ask me if I have “cream” to sell), but in truth the need to work is as in my bones as breathing, and I’ve never been out of work since I finished college for more than two weeks a couple times. It’s not “hard” to find work; just go to a temp agency and they’ve got something for you the next day. It’s not “regular” work, but it is something to put on your resume.

Thus when I hear some “brother” living on the streets talking about what outside influences are preventing him from an honest living, and then eventually starts blaming the “Mexicans” for his problems, thats when I start saying things like “You only have yourself to blame where you are at,” loud enough so that he gets out of my face.

There are other people in the Armory who I suspect “live” there every day (I spent maybe a few hours a day there three days a week over the past few months). I suppose like any other biological entity that life is the simple act of doing what is necessary to keep breathing, people don’t want to imagine an endless sleep state which is the fate of all human beings, but in their waking state, some are left to ponder if their only “point,” since their only “contribute” to the world is to provide employment for public assistance workers. Well, actually, I don’t think many of the get past the “point” stage.  

Starting in 2010 I started this blog because I was angered by “progressive” influencer Thom Hartmann constant demonizing of Hispanic immigrants “stealing” jobs from “real” Americans, which I spoke about on that very first post. I was banned from commenting on his web posts after challenged some of his views and that of some commenters, which I saw as borderline racist. That was over 2,400 posts ago, and like my “regular” work, it is just as much a part of living as breathing is. It is my “purpose” in life to “dare the gods” who just see a Mexican-looking nobody who probably sells drugs or breaks into cars on the side.

So the other day I was typing away when a homeless couple who are “regulars” set up a table a five yards away from me, plugged in their phones, turned on a video they were watching and added noise from themselves to project a  “stereo” effect,  completely mindless if anyone around them was interested in their “business.”

This problem was compounded by the fact that I have encountered these people before about this behavior, and the male half seems to have this need to impress the female half with his prowess in threatening people with physical violence to “compensate” for his failure to be a “breadwinner.” After listening to them for a half-hour in the failed hope that this might stop or they’d pack up and go away, I initiated a “conversation” with the query “Why are you here?” since the pair usually hung out to plug in at a location on the other side of the building.

Of course it is difficult to hold a civil conversation with someone whose principle means of settling matters is threatening physical violence. Well, I said then go ahead and punch me. Since I merely exposed his lack of work ethic, instead he marched over to a table where some people outfitted in what looked like Nazi Stormtrooper gear  were sitting, and I presumed he gave them his version of events, leaving out the parts that made him look bad of course.

While he was gone on his mission, I used the respite to resume typing away on my laptop—before noticing that I had “company”: four-count-them-four of those guys who upon second thought were dressed-up like, well, those ICE thugs, who were confident enough in their lawlessness to allow me to take a group photo:

 

This image, anyone, of that U.S. citizen who happened to be "driving while brown" in Florida on his way to a work site 4 ?:

 

 

Being “Mexican-looking” as a factual matter and the way people whose only interaction with me is by happenstance and “sight,” assumptions are made and the people sometimes act on what they assume are the “characteristics” of people who “look” like me; on the other hand I see myself as a living, breathing example of the hypocrisy of this country. Oh sure, there are “activists” who are hanging out the local immigration court to provide “assistance” to those who are being detained by ICE thugs, but I have lived here for almost 35 years and it is my experience that people who “look” like me don’t have any particular “rights” that anyone is “bound to respect”—particularly the “freedom of speech” right to describe the world the way I see it. I have no “illusions” about the world I live in.

So what did I “see” when these four individuals accosted me, given one version of events? The Seattle Center’s version of ICE thugs? This is probably the closest thing to “work” these people will do all week, or probably all month for that matter. They all need to get in on this “action” to act tough against this Mexican-looking guy who on any other occassion they see three times a week for a few hours just sitting quietly typing up his next blog post. Maybe this “Mexican-looking guy” must have a “side hustle” since it is “suspicious” that this brown-skinned guy is dressed-up in a clean pants and a sports coat; it frankly “disturbs” them because I doesn’t fit the “stereotype” they’ve been trained to “understand” about people who “look” like me (you   know, the reason why people “racial profile”).

When they came up to me I questioned the need to “gang up” on this little 65-year-old Mexican-looking man. Of course they denied any “racial profiling” intent, and that “numbers” wasn’t the “issue”; Well, sure it was: it was an intimidation tactic like they were cornering what they saw as a feral animal in human form. If this was a “friendly” conversation to discuss differences of opinion on human terms, there would only be one, maybe two people who approached me. Instead their “plan” was  to present a physical threat and not to try to understand my “concerns.”

