I wanted to talked about Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act in the context of this country’s racist immigration policy in the past 60 years which explains the information provided by this graph…
…and how it was Trump’s own policies toward Venezuela during his first term that helped create the conditions that he is now using as an excuse to exercise his racist impulses. If you don’t understand what this graph is telling you, it shows the effect of the end of the Bracero program, which allowed legal, temporary work in which migrant workers willingly departed for Mexico knowing they could return to seasonal jobs in the U.S. each year.
The program ended on the demand of civil rights activists, who were told by their white backers that the "Mexicans" were stealing all those "good jobs" from them, or at least what (wink, wink) were called "good jobs" for black people--the kind of work that Randy Evans of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council in discussing Iowa’s new anti-immigrant law was referring to here: “It is difficult finding people who want to do the backbreaking work of mucking out manure, hauling bedding for the animals, and moving thousands of pounds of feed for them every day.”
The Bracero program was not replaced and “native” workers didn’t go rushing to do those jobs, and farmers were forced to fill those jobs with the help of illegal migrant workers. It wasn’t until too late, by the late 1970s, when it was realized that some form of legal framework for seasonal migrant workers was needed, and then much too little because of continuing racist attitudes toward brown-skinned migrants.
But every day, it is just more insanity from this administration that must be addressed, and it is impossible to keep up with it, as noted by a particularly on fire Lawrence O’Donnell:
Here we just learn more about Trump’s racist attitudes…
…and here we find Stephen Miller and company reminding us that there is no intelligent design going on in the Trump administration, just off-the-rails racial stereotyping and pure hate…
…and here 1 we learn what we already knew, that RFK Jr. is a dangerous quack selling snake-oil cures.
Meanwhile, intelligence sources say Putin is not interested in peace, but still seeks the eventual conquest of Ukraine 1. We are also told that Putin doesn’t want the Ukraine-Russia envoy LTG Keith Kellogg attending peace negotiations because he is too “pro-Ukraine” and Putin knows that if there is no one there to speak for Ukraine, Trump will cave like the craven fool he is; what does he care, he doesn’t live in Ukraine and even if these people have been fighting bravely for three years, that’s their “problem.” Not that we should be surprised by Trump’s sense of “brotherhood” with Putin; after all, this is the man who said
Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me – we went through a phony witch hunt when they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. [Putin] had to go through that. And he did go through it. We didn’t end up in a war. And he went through it. He was accused of all that stuff. He had nothing to do with it.
Of course all the intelligence said otherwise, but why should Trump be worrying about Putin? From Russia, you read how Russians who know that Putin is a murderer “justify” it on Quora:
Putin’s violence is better than the free-for-all violence that was happening before, because it brings stability and income to Russia. In order to effectively rule Russia, violence is required to bring people in line (domestic & abroad). Putin is proof that pragmatism and realpolitik provide more tangible results than silly western liberal ideologies ever did.
Not that merely “targeted” murder victims (and not say, the apartment bombings/mass-murder perpetrated by the FSB under Putin’s watch, mentioned last time) would bother anyone in the MAGAverse. Thus the “betrayal” of Ukraine is what we should all be “proud” that this president intends to do, because for all the bullying posturing, when confronted on even terms he is just a jelly-spined coward:
We are also told that Trump has signed an executive order abolishing the Voice of America, which is a radio-based program and I’m sure 95 percent of the people in this country probably have never heard a broadcast of it themselves. So why bother “abolishing” it? Because Trump and Elon Musk think it’s “anti-Trump”—in other words because its mission is to oppose the propaganda of fascist and authoritarian regimes and promote democracy—which essentially amounts to the same thing as Trump continues to pour out executive orders as if he is a literal “king” and his decrees, no matter how unconstitutional and crazed, are the “law.”
Just another example of how Trump has a “thin skin” and has not a single scintilla of self-reflection or character (or just the bad kind). Trump apparently believes that silencing critics will somehow “rewrite” history and (literally) white-wash his “record.” The problem is Trump’s own words on Truth Social, which all future historians will regard as “insane” and to no constructive purpose.
Trump also went to the Department of Justice and delivered a speech which was clearly unethical and meant to undermine its integrity and independence. Sorry, but the president does not have the authority to pardon anyone (let alone himself) for non-federal and state crimes, so we still have a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist (if we set aside the hypocritical legal semantics) finally telling his legal storm troopers that oh-just-ignore-everything-I-just-said about prosecuting “scum” who say bad things about me, or the judges who tell me and Elon that we can’t break every law we feel like breaking—wink, wink.
