This week:

Several weeks ago following President Trump’s deportations of planeloads of ICE victims, Stephen Miller called on Congress to impose upon and abolish the Washington, DC federal court district after it blocked Trump’s actions of sending the “violent criminals” to El Salvador’s mega prison. Miller’s guest appearance on Fox News’ Life, Liberty and Levin, with host Mark Levin, Levin suggested the Republican Congress should scrap the DC court by eliminating the federal funding during the budget reconciliation process. Miller concurred with: “Congress has the authority to create the inferior courts. They have the authority to fund or not fund these courts. So yes, Congress has to step up here.” House Speaker Mike Johnson had previously threatened to eliminate entire district courts if judges issued rulings against the Trump administration, saying, “As you know, we can eliminate an entire district court. We have power over funding, over the courts, and all these other things. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act.” Judges across the nation have issued temporary orders to block many of Trump’s 100+ executive orders, many of which are seen to exceed his presidential authority, and angering the GOP in the process. Trump’s justification to deport alleged members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang by using the Alien Enemies Act was temporarily blocked by Judge James Boasberg as he pointed out that our country is not at war. True to form, the administration ignored the ruling and sent more than 250 men to El Salvador without their required court hearings. A CBS ’60 Minutes’ investigation found at least one deportee had legal protective status, one had been granted refugee status, and several were all formally seeking asylum — and 75% did not have criminal records.

Stephen Miller is hoping that Republicans won’t need to fly in the face of court orders or eliminate any federal courts, as the administration sought relief from the Supreme Court to overturn any deportation bans, allowing it to send individuals to foreign prisons sans legal proceedings. “We would just implore the Supreme Court to do the right thing and protect our democracy. President Trump will not be bowed, will not be swayed, and will not be deterred,” he told Levin. Miller has taken much criticism for his past remarks — one notable one: “Children will be taught to love America. Children will be taught to be patriots. Children will be taught civic values for schools that want federal taxpayer funding. So as we close the Department of Education and provide funding to states, we’re going to make sure these funds are not being used to promote communist ideology.” Political analyst Jose Larky says, “Miller is afraid of a problem that doesn’t exist. America is the furthest thing from a communist society.” He cites the Gini Coefficient, the primary measure of wealth inequality within a population, which shows that the US has much more inequality than at least 22 other nations. Zaid Jilani writes, “Does Stephen Miller love America as it exists today? His goal seems to be to return it to 1925.”

Dr. David S Glosser writes in POLITICO Magazine, that Stephen Miller is an immigration hypocrite, and he should know since he is Miller’s uncle, being the brother of Miller’s mother. Glosser details the beginnings of the family’s migration account from Belarus at the turn of the 20th century, fleeing from anti-Jewish persecution, individuals arriving on these shores and sending for other family members as they were able to afford passage. Uncle David says he has “watched with dismay and increasing horror as my nephew, an educated man who is well aware of this heritage, has become the architect of immigration policies that repudiate the very foundation of our family’s life in this country. These facts are important not only for their grim historical irony but because vulnerable people are being hurt. They are real people, not the ghoulish caricatures portrayed by Trump. When confronted by the deaths and suffering of thousands, our senses are overwhelmed, and the victims become statistics rather than people. Immigration reform is a complex issue that will require compassion and wisdom to bring the nation to a just solution, but the politicians who have based their political and professional identity on ethnic demonization and exclusion cannot be trusted to do so. As free Americans, and descendants of immigrants and refugees, we have the obligation to exercise our conscience by voting for candidates who will stand up for our highest national values and not succumb to our lowest fears.”

“Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater. You can see this just by looking at him, because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats hate,” wrote Terry Moran, late of ABC News. Moran was dumped by ABC after tweeting those words, which prompted a pressure campaign by the White House despite Donald Trump’s campaign support for free speech. ABC was bullied by the president’s threatened media persecution encompassing frivolous lawsuits and threats of punitive regulation, so Moran’s contract was not renewed because the network felt their standards of objectivity and professionalism were violated. The administration was already steaming at Moran’s earlier exposé of Trump’s belief that the M-S-1-3 labels on a photo of Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s fingers were actual tattoos, and not Photoshopped as was readily apparent. John Stoehr of The Editorial Board writes that Miller is, objectively, a hater. The mainstream media says so all the time. “Miller is extremely hostile to immigrants. He has always, as far back as high school, rejected the idea that immigration is a net positive for America, and he’s been very consistent in that,” says Jonathan Swan, a White House reporter for The New York Times. “This is all I care about. I don’t have a family. I don’t have anything else. This is my life,” Miller said during Trump’s first term. Stoehr writes that Trump reportedly said that if Miller had his way, there’d only be 100 million Americans and they’d all look like Stephen. “It’s hard to think of a human being whose hateration is better documented than Miller’s. It’s a cornerstone of his public image. The MAGA loves his PeeWee German persona,” according to Stoehr. Stoehr maintains that the vast body of literature documenting Miller’s hatefulness being disallowed only reduces journalists to stenographers who merely transcribe what powerful people say; Moran’s only error was in taking down his tweet in the end.