When I brought-up the way this show of force looked to me, and that they chose to take the word of someone who was bigger and whiter than me, you heard the usual defensive denials and threats to not offend them or they were going to throw me out of the building, especially when I told they looked and acted like ICE thugs. One of them admitted that one might get that impression, but added that they were not wearing “masks” so it was not “correct” to call the ICE thugs. OK.

This wasn’t new to me even here; I recall that I was sitting in a chair when three “officers” of a different security company—one of them with the “rank” of “captain”—were hanging in front of me, with me wondering what they were doing. Presently some employee approached me and told me he needed to take the chair. Oh, sure fine—and then I observed those “security” people walking away. Oh, so they were expecting this “Mexican-looking guy” to cause violence and mayhem when approached with this? Of course the employee pretended ignorance to know why they just happened to be there just long enough for him to take away that chair, as if I was going to make a “claim” to it that required “police action.”

What is in the heads of people like this? Do they wish they could be beating up on people like we see ICE thugs doing every day on television and social media? DHS.gov claims that ICE thugs are seeing an “increase” in being “assaulted,” without ever once showing us the “evidence” of this, other than illegally-detained U.S. citizens “talking back” or trying to pull their arms away from being held.

But I am just a little 65-year-old college-educated “Vet” who has tolerated much ignorance in this world because he is “Mexican-looking guy”—sorry to harsh your self-denials, but that’s the way I interpret numerous “interactions” that don’t have any other “explanation,” per Trump and his sycophants like Noem, Leavitt, McLaughlin and Homan. I have the right to my opinion as noted in that first linked post. It required four grown white men to “restrain” me for standing up for my rights, and one of them (the one front and center) indicating they were  going to put their hands on me if I didn’t just leave “peacefully.”

The choice ultimately was what did I have to gain groveling before these dressed-up thugs and promise to be a “good boy” and aid them in placing an alternative definition on what was happening here. Well, I wasn’t an employee of the Seattle Center, nor did I “live” in the Armory, and I could always return to the library where there at least is more privacy from “prying” eyes. I was going to make the move back there one of these days, and why not do it now when I had the perfect opportunity to make a political statement in a situation where the “optics” were “right”?

So I decided to walk out on my own, called them Nazis so everyone could hear, and why not—they looked like Nazis and the ICE thugs we see on cable news and YouTube videos; and these wannabe thugs obviously enjoy violating the civil rights of people who insist upon them, especially if they are from a despised group. I chose to exercise my right to free speech and prepare for the fight ahead when this city and of course the farm country of Eastern Washington starts swarming with people released from Trump and Miller’s cage of newly recruited Meerkats paid for with that $45 billion cash infusion at the expense of Medicaid and SNAP recipients…

 

…who are we may presume are barely more qualified than the above at “conducting and coordinating high-level comprehensive investigations” and less willing to “take part in securing signed statements, affidavits, and documentary evidence for inclusion in reports or case records and prepare sworn testimony on behalf of the government in criminal and federal grand jury cases” than they are at “using deadly force when necessary, in accordance with the law and agency policy”—the latter of which we well know is not happening.

Reality is tough, but ignoring it is tougher

 

Reality Check: Trump was elected president despite his felony convictions and those election lies that instigated the January 6 insurrection—you know, the one that was conducted by these peace-loving "patriots"…

 

…and that he would end the Ukraine war on “day one”…

 

…that there would be “transparency” in his administration…                                                                                                                                                                                             

…end inflation and bring prices lower…

 

…create manufacturing jobs…

 

…and focus on deporting violent criminals:

 

Of particular interest is this “uproar” over the Jeffrey Epstein files, or lack thereof. It was useful as a campaign gimmick, and later to use to stray people’s minds away from other issues. On a slow day Pam Bondi excitedly exclaimed she had a list of “names” right there on her desk (why?), and a warehouse full of “tapes”—although the only person who has admitted to seeing the “evidence” was tabloid journalist Michael Wolff, who recorded hundreds of hours of taped interviews with Epstein (before he “mysteriously” died in the latter part of the first Trump administration), who among many other things claimed that Trump "loved" to commit serial adultery with his friends’ wives.   

