Gee, I thought the GOP controlled all three branches of the federal government, how could this be happening?

 

Left Making Huge Progress Toward Letting Illegals Stay

Byron York, DC Examiner

 

Byron York presents a fair statement of the current immigration situation, but never questions the wisdom of the current policy.

 

Yes indeed, Americans want illegals deported, and Trump is spending billions upon billions trying to do just that, but even apart from the resistance being encountered in Democrat-controlled cities, the numbers just don't add up in all the places York says Trump is succeeding.

 

Byron says there are nine million new illegals because of Joe Biden. Trump has deported 600,000 so far, and is likely to be lucky to wind up deporting just 2.4 million. The vast majority of them will still be here when Trump is long gone.

 

Clearly the policy is ineffective, on top of being brutal, unjust, murderous, and a huge waste of money.

 

Trump is ominously expanding the federal infrastructure of a tyrannical police state which a future president might find all too tempting to use to impose gun confiscation, for example. He keeps demanding local cooperation with federal enforcement, which the courts have said violates the Bill of Rights. This impulse is authoritarian, not American. 

 

Trump should have spent what little political capital he won in 2024 by pushing a legislative solution to immigration which placed severe penalties and jail time on persons and companies who hire illegal aliens, and by imposing strict federal regulation against social spending on, and social privileges like drivers licenses for, illegal aliens.

 

Mitt Romney was right that we have to turn off the magnets which attract illegal immigration. Rounding them up one by one is a fool's errand.

 

Give a man a fish and he'll be back tomorrow with his family for five. 

Some of the commenters on this video snarl over the absence of such protests in Minnesota over the $9 billion fraud schemes, not realizing that this street theatre is costing them $75 billion

The ICE agents in this video twice fail to find open doors on their own vehicles to dump their detainees in, the incompetence being a metaphor for the ultimate failure all this sound and fury will turn out to be, when in the end ICE will be lucky to have deported only 2.4 million of the now 25 million illegal aliens Trump says are present in the United States.

The rapidity with which one man has turned the relatively quiet streets of America into a heretofore only imagined police state exposes yet another failure of the American system of government to prevent the abuse of power.

If it were not so, this would not be happening. 

  

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson and five others resign in Minnesota as Trump tries to strong-arm the investigation of Renee Good's killing in the direction of victim-blaming

At least 6 Minnesota federal prosecutors resign amid pressure to treat Renee Good killing as assault on ICE agent

... the office continues to face pressure to treat the investigation of the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman by an ICE officer as an assault on a federal officer case. ...

He resigned from the attorney's office along with Harry Jacobs, Melinda Williams, Thomas Calhoun-Lopez, Ruth Schneider and Tom Hollenhurst. ... 

In November we get to remind Stephen Miller that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, whose duty it is to alter or abolish government when it attacks life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, abroad or at home

 

 

 Stephen Miller Offers a Strongman’s View of the World

 ... “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” Mr. Miller told Jake Tapper of CNN on Monday, during a combative appearance in which he was pressed on Mr. Trump’s long-held desire to control Greenland. ... 

 

 

Donald J. Trump, dictator of Venezuela

 

Trump on Venezuela: "We Are Going To Run The Country"

Venezuela's new dictator

Hegseth: When Trump Says U.S. Will "Run" Venezuela, He Means "He Will Be Able To Dictate"

Phony baloney authoritarian drug war president in the Caribbean removes marijuana from Schedule I by executive order

 

Nutball Tucker Carlson: We have to have an authoritarian crackdown in order to prevent a totalitarian takeover

 

Tucker Carlson: This Country Is On The Brink, Restoring Order Is The Only Way To Prevent Totalitarianism

LOL I don't recall candidate John Fetterman being upset AT ALL with Joe Biden playing the authoritarian card on September 1, 2022

 

Fetterman: Comparing People To Hitler Will Incite Somebody To Take Them Out

 

... Well, I mean, I'm consistent about that. You know, any kinds of extreme rhetoric, left or right, is, is really dangerous. ...

 

 

 

... Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic. ... They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fanned the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country. ...

 

 

The Golden Age of authoritarianism: Confrontation, corruption, contraction, con-jobs, and contempt

 

Trump again calls for Fed to cut rates, says Powell’s ‘termination cannot come fast enough’

 

Trump’s tariffs are ‘inviting corruption,’ Democrats tell Bessent, Lutnick

 

China targets U.S. services and other areas as it decries ‘meaningless’ tariff hikes on goods 

 

Trade war fallout: Cancellations of Chinese freight ships begin as bookings plummet

European Central Bank cuts interest rates, warns of ‘deteriorated’ growth outlook on trade tensions

 

Italy’s ‘Trump whisperer’ Giorgia Meloni to meet U.S. president amid trade standoff with Europe

 

CBP says latest tariffs have generated $500 million, well below Trump’s estimate

 

Judge finds cause to hold Trump administration in criminal contempt in deportation flights case

 

 

Some of what Dark Brandon said in 2022 is what some Democrats still want their leader to say today in 2025

 

... Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic. ... there’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. And that is a threat to this country. ... MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. ... They promote authoritarian leaders. ... They thrive on chaos. ... American democracy only works only if we choose to respect the rule of law and the institutions that were set up in this chamber behind me. ...

 

-- Joe Biden, 1 September 2022, Independence Hall, Philadelphia, PA

 

 

The voters' response to this in 2022 was to flip the Democrats' House 222 majority to a 222 Republican one.

 

In 2024, the Republican lead narrowed to 220-215. Special elections in Florida this week will either ratify that lead or narrow it some more.

 

 

 

All I can think of when I read about Democrats wanting a more angry, a more centrist candidate, a more combative leader who meets the moment, is that they had all that in Joe Biden and they dumped him

The outright treason against their own president is the Democrats' real problem with their own voters, who lost faith in them and voted for Trump instead.

 

 

Democrats have never been so angry. Who will step up and lead them?

Democrats are furious. And they want their leaders to get mad, too.

“I wish you’d be angry,” a constituent told representative Gil Cisneros, a Democrat of California, at a recent town hall. At an event in Minnesota featuring a panel of Democratic attorneys general, an activist voiced a similar sentiment: “Get angry, man,” punctuating the message with a profanity.

The anger roiling the party, slow to build, is now a forceful current coursing through the electorate and pulling in Americans terrified that the country is descending into authoritarianism. Democrats – with no leader to guide them and little power to wield in Washington – are scrambling to harness the sudden fury. ...

 

Of course, we all know that that Joe Biden, especially the centrist Joe Biden, didn't really have control of his own White House, covering up which until it couldn't be covered up anymore just shows that the incumbent wasn't really trustworthy either.

 

Andrew Sullivan throws the title of a recent book by Hillarycon Rod Dreher in his face, who is now at the heart of this new authoritarian Trump presidency through his friendship with J. D. Vance

Dreher has succumbed to the abuse of Trump. He lives by lies. He thinks Zelenskyy was the bad guy in the Oval Office.

Sullivan has not succumbed to our "sociopathic president":

 ... What the world saw last Friday was the same, central Trump dynamic: the leader of a smaller democracy that has withstood three years of brutal attack by a far larger dictatorship ... was still publicly humiliated, because he dared air his concern of no security guarantees against Russia. “Just say thank you,” Vance harangued him. “Have you said thank you once?” I cannot recall any visiting head of state who has ever, ever been thrown out of the White House the way Zelensky was. Why? Because he did not submit.

... The challenge for liberals of all stripes is a familiar one in dystopian democracies and rigid dictatorships: Live not by lies. Keep your grip on reality. Avoid the propaganda now washing down on you like torrential rain. Find a refuge, as I did on Wednesday — a place where eternal truths remain, or where free thinking can endure (Spinoza is a role model, which is why the Dishcast discusses him this week).

Avoid hysteria, which Trump wants and exploits. But avoid also being co-opted by a single one of his lies, to see clearly, and to speak simply. Read those you disagree with; get off most social media; choose doubt over certainty; restraint over impulse; resist this authoritarian and irrational moment by refocusing above all on the simple truth, as best as you can, and fighting all those on both extremes trying to annihilate it. ...

Here.

It's a magnificent essay which everyone should read.

Rod Dreher was a Hillarycon in 2016 because of, wait for it, The Madness of King Donald. And so was J. D. Vance.

Joe Biden is the authoritarian Democrats only dream Donald Trump will be

 

The Atlantic throws a Hail Mary to Adolf Hitler, gives Trump 100 days to end democracy in America or they're finished forever lol

How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days

Donald Trump is already hard at work making long lists of all the things he's not going to accomplish as president, which he'll foolishly fritter away his time on

 Ten points about The Swamp.

Seven points about The War on the Drug Cartels.

