Cromwell

On the once-again President Trump.

His economy’s started to slump.

So he said it was time

To be vocal on crime

But his poll number’s still in the dumps.

Putin sent a number of drones over the Polish border. His spokesman says it was a “mistake.” Since the Russians have a history of engaging in asymmetrical warfare with plausible deniability, there is good reason to doubt their word. What should be done to make sure it doesn’t happen again?

NATO should tell Putin that a specified amount of money from the frozen Russian assets will be permanently seized and handed over to Ukraine for each incursion and each act of vandalism directed at the infrastructure of NATO countries. That should put an end to this nonsense.

Trump argued yesterday that the radical right, unlike the left, is not a problem because it only wants to prevent crime. Is that true?

Absolutely not. The radical right’s actual position is that white Christian men are entitled to a monopoly of political, economic, and social power in America and are justified in using violence to preserve it when other means fail; since this pursuit of power is supposedly legitimate, anyone who opposes it is a “criminal.” Trump’s statement should be viewed as a syllogism: cities are full of black people who don’t support me and hate real America; cities are also overridden with crime; cities are consequently a danger to me and real America; therefore, they must be brought to heel in the name of fighting “crime.”

It is worth noting that the division of America into pure white Anglo-Saxon rural havens and crime-ridden cities full of those other people is an enduring theme of our history. You find it in the Alien and Sedition Acts, in the Know-Nothing movement, and in the KKK, as well. Trump is just carrying on a tradition.

The Democratic Party was divided into two different wings over majority rule in the middle of the 19th century. The group led by Calhoun emphasized the need to protect minority rights (over slavery, of course) through nullification, Supreme Court decisions, and secession, if necessary; the Jacksonian wing, on the other hand, was populist, majoritarian, and nationalist. Do these two wildly different intellectual threads exist in MAGA, over 150 years later?

They do! MAGA is united in its belief that it is entitled to rule on the basis that white Christian men created America, but it is divided on the rationale for that belief. One faction, which was particularly prominent during the Biden years, argues that America is a “republic, not a democracy” and insists that Trump voters–mostly from rural areas, of course–are the only true Americans, and are therefore entitled to run the country regardless of the outcome of any particular election. Trump, on the other hand, identifies with Jackson and maintains that he represents the majority of Americans against a corrupt and self-serving elite; this claim had little empirical basis during his first term, but has more validity now as a result of the outcome of the last election. In practice, Trump is seeking to stack the deck through gerrymandering, attacks on the Voting Rights Act, and spurious executive orders demanding changes to state election laws, but his populist and nationalist rhetoric still puts him in the Jacksonian camp.

The country was run by a self-serving, corrupt elite that showed no interest in the plight of the vast majority of the people. That would change, however; the masses would rise and overthrow the elite. A short period would ensue in which a strongman would destroy the remaining vestiges of the old regime. Once the opponents of the people were converted, deported, or liquidated, there would be a golden age of peace and prosperity.

Is it the dictatorship of the proletariat or the unwoke? You decide.

Kash Patel was hired to weaponize the FBI against Trump’s opponents. He did this by purging the bureau of the competent agents who lacked the appropriate partisan bias. When he was done, there was no one left with the ability to catch the killer of Trump’s friend and ally–at least not yet. As of now, the fruitless hunt was still ongoing.

Sad, but true.

UPDATE: The guy was caught later this morning as a result of a confession to a family member that was ultimately reported to Utah authorities. The FBI wasn’t involved.

An article in today’s NYT tells us that a memorandum has been signed obligating the Japanese government to provide large sums of money for investments directed by Trump. For a period of time, profits from the investments will be shared equally; afterwards, 90 percent will go to the US. News of this more formal version of the agreement isn’t going over well with the public in Asia; the Japanese PM has resigned, and the South Korean government is refusing to use the Japan deal as a template for its own agreement. What should we take from this?

Expect plenty of political turbulence in both countries, including an anti-American backlash and the rise of a right-wing populist opposition. This in turn will lead to friction involving the investments and, in all likelihood, the collapse of the agreements, to be followed by massive new tariffs.

Throw out those high school textbooks which describe the judiciary as one of the checks in the constitutional system of checks and balances, says Justice Barrett in the nationwide injunctions case, albeit not exactly in those words. The role of the judiciary is not to prevent Donald Trump from being a dictator; judges simply interpret the Constitution and the statutes using the methods they learned in law school to decide the cases that come before them. If the law can be construed to permit dictatorship, so be it, and don’t complain when it happens.