According to a Daily Beast story Wolff said Epstein (who claimed that he and Trump were “best friends” for a decade before Trump found it convenient to disassociate himself) showed him photos of Trump cavorting with “topless young women”—how “young,” exactly?—and that “in some of the pictures, they’re sitting in his lap. I mean, and, and then there’s one I especially remember where there’s a stain, a telltale stain and on the front of Trump’s pants, and the girls are pointing at him and laughing.” It was also  reported by mainstream news organizations that Trump on at least one occasion solicited Epstein’s “services” for a special “event” for his personal pleasure at Mar-a-Lago 1.

So, why are those MAGAmaniacs so up in arms and calling for Bondi’s firing? Are they really that stupid about why the Trump administration wants this story to die? In a word: Yes. The Trump people thought they it would be a good PR move and hurt one or two political enemies in the process by releasing the “list”—except that it seems that Epstein’s best “client” is currently occupying the Oval Office. Of course no one is supposed to “care” about any of that—now.

This country continues to live in a world of fantasy; at least it is easier than being forced to learn facts, which seems to be the problem with the majority on the U.S, Supreme Court about what Trump is doing and what motivates him to do it. Why does Trump want to destroy all of the federal departments that work for the people, like the Department of Education? Because he thinks “genes” are a better “indicator” of “merit” than being educated? Is that why he has Linda McMahon as “head” of the DOE, who needs note cards for reference when she testifies before Congress? Someone who’s regular line of business is to sell faked “performance art” as “real” to the uneducated masses?

But no mind—many people forget everything when Trump starts talking “tough,” because he is “speaking” for them and he has the power to exercise the cruelty and inhumanity they wish they could inflict without being arrested, like kicking a dog around (until it bites back). But most of Trump’s tough talk is all fury and no actual intelligible “sound.” Trump said he was going to end the abuses of the H-1B visa program to insure that—what did Rollins say?—the workforce will be “100 percent American”? Well sure, Trump’s ICE thugs are still raiding farm fields resulting in the death of one migrant farmworker 2. 

Oh and you thought that Trump saying there would be a “pause” on farm raids for the third time would be a “charm?” Yeah, like he’s in “charge.” More like three strikes and he’s “out,” this time for good. What’s he been drinking anyways? It’s “Miller Time.”

Kristi Noem—who by the way we can judge her character (or lack thereof) by the fact she was the one who “trained” that puppy to act the way she wanted it to before killing it for learning those lessons too well—claimed that that the deceased farm worker wasn’t actually “targeted.” Oh really, like U.S. citizens who are assaulted by ICE thugs on the sidewalks on their way to office jobs are not being targeted simply because of their brown skin.  The dead man wasn’t “targeted” from among the 361 people who were not just randomly “selected” for arrest by ICE thugs at the legal cannabis farm. Right.  

Apparently a dozen under-18 individuals were “rescued” during the raid, but who asked them? Did they themselves think they were being “rescued”—or did they think they were being kidnapped by masked, armed thugs? But of course Noem with that inch-thick face powder would employ this as a useful talking point to “justify” the raid, to avoid talking about why they were raiding a farm that left one innocent person dead.

The Trump administration is nothing if not willing to take advantage of such previously unknown or invented “information” to mislead the public about what it is doing; but does the public care if innocent people are killed? Are you kidding me? They might not “like it” according to polling, but generally if it is outside their “experience,” it is “alien” to them.   What did woman in Shenandoah, PA say after Luis Ramirez was kicked to death by jack-booted white high school football players? He wouldn’t be dead if he wasn’t “here”? Isn’t that essentially what Noem is saying to hard-working migrants who have committed no crimes?

A judge, meanwhile, ruled on the lawlessness of ICE activities in southern California. According to the Los Angeles Times

U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong on Friday issued a temporary order finding that agents were using race, language, a person’s vocation or the location they are at, such as a car wash or Home Depot, to form “reasonable suspicion” — the legal standard needed to detain someone.

Of course Noem says the “lawlessness” is on the part of the judge and Tom Homan states he has no intention of obeying the order and indeed claims racial profiling is “lawful.” What is “interesting” about this is that previously, ICE was carrying out its activities more or less “lawfully,” detaining only those who it had the “paperwork” on—before Miller had that meeting with ICE officials expressing his anger about them not meeting their “quotas,” demanding that they ignore the law and arrest “anyone.” Violent criminals? Who cares about them? Let them roam free if the innocent ones are “easy pickings.”