Trump's saying all this stuff and we don't even know yet if Republicans will win the US House, where they have 214 seats as of right now and lead narrowly in 8 undecided races. If they win them all they'll have 222 seats, with 218 needed for the majority.

If not, well that'll be the end of all ambition, now won't it?

222 at best is a very narrow margin to accomplish anything anyway, a mere continuation of the status quo where Republicans in the House must tread lightly to keep the caucus unified with a very similarly sized narrow majority (220).

What kind of sweep was this? Once again the Trump movement . . . isn't.

It would be easy to call this stuff hubris from Trump. Let's just say he still hasn't learned anything about how to accomplish anything of relatively permanent value. He has NO priorities when everything is a priority. He is, once again, unserious.

The Senate will be in Republican hands, so we'll at least get more judicial appointments who might advance traditional American principles of law and order.

The scuttlebutt is that the first agenda item in Congress will be making Trump's expiring tax reform permanent.

I can imagine him having to waste the entire first year on this. He'd be better off quickly settling for its extension for another ten years under reconciliation rules, and then move along smartly to immigration and energy reforms before the midterms are upon us in 2026, after which he'll be the lamest of lame ducks.

If there's any hope of boosting GDP and improving everyone's pocketbook they've got to make energy reform the priority. And mere immigration enforcement solves an untold number of other problems which bedevil the country, like illegal drugs, crime, and social spending.

Spending bills will come as they will, and should simply aim to starve the federal government of money to shrink it, as could have been the case last time but nothing changed. The beast grows naturally because permanent spending programs are indexed to inflation. That isn't going to be stopped. Growing the economy to pay the bills is therefore job one.

I'm expecting very little positive from this lot, but I do hope J. D. Vance will emerge at the end of it to take us to a better future.

Democrats who say they fear Trump because he's an authoritarian are absolutely comic. Watch for rogue judges to hamstring him just like last time, and Trump will bluster and fume and things will simply muddle along.

But, of course, unforeseen events like wars have a way of intruding and making mooks of us all. Let's hope Trump can finally make a deal to end and prevent them.

"Weird" didn't work, try "bizarre" lol

 

The Bizarre Home Stretch of Trump's 2024 Campaign

 

Zack Beauchamp, Vox

In which we learn that Zack Beauchamp is just jealous, wishing he could be as perceptive as Salena Zito, dammit:

In late 2016, the Atlantic published a campaign trail dispatch by Salena Zito, a conservative reporter, exploring Trump’s appeal to his voters. The piece was forgettable save one line, a description of Trump’s relationship to his fans that has been quoted endlessly for the past eight years: "The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally."...

If we took all of [Trump] literally, really integrated the reality of what these steps would mean into our daily behavior, it would be hard to live life normally. The specter of out-and-out authoritarianism, a crashing economy, and an international system shorn of the alliances that keep the global peace sounds apocalyptic. Actually trying to envision the enormity of this world is psychologically taxing; trying to live as if this were indeed an imminent possibility invariably leads to a life monomaniacally devoted to trying to stop it.

Poor fella knows he suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

It's a cry for help.

 

Kamala Harris is nothing but an authoritarian, a cop, whose first instinct is to use federal power to ban things she doesn't like, such as grocery prices, guns, and hate speech

David French knew she was an authoritarian already in 2019, but he's voting for her in 2024.

Couldn't have said it better myself . . . about you

 Raskin: "Authoritarian And Fascist Tactic" To Try To Confuse Everyone About What Happened On January 6th

To Raskin we owe the origins of the National Popular Vote Compact, a progressive end-run around the constitution's electoral college system, among other far-left enthusiasms.

Only the fevered mind of a lunatic like this could turn a riot by a bunch of yahoos into an attempted coup.

Democrats betray liberalism, become the new authoritarians

 Carl M. Cannon, here:

But the most glaring gap is between conservatives and liberals, i.e., between Republicans and Democrats. On the issue of free expression, at least, Republicans are not the authoritarian party. That distinction belongs to the Democrats, the party launched by Thomas Jefferson — the Founding Father who famously said that if he were forced to choose between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” ...

If Republicans’ aversion to censorship was transactional, they would have identified Democratic-friendly misinformation for removal. But they didn’t. “Regardless of the partisan slant of the content, Democrats are more likely to support the removal of content, while Republicans are more likely to oppose removing content,” the study noted.

It was Democrats who more often employed situational ethics, giving a pass to misinformation that helped their side. Most Republicans didn’t differentiate based on which way the false headline cut.