Of course the far-right of the Supreme Court bent over backwards to insure this president is not the subject of prosecution for criminal acts, inventing a presidential immunity clause that does not in fact exist in the Constitution. Yes! That's right, there is no mention of “immunity” for criminal (or any) acts by the president in said document; the framers of the Constitution did consider the issue, but rejected it because the president should not be above the law, especially if his crimes harm citizens.
As the Cato Institute notes here 3, the court’s apparent justification for presidential immunity could merely mean
Exercise of less-than-core executive authority is still immune, the majority writes, “unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no ‘dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.’” The use of “no” rather than, say, “no more than minimal,” means that lawyers for a criminal ex-president need only establish a scintilla of danger of intrusion on executive function to defeat a prosecution over the gravest misuse of official power.
But wait, AG Pam Bondi isn’t “corrupt” too, is she? She is "independent" of political pressure and won't ignore unlawful acts by Trump and his fascist stooges, right? She even has “experience” as Florida’s AG--except that we learn that early in her tenure in that position she learned how the game is played by Republican “rules.” A class action lawsuit was filed by former students of the Florida-based so-called Trump University, where they charged that they were scammed into pay big money for little or useless “teaching” that wasn’t accredited. Bondi, of course, was right on the job---right?
Even some guy named Rubio complained that students paid $36,000 for a “fake school.” Not that Trump would have been a capable “teacher” even if he bothered to make an appearance at the "school"; according to somebody with the handle marcemrich3573 on Quora
I am a 70 year old Wharton MBA. Trump never was. He was an undergrad at University of Pennsylvania who took undergrad classes at the Wharton school. When I was there in '81 he came and spoke to a real estate class. I did not see him, but my insurance prof. discussing his visit did say Trump was the dumbest student that he could ever recall having taught.. This was in 81.
Bondi didn't join in prosecuting the lawsuit, for suspicious reasons. According to the AP Florida prosecutors declined to file bribery charges against Bondi despite “a $25,000 campaign contribution Bondi received from Trump in 2013. Bondi asked for the donation near the same time that her office was being asked about a New York investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University.”
Like I say, if it looks like a rat and smells like a rat, it probably is a rat. The New York Times reported that the donation was illegally “laundered” through “Trump’s non-profit tax-exempt charity, the Donald J. Trump Foundation. The Trump foundation listed the donation in its IRS filing as a gift to a Kansas anti-abortion group with a name similar to Bondi’s re-election effort.” He was forced to pay a $25,000 fine for violating federal tax law. The Times went on to report that
Then, in November 2016, Trump paid $25 million to settle the civil fraud charges brought by New York’s attorney general and by former Trump University students. And in December 2019, Trump paid $2 million and was forced by New York’s attorney general to shut down the Donald J. Trump Foundation in a civil settlement for illegally misusing charitable donations for political and personal purposes.
Of course both Trump and Bondi “owed” each other a “favor,” and it was paid by giving Bondi a job, where she could pay him back by being a political hack, spending time firing career prosecutors and doing important work like this:
Not surprisingly, Bondi recently confessed she couldn’t recover all the Jeffrey Epstein files, probably because people would ask why they couldn’t find Trump’s name in it anywhere. The NYT reported that events in 1992 suggested Trump’s claims that he wasn’t “friends” with Epstein were probably not accurate:
The video provides a glimpse of Mr. Trump in his element: moving back and forth between the dance floor, filled with cheerleaders for the Buffalo Bills and the Miami Dolphins, and watching from the sidelines, where at one point he points out a woman to Mr. Epstein and leans in to tell him, “She’s hot.” At another point, Mr. Epstein doubles over laughing at something Mr. Trump whispers into his ear. Mr. Trump is aware he is being filmed, as he smiles and embraces a blond woman on the dance floor. At one point, he gestures to the camera and tells Mr. Epstein that it belongs to NBC.
The party took place the same year that Mr. Trump hosted a more private affair with Mr. Epstein at Mar-a-Lago, without cameras rolling. At that get-together, Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein were the only male guests, and had more than two dozen “calendar girls” flown in to provide them with entertainment, according to George Houraney, a Florida-based businessman who ran American Dream Enterprise and organized the women to attend at Mr. Trump’s request.
Perhaps not crimes on their face but, you know, if it looks like a rat and smells like a rat, it probably is one.
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