Editor Michael Tomasky of The New Republic writes that “madness is everywhere” if the headlines of The New York Times or The Washington Post are read, and it barely scratches the surface. “Across human history, fascism has been imposed upon democracy mostly in one of two ways. First, by brute force — a military coup; second, a bit more stealthily, and legally — through legislation, executive decrees, and court decisions that hand more power to the leader. Donald Trump is inventing a new way. Call it chaos fascism. Destroy the institutions of democracy until they’re so disfigured or dysfunctional that a majority no longer cares about them. That’s exactly what’s happening with Social Security…wreck the agency so that its service becomes crap. Let public anger build. And in time, they can just dismantle it and privatize the greatest social insurance system ever devised by this government and put people’s financial fate in the hands of the rich cronies,” he writes. He says Trump probably doesn’t have some secret plan — he doesn’t think far enough ahead, as he and DOGE destroy the government. Trump has contempt for rules and procedures, so he appoints unqualified stooges who share his contempt, to run his government by thinking that being tough means showing the world that they can do anything they want with no consequences. “Again, ignore the law, trash the rules, establish that procedure is whatever you say it is. Chaos fascism. Trump will orchestrate no military coup. The Republican Congress will probably pass no law that makes Trump president for life. That would be too obvious. What they’ll do is make stealthier moves across the board that discredit and destroy our democratic institutions until he and his billionaire friends can strip them for parts. Chaos fascism is here to stay,” Tomasky concludes.

Last week the US Supreme Court issued a decision in Trump v. CASA that made nationwide injunctions illegal — the high court said such provisions amounted to judicial overreach should lower courts prevent a government entity from enforcing a law or policy. Of course, the ruling sparked outrage from legal experts and court watchers, with one analyst calling it a ‘trap’ that the court willingly walked through. Slate Senior Writer Mark Stern said, “There are some technical maneuvers lawyers can make to force the Supreme Court to reconsider the issue, like certifying a class action lawsuit. However, there are still some big issues left on the table for the court to sort through. Those issues range from the merits of the case they just decided and the practicality of President Donal d Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship altogether.” Stern continued: “This is a fundamental problem. No one can explain how Trump’s order would work in practice. No one. Because the only reason that the vast majority of us have citizenship is because we were born here. When a child is born in America, the doctor doesn’t demand the papers of their parents to ensure they are citizens or a green card holder.” He says that Trump’s order would create a situation where everyone’s citizenship is called into question, and that could have massive legal implications going forward. “This is going to destabilize the fundamental right of citizenship for everybody. It is going to have massive downstream consequences in a really horrible and unworkable way…It’s chaos all the way down,” Stern fears.

On MSNBC’s ‘The Weekend,’ Stern called Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s thin-skinned attack on Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissenting opinion “arrogant and out of bounds.” Barrett criticized Jackson for “decrying an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary,” which Stern saw as “a far too personal retort that accuses Jackson of not really being smart enough to levy a strong criticism of her opinion. That’s totally out of bounds, it’s highly unusual, even when justices disagree, they usually do so respectfully.” He continued, “And here Barrett is going much further and I think the reason is really obvious, right? Justice Jackson’s dissent if one the sharpest, fiercest, most blunt dissents we’ve ever seen. She is taking on the Supreme Court as an institution and the conservative super majority. It’s one of several dissents she published this term where she accused the super majority on the right of bias toward the Trump administration, of surrendering the rule of law so that Trump can rule like a king. This is how the majority sees the country, that they really believe Trump should rule it with no limits and, you know, I think after this decision, it’s kind of hard to argue with that. The majority sees a policy that is so patently unconstitutional and rather than understand that that’s the emergency that courts need to address, it turns around and smacks down the lower courts and says, ‘You went too far.'”

Satirist Andy Borowitz weighed in on the high court’s decision in his ‘The Borowitz Report’: “In a stunning case of unintended consequences, the six conservative Supreme Court justices inadvertently ruled that their jobs no longer exist, legal experts revealed on Monday. By virtually eliminating the role of the nation’s judicial branch last Friday, the Republican justices unwittingly downsized themselves, Constitutional scholars said. ‘I’m sure they’re having second thoughts now that they’re unemployed, but it’s too late for them to reverse their ruling,’ said Professor Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota Law School. ‘The Constitution explicitly says, ‘No backsies.’ On Monday morning, a shell-shocked Brett Kavanaugh was seen clearing out his office, lugging an unwieldy beer keg down the Supreme Court’s fabled front steps. Meanwhile, the sudden demise of the Court has alarmed ex-justices Thomas and Alito, who reportedly asked, ‘Will this affect our yacht cruises?'”

Robert Reich writes that the hardest part of his nights hit at about 3am when he starts obsessing about upsetting things, such as what Trump is doing to America. On a recent night he couldn’t ignore the distraction that Trump is intent on abolishing the two branches of government that historically constrain the executive office — no more checks and balances as established by the Constitution, as Trump and his henchmen/women continue to usurp congressional authority, and war against the judiciary. The president and his lackeys wish to have only one branch of government led by Executive Trump, which is coming to pass as the Congress has all but disappeared, being controlled by Republican zombies who will say and do whatever Trump wants, maintains Reich. One down, and one to go! The federal judiciary was faintly seen as the only remaining check on the president, as they paused about 80 of Trump’s executive orders to await arguments and presentation of evidence at full trials. “But even this is too much for the ‘Dictator-In-Chief,'” says Reich. So, a majority of the Supreme Court, urged by the Justice Department, ruled that federal judges could pause executive actions only for the specific plaintiffs that bring the case — not a nationwide injunction which would immediately halt government policies. Previously, the Trump Gang had filed a lawsuit against 15 federal judges in Maryland, seeking a court order that would block them from making any ruling that might “interfere” in “the president’s powers to enforce the nation’s immigration laws.” Trump has previously launched personal attacks against federal judges after they rule against him, calling them “monsters” who want America to “go to hell,” and “radical left lunatics,” demanding their impeachment.