But what about all those H-1B visas that are “stealing” jobs in the tech industry from “real Americans” by people from countries that literally look “shit hole”:

 

It is “understandable” why people would want to live here instead of in that I suppose, but it has been pointed out by the Wall Street Journal and others that the Trump administration in 2019 reduced the filing fee for H-1B visa requests to a mere $10 per person, which allowed “consulting firms” to cheat the visa lottery system by allowing applicants to apply for multiple jobs that don’t exist, and essentially get into the country for “free” if their name is picked out of a hat. There has been a massive increase in H-1B lottery applications since 2019 that isn’t actually “real,” just more instances of the same people having their names put in the lottery so they have a better chance at “winning.”

What is really “unusual” about this is that these H-1B visa requests continue to grow despite massive layoffs in the tech industry. According to an Associated Press story

Andrew Greenfield, a partner at the law firm Fragomen, which represents major technology companies, said the increase in applications is “bizarre” given widespread layoffs in the industry.

Take for instance Microsoft, which has seen massive layoffs in the past year, and the latest cut of 9,000 is drawing anger among those who see an ulterior motive behind the cuts. According to Newsweek

In the weeks that followed those layoff announcements, claims began circulated on X that the company had also applied for upwards of 6,000 high-skilled work visas, or H-1Bs, since October, the start of the current fiscal year. While that number could not be independently confirmed, during the last fiscal year, Microsoft applied for 9,491 H-1B visas. All were approved.

Who approved them when “100 percent Americans” are being laid-off? Of course Microsoft didn’t respond for “comment,” but we can suspect that Indian managers only want to work with other Indians for “cultural” reasons. So much for “assimilating,” which racists like to accuse Hispanics—who share the same religious and Western cultural values as they do—are not doing.

Oh yeah, and what about this “100 percent American” jobs “promise”? It's not like all Americans are stupid, according to managers who only hire those of their "culture":

 

So what about getting those jobs that Americans actually want to do, meaning not this:

 

According to this report 4, DHS and ICE are “lots of heat, little action” on bringing fraud and abuse of the H-1B (and B-1) visa system to an end, and for not unexpected reasons:

It’s unlikely that Trump will cut the H-1B program, with him instead focusing on his broader campaign against undocumented immigration, says Jeff Le, who served as a deputy cabinet secretary focused on emerging tech and immigration for former California Gov. Jerry Brown. Trump’s efforts to stop immigration over the US southern border will likely appease his supporter base and ultra-conservative Republicans in Congress, taking the spotlight off the H-1B program, he says.

While they are called “high-skilled,” what many of the people coming in on these visas do is answer phones all day or data entry—and we don’t need more incompetent coders screwing-up computer systems and “fixing” them with yet another this time “critical” update...

 

...to fix the “update” from a few days before (which must explain these random blue screens). Especially when having a college degree means little when more than half of Americans with bachelor’s degrees or higher can only find jobs that don’t require one. 

Visa abuse is also prevalent in the "U-visa" program, which allows immigrants in the country illegally to "cooperate" in the reporting of a crime, particularly if they are the "victims," in order to gain legal residency. The NYT is reporting here  7 that local police chiefs in Louisiana and an Indian manager of a chain of convenience stores colluded in a bizarre scheme to commit visa abuse involving the reporting of fake "crimes" that allowed Indians illegally in the country to apply for a "U-visa."

By the way, the census says there are 5 million people of Indian heritage in this country, two-thirds who are non-citizens—a far cry from the 81 percent of those who are of Hispanic heritage who are U.S. citizens (geez, and you wonder why immigration enforcers make so many “mistakes” and then “justify” it by beating on themselves). The Pew Foundations tells us that 700,000 people of Indian extraction are in the country illegally; that means that 1-in-7 you see on the street are “illegal aliens.” 

But as CIO reports, they are “protected” by the Trump administration, probably because Trump employs so many, like an FBI director with numbskull conspiracy theories, the head of the NIH with anti-science beliefs, and a racist heading the civil rights division.

Meanwhile, we recall a Trump executive order telling us that there is a “problem” in the military that he wants to “fix,” because, you know, white men make better soldiers despite the fact this country has essentially lost or quit on every major war since WWII with those mostly white male soldiers (at least they are in the movies). The executive order tells us that

Unfortunately, in recent years civilian and uniformed leadership alike have implemented Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and their attendant race and sex preferences within the Armed Forces

and that  

These actions undermine leadership, merit, and unit cohesion, thereby eroding lethality and force readiness. They also violate Americans’ consciences by engaging in invidious race and sex discrimination”

Meaning, of course, “racism” against white people (according to white nationalists) and against (white) males.

Again, this is about preventing racists like Tom Homan from feeling “bad” about being racist, which in his case is pointless because he tells everyone to their faces that he doesn’t care if he is one—which of course is the “problem” since it re-legitimizes racism and discrimination against minorities. This is about re-instituting a “past” that wasn’t all that great, ever.