She means it. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

You can’t extinguish ideas by killing people, particularly in a liberal democratic state, which we still are as of today. In addition, Kirk was just a right-wing influencer; he didn’t have the power of the government behind him in any way. That makes his murder all the more odious.

At least it happened in Utah. Trump isn’t going to retaliate by sending troops there.

CHICAGO

We’re aware you hate our city.

Crime’s a pretext, we all know.

Keep your troops out of Chicago, you old man.

Lift your leg upon our people.

You’re the boss, or so we’re told.

Keep your troops out of Chicago; take a stand.

___________________

You can’t change our world.

Rearrange our world.

You don’t want to make it better.

___________________

Republicans all hate us.

There’s nothing for them here.

Keep your troops out of Chicago till we ask.

Our immigrants are frightened

You’re thinking that’s just great.

Keep your troops out of Chicago; that’s your task.

___________________

You can’t change our world.

Rearrange our world.

_________________

Parody of “Chicago” by Graham Nash.

Ron DeSantis established his bona fides as an anti-wokeness crusader well before the 2024 election, only to find that the reactionary base wasn’t all that interested in book bans and the response to the virus. This time, he’s clearly determined not to make the same mistake. Since illegal immigration is a major issue for the base, he came up with the idea for Alligator Alcatraz; he has followed that by attempting to dismantle Florida’s gun laws and by supporting a Second Amendment tax holiday. Will these efforts persuade the base in 2028?

The problem for DeSantis is that he is still the same querulous, charmless campaigner he was in 2024, and the base still distrusts him for challenging Trump before his time. Delivering victories for the base on issues it really cares about will help, but it probably won’t be enough.

The Israelis launched an air attack on Hamas members in Qatar yesterday. The dead included some of the targets and a Qatari citizen.

Qatar is an American ally; it is also a critical party in the Gaza cease-fire negotiations. If you needed any evidence that the Israeli government has no genuine interest in a cease-fire and cares absolutely nothing for opinion anywhere in the world, now you have it.

About a week ago, an obviously deranged man, without any apparent provocation, stabbed an attractive white Ukrainian woman to death in a train in Charlotte. It was an awful murder, but it is hard to see what Charlotte government could have done to prevent it. The coverage of it on local TV was thorough but proportional to that given to other murders. Given time, interest in it would have waned.

But that was last week. Right-wing internet influencers picked up on the story after a few days. They passed it on to Fox News and more prominent reactionary commentators. The president weighed in. Today, it is a national story which stands for the proposition that American cities are completely overwhelmed by crime. It is national news, in other words, only because it fits a reactionary narrative.

Two things stand out to me. First, given Trump’s indifference to the plight of Ukraine, it is highly ironic that he is outraged by the death of a refugee whom he probably would have deported in time. Second, the story would have received less traction but for the fact that the victim was a good-looking blonde. That the murderer was a black guy was just the icing on the cake.

On its face, the “major questions” doctrine, pulled out of thin air by the Roberts Court, should apply to actions by administrations of both parties. In practice, that won’t happen. I anticipate you will see the following exceptions created in the next three years to protect the interests of Trump and the GOP:

1. The doctrine only applies to actions taken by bureaucrats. Actions taken directly by the president are exempt;
2. The doctrine is inapplicable to any action that touches in any way on war powers and foreign affairs; and
3. The doctrine only applies when the government is attempting to extend its regulatory powers. Attempts to change the law by reducing regulatory burdens are exempt.

Imagine that you are an ICE agent participating in a raid in the parking lot of a Home Depot in Los Angeles. You approach a man with Hispanic features and ask him in Spanish to identify himself, which he does. You then ask him to show a driver’s license or other form of identification. He doesn’t have ID on him. He also doesn’t have any physical characteristics which suggest he is an illegal immigrant, such as Venezuelan gang tattoos. What do you do now?

While the basis for yesterday’s Supreme Court decision is not clear, since all we have to go on is Kavanaugh’s concurrence, we have to assume the initial inquiry is legal, as the agent has the reasonable suspicion necessary to ask it. But does he have probable cause to take him into custody–meaning, to handcuff him, throw him in a van, and take him involuntarily back to an ICE office–just based on his inability to produce ID on demand?

Kavanaugh’s concurrence tells us that the guy will go free if he establishes to the agent that he is a citizen. That suggests to me that the failure to produce a convincing form of ID is, in fact, probable cause in the eyes of the Court. That in turn means that even American citizens of Hispanic descent in areas with high numbers of illegal immigrants will be forced to carry their papers around everywhere they go; otherwise, they risk being lawfully arrested. The burden of proof on citizenship will be on the questioned party, not on the ICE agent.

Are you comfortable with that? I’m not.