Trump’s actions and verbal attacks have incited some of his more rabid followers to threaten the lives of judges and their families, threats which have seen an increase of late to include bomb threats and swatting incidents. All those who push back on the administration’s actions are seen as the “opposition,” which has prompted Attorney General Pam Bondi to accuse federal judges of “meddling in our government,” rather than viewing the federal judiciary as an inherent part of the government. Reich says that Trump and his followers failed to learn that lesson in school, or they have conveniently forgotten it as they sit in the seat of power. He says our pessimism is understandable, and warns against cynicism which dooms any positive outcome — exactly where MAGA wishes us to be. “It looks dark today, but it will not remain dark. The Caligula-on-the-Potomac is getting nowhere on tariffs. Inflation threatens. The vast majority of Americans oppose his plan to cut Medicaid and give the rich a huge tax cut. His popularity continues to plummet. He is facing mounting opposition from the rest of the world,” concludes Reich. The road to fascism is lined with people telling us to stop overreacting, so, we have to do our best to shove that 3am monster back under the bed — and remember Reich’s encouragement!

Last week:

INSANA, HISTORY IS OVER, ONLY WHEN WE WIN, SCARED ENOUGH

We’ve been hearing it since 1995 — ‘Iran is just two weeks away from having nuclear weapons!’ Then, last week President Trump announced that he could wait two weeks before deciding whether the US would get directly involved in the Israel-Iran hostilities. His statement spotlighted his favorite measure of time, with late-night hosts showing clips of his ten-years of kicking the can down the road as he promised a healthcare plan or a tariff plan —just  two weeks until decision time. As The Tonight Show’s Jimmy Fallon commented, “Today, the White House said Trump will make a decision on the US involvement in Iran within the next two weeks. All good, no rush, just take your time. If Trump thinks about his decision for two weeks, it’ll beat his previous thinking record by two weeks.” Stephen Colbert jumped on the bandwagon with, “America stands on the brink of the precipice of the edge of possibly finding out if Donald Trump is going to bomb Iran. We’ve all been desperately trying to read Trump’s tea leaves. His type of tea? Insana! ‘Two weeks notice’ is so important. Trump understands starting a war in the Middle East is a lot like quitting your sales job at Best Buy. It’s just polite.” Jimmy Kimmel, calling Trump “Two Week POTUS,” joked, “Obviously, a decision to attack Iran directly would have very serious implications that would put US troops in that region at risk and could ignite a bigger war. He enjoys making threats, and he loves attaching them to timelines. Two weeks. It’s always two weeks. For a guy whose catchphrase was “You’re fired,” no one has ever given more two weeks’ notices than Donald J. Trump.”

Following Trump’s statement, Steve Schmidt wrote on his The Warning blog, “It has been 22 years and 93 days since President George W. Bush addressed the American people, and announced the commencement of the Iraq war. Lest there be any historical revisionism the record shows that the war resolution was passed in Congress with 81 Democratic votes. The point of mentioning this is not to judge or recriminate, but rather to remind all of you that it is the nation — not the party — that goes to war, and that beginning a war is a different project than ending one.” He questions how an Iran conflict might end by saying, “The American military is powerful, but led by imbeciles starting with Trump, but including Hegseth. They are as unfit as two people can possibly be to lead this nation into conflict. Trump, full of bluster and threats, cannot be trusted to tell the truth, or hold the course when times get tough. He exists in a world of make-believe and pretend. The war that he commences will be real.” Schmidt then lays out the Iraq war casualties, which he says the Fox News field marshals like Sean Hannity and Mark Levin continue to cheerlead because they failed to learn a single lesson: 4,419 Americans killed; 31,993 Americans wounded; 30,000+ post-9/11 wars veteran suicides; $1.79 trillion to include future obligations for veterans’ care. As the war drums sounded, Schmidt asked, “What is the plan, when do we leave, what is winning, what is the strategy?” As a former GOP team member, Schmidt feels that President Bush is an honorable man who made a colossal mistake amid the profound misjudgments in an effort to defend the country from a follow-up attack after 9/11.

In the lead up to his decision, Trump sidestepped Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, depending upon a couple of four-star generals for guidance on whether to join Israel in attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities. According to an unnamed White House official, “Nobody is talking to Hegseth. There is no interface operationally between Hegseth and the White House at all.” White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said claims that Hegseth has been frozen out are “totally false.” CBS News reported that speculation indicated that Trump was willing to escalate the hostilities, having signed off on on attack plans which lacked only his final go-ahead for execution, with Trump’s response being, “I may do it. I may not do it. Nobody knows what I will do.” Truer words were never spoken! Hegseth isn’t the only senior official reported to have been snubbed by Trump during the Iran situation — he has also taken issue with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, over comments she had made, particularly her criticism of “political elite warmongers.” A spokesperson spoke in her defense, saying, “Gabbard remains focused on her mission: providing accurate and actionable intelligence to the President, cleaning up the Deep State, and keeping the American people safe, secure, and free.” Trump seemed to be closely involved with what was termed his ‘tier one’ advisory group, which included VP Vance, Secretary of State Rubio, CIA Director Ratcliffe and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Caine, which many see as a troubling level of internal discord and disunity, just a few short months into his second presidency.