At a recent conference with the “faithful,” Homan called the lone protester a “loser” as he was dragged out; but you know what ,Homan? When history judges—and it will—you will be the “loser,” and your descendents may well disavow any connection to you. Historians won’t use any previous administration as “reference” to judge you or this Trump administration; they will use as reference Nazi Germany. Bad luck to you, loser.

But back to what Trump and Pete Hegseth think (or don’t think) is a “problem” in the military. In this report in the Indian University Law Journal 4 it is not anti-white “race discrimination” that is the “problem” in today’s military, but the same old garden variety that Trump himself has stoked since his first term. It noted “a chilling sign that the vanguard of the mob that stormed the seat of American democracy (on January 6) either had military training or were trained by those who did” and that it handles domestic white supremacist terrorist groups differently than others:

The federal government takes a different approach to non-Muslim terrorist threats. White supremacists, anti-government militias, sovereign citizens, and other groups present a significant terrorist threat. The FBI investigates these individuals and groups using conventional warrants rather than secret foreign intelligence surveillance orders or other national security tools. While prosecutors pervasively use material support charges to “preemptively” target Islamic extremists, they rarely charge white nationalists or anti-government extremists with material support. Studies suggest that the FBI does not use informants and undercover operations against right-wing threats as extensively or aggressively as it does with Muslims. And local law enforcement officials prosecute many cases under state law, thereby precluding the application of a federal terrorism sentencing enhancement and other potential consequences of federal prosecution.

In a report by the Pentagon a month after Trump was “persuaded” to vacate the White House in 2021 it was admitted it had a neo-Nazi and white supremacist “problem,” although it hadn’t actually taken the time to “measure” it. The Pentagon report admitted that U.S. military personnel and veterans are “highly prized” recruits for extremist right-wing groups, and “leaders of those groups try to join the military themselves and get those already in their groups to enlist. Their goal is to obtain weapons and skills and to try to borrow the military’s bravado and cachet.”

The Pentagon report suggested that “Despite a low number of cases in absolute terms, individuals with extremist affiliations and military experience are a concern to U.S. national security because of their proven ability to execute high-impact events. Access to service members with combat training and technical weapons expertise can also increase both the probability of success and the potency of planned violent attacks.”

But the threat of right-wing extremism is of “unclear dimensions” in the U.S. military because the “study” of it is purely anecdotal. However, there are those who believe that the military doesn’t see racist attitudes as “bad,” since in places like Afghanistan it served as “motivation” to kill people. The military news website Roll Call noted the case of a soldier who belonged to the extremist group Iron March, who thought that being a white supremacist in the military was “easy”:

The guard member said he felt free to be a neo-Nazi in the U.S. Army. “Are you worried at all about being found by your mates or someone, now being in the U.S. military?” he was asked. “You’ll be straight fucked surely.” To that, the soldier replied: “I was 100% open about everything with the friends I made at training. They know about it all. They love me too cause I’m a funny guy.”

The Guardian reported that there was a 55 percent increase in neo-Nazi and white supremacist membership during Trump’s first term; in his second term white supremacist activity in the military is being ignored because it is not “in line” with Trump’s “priorities”—oh wait, maybe it is, according to the Guardian:

An active-duty serviceman in the US army is openly following a proscribed neo-Nazi terrorist group on social media, one that has vowed to recruit soldiers in preparation for a so-called race war. Experts say examples like this shows how under Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon is allowing extremism to go unchecked.

On the surface, following a TikTok account might seem like a minor infraction for a young private in the 1st Infantry Division. But not only has that private followed the Base, a violent neo-Nazi terrorist organization once the target of an FBI investigation, there are directives issued under Joe Biden that discourages that kind of social media activity.

But in February, the Department of Defense issued a memo halting a major counter-extremism initiative rooting out white nationalists and far-right influences among servicemen, citing that it was not in line with Donald Trump’s executive orders. Since then, the efficacy of rooting out the far right within the ranks remains unclear.

I actually wanted to write a post  concerning the history of “recreational” drug use which dates back to practically to the “stone age,” the results of this country’s dumbass  “war on drugs,” this dumbass Trump imposing 30 percent tariffs on Mexico for not “doing enough” to keep dumbass Americans from using or dealing drugs. But that will have to wait till next time. 

In the meantime, for those with any sense, it sometimes feels like you are all by yourself in this world, when there is nothing you can do to stop inevitable fate: