The Trump Administration, an Outlaw Regime
Where is Gen. Mark Milley when we need him?
As a refresher, Gen. Milley was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs during Giant Baby Man’s first administration.
There’s a lot I could say about Gen. Milley, most of it good. For our purposes in this space, I’ll merely talk about a conversation he, GBM and Steven Miller had regarding anti-racism protests in Seattle and Portland.
Miller said, “These cities are burning.”
Milley turned around in his seat, pointed his finger at Miller, and said, “Shut the fuck up, Stephen.”
Sadly, Milley is nowhere near the White House, while clearly Miller is the Rasputin who seems to be pulling GBM’s strings, and is largely running the country, at least in terms of immigration policy.
And please don’t let it be said that we didn’t issue warnings about what would happen if GBM retook the White House. The adults would be banished from the room. The guardrails would be removed. There would not be anyone to serve as a counterweight to the Steven Millers.
We hold these truths self-evident:
Renee Good and Alex Pretti were murdered. In fact, I’d go so far as saying that Alex was executed. One would have to be incredibly jaded to not look at the photo where Alex is on his knees with a Border Patrol agent standing behind him with a gun to his head and not come to the same conclusion.
We hold this truth self-evident: This is an outlaw administration operating with no regard for the rule of law.
I’ll circle back to Minneapolis, but let’s first consider Venezuela. Our military, in a blatantly illegal action, kidnapped the leader of a sovereign nation under pretenses that, at best, are sheer fantasy. They want to try him for drug trafficking even after issuing a pardon to Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez who was serving a 45-year sentence for drug trafficking.
Let’s face it, Maduro was no angel, but kidnapping a nation’s sovereign leader is not foreign policy; it’s sheer adventurism that undermines any semblance of moral authority and leadership not just in the region but all around the world.
This wonton aggression followed the campaign of blowing Venezuelan speed boats out of the water under the pretense that the boats were transporting drugs to the United States, a ridiculous supposition considering that such boats do not have the range to get even close to US territorial waters.
The destruction of the boats conveniently destroyed evidence of actual drug trafficking and killed people who might contradict the Administration’s line. Besides, these should have been law enforcement actions, not military actions.
And in the wake of the kidnapping of Maduro, the Administration turned pirate and has stolen several Venezuelan oil tankers that apparently are heading to American oil refineries though I’m not sure how that will work given that American refineries are designed to process light sweet crude, not the thicker oil that tends to come from Venezuela.
With GBM it’s hard to tell where his stupidity ends and his senility begins. Clearly, he’s been showing signs of cognitive decline, but follow the kidnapping of Maduro, he seems utterly drunk with power.
He’s threatened Cuba and Iran, and even Canada yet again. And just when we thought he’d forgotten about Greenland, he started up again on that utterly ridiculous notion that the U.S. would take Greenland, even if it had to be by force.
But there is a little thing called NATO. I think we’ve all heard of it, but an attack on the territory of a NATO nation triggers a unified defense of that nation or territory. If the U.S. were to attack Greenland, NATO as we have long know it would cease to exist. The only winner would be Putin.
Fortunately, GBM went TACO at Davos, but who knows when Steven Miller might once again tweak GBM’s vanity to bring Greenland back to the forefront.
However, bad enough that GBM seems to want to take on much of the whole world, but worse, he’s declared war on his own country.
Again, the Twin Cities.
Certainly, not the first city to be under siege by ICE troops, in some cases backed up active U.S. military personnel, but somehow there seems to be something more intense and pernicious in the Twin Cities.
Obviously, there’s the murders of Renee and Alex, which were described as anything but murder by GBM, Kristi Noem, Miller et al. Without even looking at the video, Administration mouthpieces called them domestic terrorists and even called Alex an assassin.
We’re seeing a complete disregard for almost the entire Bill of Rights in the Twin Cities:
First Amendment gives us freedom of speech and assembly. Within reason, we are able to say what we want and gather where and when we want with whomever we want. Renee and Alex were murdered for utilizing these very rights. And we’ve almost been rendered numb after seeing video after video of protesters doing nothing wrong who get sprayed by virtual clouds of tear gas.
Second Amendment, the right to bear arms was wantonly violated in the case of Alex who violated no laws. He was murdered because they found a gun on him, yet Kyle Rittenhouse, while still a minor, crossed state lines with an assault rifle and was able to kill two protesters with impunity.
Third Amendment , in peacetime, no one is forced to quarter soldiers, but hotels that decided to ban ICE agents suffered a strong response from the federal government.
Fourth Amendment protects us from unreasonable search and seizure. ICE agents can only break down a door if they have a judicial warrant signed by a judge, yet there was the leaked DHS memo that stated a new doctrine that agents with merely an administrative warrant have the authority to break down the doors of a dwelling where a suspected immigrant lives.
Fifth Amendment concerns due process, yet ICE agents routinely engage in racial profiling, picking up People of Color who in some cases are actually U.S. citizens. They violate their right to call an attorney, they hold them longer than habeas corpus allows and in some cases disappear them to detainment centers domestic and abroad.
Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments, granting speedy trial and trial by jury, without excessive bail, again, part of due process, which is systematically being denied.
We are supposed to be a nation ruled by the rule of law, not the rule of a ruler or quite frankly, a tyrant. GBM has lived a life without accountability. Someone was always there to bail him out, most recently the Supreme Court. Again, we tried to warn people what would happen if GBM was granted presidential immunity.
And the whole Administration acts that way. Hundreds of judicial rulings against them and yet they persist. Dozens of injunctions against ICE, and still they persist.
And what about the people of the Twin Cities?
Yet they still persist.
The Administration literally declared war on Minnesota, yet they still persist. But why? There’s actually a ton more illegal immigrants in Texas, and that is where the border is, and yet they attack Minnesota.
Why?
I have my theories. GBM and Steven Miller obviously bear a pathological hatred for Samalis who despite the supposed childcare scandal are very productive members of Minnesota society. Most are actually U.S. citizens or at least are here legally.
Minnesota is a blue state that GBM has never won. Governor Walz was on the ticket with Kamala, and let’s not forget how she wiped the floor with him during the one and only presidential debate.
And then there were the George Floyd protests that GBM found personally humiliating. Remember, he openly asked about cracking the heads of protesters or at least shooting them in the leg.
I know quite a few people who live in the Twin Cities who represent various communities, such as the music community, the science fiction community and the pagan community. These are kind, generous people who I have to give a tremendous amount of credit to. They are brave, and they are persistent to go out to the streets, day after day, braving sub-zero weather, tear gas and potential violence at the hands of ICE agents.
Fifteen years ago this month, the Wisconsin Uprising began where we went to the Capitol every day for weeks upon weeks to protest attacks on public sector workers. We braved the cold, but it wasn’t as cold as in the Twin Cities. And for the most part, various law enforcement agencies were on our side, so we didn’t have to worry about violence.
I have to bet that Steven Miller hates Minnesota. He probably thought these folks would yield to the brute force of his jackbooted Gestapo thugs. But he didn’t count on how ice would affect ICE. And he clearly doesn’t know the history of occupying forces simply not being able to subdue locals who know the territory and terrain and are fully acclimated to the weather.
He didn’t know and could not possibly understand their heart.
Clearly, Minnesota is moving the needle. Border Patrol head and Nazi cosplayer Gregory Bovino has been reassigned and replaced by Border Czar Tom Homan though one could argue that move is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Kristi Noem’s seat is getting hotter by the day with increasing numbers of Republicans no longer supporting her.
There’s been some murmurs about a drawdown of agents in the Twin Cities. Border Patrol has already been recalled. We’ll see what happens but large scale operations in Maine have apparently ended.
And Democrats appear to be moving toward at least altering the funding of ICE and the Department of Homeland Security with at least some conditions such as prohibiting masks, use of body cams and requiring some form of identification. Time will tell.
I will say right now that the brave, gentle people of Minnesota may have saved our democracy.
As for that psychotic ghoul Steven Miller, when sanity is restored to our government, I hope he sees the inside of a prison cell or even better I hope he gets exposed to direct sunlight.
Mark Milley was absolutely correct.
Yo, Stevie, shut the fuck up!
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