Democratic strategist James Carville saw any Iran involvement from the self-proclaimed “peacemaker” president who vowed to end “forever wars,” could signal the “end of global stability and MAGA as we know it.” Carville, on The Daily Beast Podcast, commented that the rift within MAGA resulting from Israel’s June 12 incursion into Iran had become very public in nature. Trump, Hegseth, and Fox News host Mark Levin were notable for favoring US intervention, while Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and Tulsi Gabbard wanted to stay out of the fray, though according to Carville, “This rift has always existed below the surface” in MAGA world. “Trump has no idea what he’s doing. I guarantee you that Tucker Carlson or Steve Bannon or any of these people believe that if you pointed to a globe and said, ‘Point to the Middle East,’ Trump would have no idea what it is. The president has never given an iota of thought to this. He knows not one piece of history about the region, about the adversaries, he’s just massively ignorant.” Tulsi Gabbard testified before a Senate Intelligence Committee in March that her agency felt Iran was not building nuclear weapons; yet, Trump was quick to dispel that notion before the press on Air Force One by saying, “I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having them.” Referring to this rift, Carville said, “And you know what I say? You’re not scared enough. If you knew more, you would be even more scared than you are.”

In a phone call between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, China and Russia tried to position themselves as a voice of reason, calling for easing of tensions between Israel and Iran, and encouraging Trump to use his influence “to cool the situation, not the opposite.” Middle East expert, Liu Zhongmin of the Shanghai International Studies University, attributed the flareup to the uncertainty created by Trump’s return to the White House and his chaotic, opportunistic and transactional nature of Middle East policies. Beijing has viewed the US as being a source of instability and tensions in the Middle East, and now that point is being underscored by Chinese scholars, with an erosion of America’s leadership among its allies while weakening its ability to threaten and deter regional adversaries. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran was favored by Beijing, being a formidable power in the region and an important counterweight to US influence, allowing China to expand its own diplomatic and economic footprint in the area. As China and Iran strengthened ties over the years, the two countries held joint naval exercises along with Russia, and both Beijing and Moscow have offered to mediate the Iran-Israel conflict as an alternative to the US. Whether or not the two countries wield any leverage in the situation, they stand to gain in the eyes of the world as the US continues to lose respect and influence under Trump.

A Meidas Touch Podcast last week featured an interview with Congressman Seth Moulton –  a decorated Marine vet willing to speak bluntly about the authoritarian threat posed by Trump. Discussed was the president’s drop-in appearance at the G7 in Alberta where he bailed after just 12 hours to avoid meeting up with President Zelensky, and instead of coordinating with leaders about critical global issues, Trump became a full-blown Kremlin mouthpiece, rambling about how the G7 should “really be the G8,” praising Putin as he had been instructed to do. Moulton said, “Trump sounded like a Kremlin spokesman. He genuinely prefers the company of dictators to our allies.” Trump and Putin spoke on a call, after which the Russian strongman launched another attack on Ukraine’s energy grid, with Trump posting his unhinged “orders” telling the 9 million inhabitants of Tehran to evacuate as he played a wannabe general on Truth Social. Moulton discussed Trump’s embarrassing “dictator parade” in DC, which soaked taxpayers for $40+ million for his egotistical glorification, replete with bitcoin advertising, and ignoring the US Army’s 250th anniversary celebration. Moulton was outspoken in his criticism, saying, “The military hates parades. If one leader, one political party controls the military, then you don’t have a fair and equal democracy anymore.” He finds it alarming that many of his active-duty Marine acquaintances are quietly discussing their commissions because Trump’s latest actions are unconstitutional. He advises: “Remember your oath.” This isn’t a hypothetical anymore — Trump is using the military as a political weapon, threatening American cities, spreading conspiracy-laced nonsense, pushing the nation to the brink. One subject was the hope seen in the ‘No Kings’ protests consisting of millions across the country, a moment that demands all of us to have courage, to insist on clarity, and the need to speak out every single day.

John Stoehr of The Editorial Board quotes Will Stancil: “Politics is a schoolyard. Dems gotta speak up.” Stancil points out that as Trump and the drum beaters of war against Iran, US Senators Tim Kaine and Bernie Sanders were quite vocal about the need for Congress to be involved for any declaration of war — anything short of that would be illegal. Where were the party’s leaders, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, who did next to nothing? Stancil asks, “How did this happen?” Stancil’s opinion is that it’s about Schumer’s and Jeffries’ view of politics. “Iran shows what the mindset if really about — all the pretexts about distractions really break down when the thing under discussion is what could easily become a generation-defining war, bigger than Iraq. But Democrats can’t seem to shake themselves out of their policy-wonk stupor here either. And it shows how what really underlies the ‘distraction’ rhetoric is a desire to focus on issues where the stakes are low and conflict is muted. It’s an evidence mechanism.” He says, “Democrats don’t want to fight, not openly, because combat is risky, which is something to dodge. Ironically, dodging is what’s preventing the Democrats from earning public trust. Party leaders tend to believe that the Democrats can win back trust by compromising — by moving to the middle on things like trans right. But if they won’t fight for the authority of Congress, which is the only authority they have, why would anyone trust them to fight for them?”

Stancil continues: “Liberals have trained themselves to see the world through this very particular end-of-history lens, where the ‘stuff that matters’ is inevitably wonky policy questions, the day-to-day of taxes and government, who gets subsidies, what healthcare policy looks like. The stuff that feels bigger and traditionally historical — scandal, social movements, violence, power and authoritarianism — that’s all assumed to be silly TV drama. That stuff belongs to history, and history is over! But it’s ridiculous. History isn’t over, the future will contain events as dramatic and horrible as the events of the past, and this stuff is just what it looks like: an assault on the foundations of our government, with all the terrifying and weighty implications that it seems to have.” Stoehr says, “I would suggest that liberals have a reading of history in which certain things are inevitable, like justice for all. It whitewashes the fact that people made moral choices and that moral choices have consequences. I suppose we could blame Obama for some of that.” Stancil answers, “I don’t know if they think these things are inevitable, but  they certainly think these fights are over. I’m not sure I’d blame Obama, but I think people are used to living in a relatively stable era and have come to believe that stability is normal. You see it in news coverage, where dramatic pronouncements are treated as hysterical or hyperbolic. It’s a little better now, but for the most of Trump’s first term, the consensus was that he was functionally a normal Republican with an uncouth demeanor. This was, in my view, insane — you could tell the guy was corrupt and unbalanced in an unprecedented way, openly supportive of authoritarianism. But in the view of a lot of liberals, it was just a gloss on an underlying normality. When Joe Biden won, people scoffed at the idea that Trump might try to stay in power, even though you had to examine the guy for 10 seconds to realize he was capable of doing something dramatic. If you thought about why it seemed ridiculous, it was because they implicitly assumed that here are just some sort of guardrails on modern affairs — that we stay in the Normal Zone because the Danger Zone was something that happens in other countries and in history, not to us.”

Donald Trump is quoted on November 12, 2015, saying, “This is the Trump theory on war. But I’m good at war. I’ve had lots of wars of my own. I’m really good at war. I love war, in a certain way, but only when we win.” As Brad Harrison of Newsflanks.com says, “The genie is out of the bottle now. Like Iraq, it’s easy to get into war but hard to get out of it. Trump and Project 2025 have turned America into a far-right, nationalist, white Judeo-Christian theocracy, now officially a war with Islam. Didn’t the Book of Revelations predict this? Hey, you never know. We’re returning to religiosity of the Dark Ages. The Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Reason are distant dreams now. This has been in the cards since his first term, but during his first term he had some experienced and seasoned people in his cabinet who kept it from happening. But they allowed him to withdraw from the Iran Nuclear Agreement, which the rest of the world was solidly behind, and now we can see how horrible a mistake that was. That was the beginning of Iran’s return to enriching uranium for a bomb, and the precursor to this mess. Plus, now we have him taking war into space with the ‘Golden Dome’ and heavy funding for his Space Force and space tech like Musk’s. As he widens his wars, we’ll need a golden dome. But this dome is impractical from a physics point of view, and will just be a big waste of money, like Reagan’s Star Wars dome.” Harrison says Trump has only informed the House and Senate Republicans of his plans, which clearly shows he is in the process of a full-on domestic war on the Dems and is attempting to eliminate the party as a political force in America. He wants one MAGA party running everything, like the Nazis. He has already started this with his deployment of the National Guard and the military in LA. We know the same deployments are planned for at least 15 other Blue cities.

Harrison points out that Tulsi Gabbard testified before Congress that Iran was nowhere near a nuclear weapon, but Trump straight-up ignored her and the American national intelligence apparatus. He’s entirely out of control. He really does believe he is on some sort of mission from God. The military budget is going to a trillion dollars under the reconciliation bill, and we are currently paying nearly a trillion dollars per year in interest on the national debt, most of which was due to military overspending — especially during the Bush era, most of which didn’t even go through Congress. Harrison points to right-wingers blaming ‘entitlement programs,’ but Social Security now pays for itself, with Medicare being half funded from general tax revenues. The Feds give about $600 billion to the states for Medicaid, now looking at a trillion dollar cut over the next ten years with the reconciliation bill. If we had stuck with the pre-Reagan tax brackets and not spent so much on the military starting with Reagan, our debt would be tiny compared to what it is now. America is now just an over-militarized, debt-laden giant under total control of an out-of-control dictator. Harrison calls it correctly: “What a mess.”

Simon Rosenberg on his Substack blog, Hopium Chronicles says, “Trump’s presidency is failing and unpopular, and he had to do something. Elon attacked and emasculated him, and made him weak and stupid. Global leaders are not bending the knee, and there has been no ’90 trade deals in 90 days’ [as he predicted]. Putin is treating him like a coffee boy, and Zelensky has made him look like a clown. His economic policy is slowing the economy down in every country in the world including the US, has caused our credit to go through an unprecedented downgrade, and the American people have figured out this budget bill will make their lives worse (as it will). All across the country news organizations are reporting on how his cuts and plans will do harm to their communities. He keeps losing in court, badly. The Vatican elected an American cardinal who has been very critical of his Administration. He had to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia home. No one showed up for his sad birthday parade. His ugliness has spawned what appears to be the biggest protest movement in American history. His immigration enforcement escalation has backfired. His intel community has called b.s. on his claims of Iran’s nuclear progress.” Other than that, how did you enjoy the play at the Lincoln Center, Mrs. Trump?

On June 21, The Onion website reminded us that Trump’s campaign statement: “No new wars,” was eclipsed by his latest, “No, new wars.” As satirist Andy Borowitz wrote: “In a nationally televised address Saturday night, Donald J. Trump announced he had ordered his son Barron to visit a podiatrist. ‘My fellow Americans, earlier this evening, at my command, Barron saw a podiatrist,’ said Trump, flanked by JD Vance, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth. ‘I am pleased to announce that he has returned home safely. Barron’s mission was to obtain a note from the doctor,’ Trump added. ‘Mission accomplished.’ Minutes after the speech, a new poll showed a majority of Americans favor dropping Donald Trump on Iran.” As we know, Trump actually compressed his “two weeks” on this Saturday to wag the dog, by unilaterally ordering strikes on Iran’s three key nuclear facilities, declaring the move a “spectacular military success,” with a warning that further action might follow if Tehran doesn’t come to the peace table. Khamenei will surely respond — anywhere, at any time, and in any form, with their options of missiles — already sent to a US base in Qatar, militias, oil supply disruption, or hostage-taking, only marking a new chapter in this history, rather than a conclusion. We must remember that the 9/11 plot was ten years in the making. As Trump made the televised announcement, standing behind him were his ill-suited, glum-looking hostages Pete Hegseth, JD Vance, and Marco Rubio — not necessarily proud of the sequence of events — with the notable absence of Tulsi Gabbard. Trump needed his yes-men to back him up, to share the blame for a situation that will likely get worse, as they look for another dog to wag.

When compared to the Trump administration’s mass firings at the federal level, his massive, expensive military parade in the nation’s capitol seemed a harebrained plan, especially when further cuts to federal programs are coming. The price tag on the day’s events have been bandied about in the $45 million range, but is likely to creep higher…which taxpayers will never gain knowledge about. Trump explained to NBC News’ Kristen Welker the cost will be “peanuts compared to the value of doing it,” but Ja’han Jones of MSNBC says that claim is debatable at best, the actual value of hosting such a parade, is more reminiscent of dictatorships as it features dozens of military vehicles and thousands of service members. Or as Adam Kinzinger says, the waste and corruption of the Trump administration, and the president wanting a military themed 79th birthday party, has more to do with Trump’s disinterest in being president and his desire to be worshipped, and his interest in entertaining. Submitted cartoon captions on Robert Reich’s blog read: “It’s not just a birthday — it’s a national emergency in red, white and ego,” and “They’re marching to the beat of a draft dodger!” and “It’s my birthday too, but all I got was 1 doll.”

Last week satirist Andy Borowitz wrote his version of the impending parade: “Donald J. Trump’s long-wished-for military parade was abruptly cancelled on Saturday after it emerged that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had inadvertently invited the Houthi rebels. Though Hegseth defiantly told reporters, ‘I did not text parade plans,’ a mass invite from his Signal account was sent to the Houthis, Iran’s Supreme Leader, and The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg. In an official statement, the Houthis said they were ‘saddened’ to lose the chance to show off their military hardware, adding, ‘We already packed our drones.'” Not attending the actual festivities were many GOP lawmakers who were heading home for the weekend for personal reasons, not enticed by Trump’s promise of an “incredible” display.” Louisiana Senator John Kennedy said, “The United States of America is the most powerful country in all of human history. We’re a lion, and a lion doesn’t have to tell you it’s a lion. I would save the money, but if the president wants to have a parade, he’s the president, and I’m not.” Senator Rand Paul said he has “never been a fan of goose-stepping soldiers in big tanks and missiles rolling down the street” and likened the expected imagery to the Soviet Union and North Korea, adding, “So if you asked me, I wouldn’t have done it.” A Politico survey found only seven out of fifty lawmakers on the House side who would attend. Threatening weather may have accounted for a low turnout, but Trump wasn’t discouraged — “tanks won’t be affected. It doesn’t affect the soldiers. They’re used to it. They’re tough,” said Cadet Bone Spurs.

Regrettably, after months of planning, and public ballyhoo, the event came to fruition, and was ruled a whopping belly flop — the ballyhoo becoming a bally-boo-hoo for Trump and his hangers-on who were coerced into sitting on the viewing stand with him. The tiny crowd size, bored and uncoordinated marchers, rusty and clunky machinery, and the humiliation for the crypto sponsors whose logos were prominently displayed, all provided ammo for social media to explode with ridicule. It was far from being a feather in the cap of America’s would-be dictator as he looked bored, disinterested, and appearing to nod off a few times. Ditto for Melania and the MAGA hostages. For the president to know that his grand parade was sharing TV screens with the massive ‘No Kings’ protest rallies across the nation and the world only emphasized his desperation and weakness in a country that was forcefully objecting to the moral squalor of his leadership. Andy Borowitz says the short version of the D.C. event is a ‘sad trombone’: wah-wah-wah-wah! Maybe next time Trump wants to celebrate himself with an ostentatious display of military hardware, he should hire a consultant who knows how to produce this kind of show: Kim Jong-Un. A joke on X: “MAGA estimates that 51 million to 1.2 billion people attended Trump’s parade.”

The MoveOn website reported: “Two very different visions of America were on display. In Washington, D.C., Donald Trump staged a grossly expensive and ‘profoundly low energy’ military parade — a spectacle featuring squeaky tanks, troops, and weapons rolling through our nation’s capitol on his 79th birthday. It was a sparsely attended, and ultimately, empty attempt to show force by a historically weak president who governs through fear because he cannot lead through trust.” It is estimated that as many as five million people were in the streets in 2,100 peaceful ‘No Kings‘ protests — “a massive display of the power we hold when we stand together for democracy, dignity, and hope,” says MoveOn. In April three million protesters attended 1,300 ‘Hands Off’ rallies, and with last week’s five million, the movement is obviously growing, but it’s only the beginning and we have to keep the energy flowing. Historians who study social movements worldwide have coined the ‘3.5% rule,’ which says historically few authoritarian governments have withstood 3.5% of their population peacefully mobilized against them in a sustained show of solidarity. Today’s movement will have to grow to around eleven million people who remain steadfast in protesting the MAGA regime, so the momentum is moving toward reaching that goal.

Alix Bedeen writes on Daily Kos of Florida’s Governor DeSantis making a statement that “vehicular manslaughter is morally okay, as long as you’re hitting a dirty, ICE-hating liberal.” He is quoted as saying, “If you’re driving down one of those streets and a mob comes and surrounds your vehicle and threatens you, you have a right to flee for your safety, and so if you drive off and you hit one of those people, that’s their fault for impinging on you.” After chaos ensued when President Trump sent in troops to quell protests in Los Angeles, inspiring protesters in other states to do likewise, DeSantis took the opportunity to take advantage of the chaos in an attempt to bury his own family scandals which have been jeopardizing the political futures of he and his wife. The governor was called out by the Orlando Sentinel for omitting “LGBTQ and Hispanic communities” from the annual Pulse nightclub shootings statement honoring those victims, as a flagrant display of racism and homophobia. Bredeen concludes with, “Then again, DeSantis’ idea of protecting his constituents is arming daycare workers, so what’s running over a protester every now and then?”

MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart and authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat discussed Florida’s Brevard County sheriff, Wayne Ivey, after his press conference threatening ‘No Kings’ protesters in his jurisdiction. Ivey said, “If you throw a brick, a firebomb, or point a gun at one of our deputies, we will be notifying your family where to collect your remains because we will kill you, graveyard dead. We’re not going to play. If you try to mob rule a car in Brevard County, gathering around it, refusing to let the driver leave, you’re most likely going to get run over and dragged across the street. If you spit on us, you’re going to the hospital, then jail. If you hit one of us, you’re going to the hospital, jail, and most likely get bitten by one of our big, beautiful dogs.” As Ben-Ghiat shook her head in amazement, Capehart asked her to comment. She said, “Unfortunately, what happens when you have a culture of institutionalized lawlessness, and where the head of our government tried to overthrow the government, and is calling protesters insurrectionists, having incited a violent insurrection of his own, there’s a kind of encouragement for all kinds of broad state security forces, including law enforcement, state militias, and the military to feel empowered to be lawless themselves, and to speak like that.”

Lisa Needham writes on The Daily Beast that Senator Jeff Hawley wants an investigation into ‘The Insurrection’ — not the January 6, 2021 affair, the 2025 protests in Los Angeles to be more exact. The Missouri Senator is going to blow this whole criminal conspiracy wide open, using the same old, tired GOP delusion that left wing demonstrators are not spontaneous or authentic but are instead paid puppets funded by dark money masters led by George Soros. Hawley has sent letters to groups he alleges are funding the protests, demanding their donor lists, which Needham finds just a touch McCarthy-ish. She writes that sending letters to organizations disfavored by the government, asserting that participation in that group is criminal, and demanding donor names is pretty much an accurate shorthand description of the McCarthy era. The groups Hawley has singled out are the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which is actually a communist group. The New York Post has reported that, “The radical group, CHILRA, had received around $450,000 in grants for ‘citizenship education and training’ between October 2021 and September 2024 from DHS — the very agency the group was protesting.” Needham snarks, “Ah, yes. The well-known ‘you can’t protest the government if you ever got money from the government’ exception to the First Amendment.” Hawley, in his letters, says, “Bankrolling civil unrest is not protected speech. It is aiding and abetting criminal conduct.” Hmmm — must not pertain to January 6? He doesn’t stop at donor lists — he also wants all internal communications related to protest planning, coordination, or funding; all financial documents related to protests over immigration enforcement; all contracts and grant applications related to immigration enforcement; travel records for anyone supported or reimbursed for protests activities; and all media strategies. Seems that he has forgotten the well-known photo of him raising his fist in support of the gathered January 6 insurrectionists who were poised for the Capitol onslaught, and his answer that, “Trump keeps his campaign promises” when asked about the president’s blanket pardon for his horde of lawbreakers.

We’ve all seen the powerful, yet horrifying, images on TV or social media from the anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles with the escalation of law enforcement and police violence, but the citizens are not letting up in defense of their neighborhoods. One protestor’s confrontation with California National Guard officers at the Los Angeles VA Clinic has gone viral as he stands his ground, bravely addressing the armed, uniformed unit. “You’re tough with your assault rifles and your sticks. You should be standing here with us. You’re on the wrong side of history,” he begins. His diatribe continues: “We know you got a job to do. But you took an oath to the Constitution, not to the fascists in the White House. Think about what you’re doing now. Think about what this means, coming into our community. Peaceful community…people working their jobs. They send men in military fatigues. Weapons of war in our communities, and you stand here and you allow it. I am sick and tired of it. You should be sick and tired of it.” Then asking the officers, “You think any of these people in the White House sending you these commands care about you? Not one of them do. They laugh at you. Our president laughs at you. He called you fools. He said the people who died overseas in the military were chumps. That’s who you’re defending right now.” As the video continues he says, “Think about your place in history, ladies and gentlemen. Ask yourself when you wake up tomorrow. I don’t know if you have kids. Ask yourself the future you want for your children. Is it this? You can answer me. Is it this? Do you feel good about this? You’re tough looking behind your masks and your fatigues with your weapons, but how do you feel on the inside? This is our community, and we will fight for it if we have to.” The protester’s video has been seen over 350,000 times, being reposted by countless news media outlets and social media users, viewers being moved by his courage and his potent message. Many called his accomplishment true patriotism, the sign of a leader who should be running for political office, and one Tiktok poster felt it gave all on the sidelines a great reminder: “You can always be the hero.”

Satirist Andy Borowitz reveals that the president had arrived at what he felt was a great solution: “In what critics are calling an inflammatory move, Donald J. Trump announced on Tuesday that he was sending Stephen Miller to Los Angeles to act as a human repellant. ‘No one empties a room faster than Stephen,’ Trump said. ‘He’s better than teargas.’ But Trump’s plan faces a stiff legal challenge from human rights lawyers, who argue that the use of Stephen Miller violates the Geneva Convention.”

A couple of years ago, Trump was interviewed by Fox News’ Bret Baier, who asked The Don what he considered the most important issue for the country, which brought up the usual suspects — the economy, border security, ‘woke,’ but his main concern was “respect.” “Basically, respect all over the world. We don’t have it anymore. We had tremendous respect in 2020. We don’t have respect anymore. We have to get that respect back. And if we don’t, we have some big problems,” he opined. MSNBC’s Steve Benen writes, “This has been a rhetorical staple for the Republicans for quite a while. In fact, on the campaign trail last year, the told a Pennsylvania audience, referring to his White House tenure: ‘We were the most respected country in the world. We were the most respected that we were ever respected. We were never more respected than we were four years ago.'” Of course, Benen calls this statement “utterly bonkers,” but now that the president has returned to the Oval Office, it’s suddenly even worse. The Pew Research Center released the results of international surveys measuring Trump’s support in 24 nations across the globe, making it clear that results were awful. Majorities express little or no confidence in Trump’s ability to handle specific issues, and when asked about Trump’s personal characteristics, most describe him as arrogant and dangerous, while relatively few see him as honest. Benen writes that broadly speaking, good news for the White House was hard to find in the data, much of the world holding Trump in low regard, his unpopularity tarnishing the stature of the country, with favorable ratings dropping by double digits in several countries. The PRC showed George W. Bush unpopular, with Barack Obama’s support high; followed by Trump’s first term numbers awful, then bouncing upward under <b>Biden</b> — now, the numbers are continuing to slide downward.

While some argue that the new numbers are irrelevant, since Trump has prioritized an ‘America First’ theme, the lack of international backing shouldn’t matter — the problem being that Trump has invested enormous amounts of time and energy to make the opposite argument. Most will remember that the Republican worldview is that the USA has been an international laughingstock for decades, but Trump has argued that thanks to how awesome his awesomeness is, he has restored the nation’s global stature, seeing it as one of his most important accomplishments. As Trump ended his first term, in his farewell address he told the country, “The world respects us again. Please don’t lose that respect.” However, the Pew research from September 2020 notes, “In several countries, the share of the public with a favorable view of the US is as low as it has been at any point since the Center began polling on this topic nearly two decades ago.” Benen concludes, “And yet, the president can’t let go of this lie. A few weeks ago, by way of his social media platform, Trump wrote: ‘Our Nation is staging one of the greatest and fastest comebacks in history. In just 4 short months, we are respected again, respected like never before.’ He similarly added in February, just a couple of weeks after his second inaugural, ‘We are respected all over the world, like never before.’ All of this was the opposite of the truth. It also reinforces the fact that Trump is failing, not by some random metric, but by one of the standards that he personally elevated above all others.”

After the president and the First Lady made a rare public appearance at the new and MAGA-friendly Kennedy Center for the presentation of ‘Les Misérables,’ Jimmy Kimmel on his show, expressed concern about the state of their marriage. “It was the opening night, led by their self-appointed chairman of the board,” he said in his opening monologue, as he showed a photo of their appearance, joking, “There he is, Don Valjean and Lady Misérable.” Kimmel surmised, noting their body language, “That is the look of a couple that just realized they have to sit next to each other for three hours. Napoleon Bone-a-Spurs was accompanied by Melania as required under Section B, Subsection 3 of their prenup, which states, ‘Mrs. Trump shall accompany her husband to no fewer that two public appearances per calendar year, during which she shall refrain from open displays of revulsion, disgust, and or hatred, regardless of current mood or events.” Kimmel who has always used the cold, distant relationship of the couple, continued it throughout his monologue. “But Melania, from all accounts, she loved this show. Her favorite song was ‘On My Own.” “They really do seem so close, closer than ever, the way they were holding hands on the way in…,” — as he showed a photo of Trump holding Melania’s thumb as they entered the theater — “…in karate that’s known as a ‘thumb lock.'” Some performers in the play refused to appear knowing that the Trumps would be in the audience, and news reports indicate that loud boos were heard as the First Couple entered, soon to be overshadowed by cheers and clapping from the MAGA attendees. Trump was probably echoing the words of Groucho Marx: “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.”