The Legacy of John Roberts

Elon Musk is Mad Mythological Creatures Aren't White

Director Christopher Nolan is coming under fire from conservatives after the trailer debuted for his upcoming film, “The Odyssey,” based on the classic mythological poem by Homer. Nolan’s apparent crime in the eyes of the right-wing is the decision to cast Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o (who is Black) as Helen of Troy and Elliot Page (who is transgender) as Achilles.

Elon Musk, who also happens to be the most high-profile political donor to the Republican Party, is leading the hate brigade via his social media account. Musk  was on a tear amplifying bigoted posts about the movie while he accompanied President Donald Trump on a trip to China onboard Air Force One.

For instance, Musk amplified a post by conservative pundit Matt Walsh, who whined, “Not one person on the planet actually thinks that Lupita Nyong’o is ‘the most beautiful woman in the world.’ But Christopher Nolan knows that he would be called racist if he gave ‘the most beautiful woman’ role to a white woman.” In response, Musk wrote “true.”

Musk labeled another post that went after Page’s gender with a crude sexist joke about women purportedly not being able to open jars as a “banger.”  The right-wing network Newsmax is also a part of the hate campaign. Conservative host Rob Finnerty complained on his program about Nyong’o’s casting, insisting that Helen of Troy “was definitely white.”

Of course, Helen of Troy wasn’t “definitely” anything because she did not exist. The entire epic poem is a myth involving Greek gods, the Cyclops, sirens, the underworld, and other things that are not real. Conservatives have a habit of getting upset about diversity in fiction, particularly decisions to swap the race or gender of made-up characters.

The right was also up in arms when Black actress Halle Bailey was cast as Ariel in Disney’s live action “The Little Mermaid.”  Like Helen of Troy, mermaids are not real either.  But at the highest levels of conservative punditry and activism, diversity must be stamped out. The richest man in the world and right-wing television hosts agree that mythology is the domain of only straight, white people.

 

Another Trump Blockade

 

Desperate Times for Trump and His Iran War

This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that “Operation Epic Fury is concluded,” claiming that the U.S. “achieved the objective of that operation”—even though Iran was still blockading the Strait of Hormuz and firing missiles at ships that tried to traverse it.

 The next day (as gas prices soared to fresh highs thanks to oil shortages caused by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz) the Trump administration somehow got Axios to uncritically report that the U.S. and Iran were close to a “one-page” peace deal to end the conflict.  It was a clear effort to try to lower oil prices to give Trump breathing room to figure out how to get out of the mess he created-- the higher gas prices climb, the more backlash he and the GOP get.  “The U.S. expects Iranian responses on several key points in the next 48 hours. Nothing has been agreed yet, but the sources said this was the closest the parties had been to an agreement since the war began,” Axios’ Barak Ravid (foolishly) reported.

Gullible commodities traders once again fell for the news, with oil prices dropping considerably after the Axios report came out.   Not surprisingly, the Axios reporting fell apart within minutes, after Iran said that the “agreement” Ravid reported was “more a list of American wishes than a reality,” with oil prices rising when investors realized they had again been had.

It’s the same cycle that’s played out multiple times over the last 10 weeks, with Ravid reporting that the war is either over or close to an end, only for that to proven to be false minutes later.  “Axios is a tool for White House market manipulation. The Islamic Republic is fully prepared for a potential major attack before Trump’s trip to China,” Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a professor with ties to the Iranian regime, wrote Wednesday in a post on X.

At the end of the day, Trump still has no idea how to end the war.  Iran clearly has an upper hand in negotiations with its ability to close the Strait of Hormuz. In fact, any “peace deal” could leave Iran better off than it was before Trump launched this stupid and costly war, as they could have a new revenue stream by charging tolls for boats to traverse the strait.

That outcome would be a political disaster, as Trump would not only have strengthened Iran, but would have permanently increased gas prices as a toll on oil would cause prices to be higher than they were when Hormuz passage was free.  “It will take a long time for ship owners and insurance companies to become comfortable with this unusual model, and freight rates and insurance premiums will remain elevated,” Artem Abramov, the head of oil and gas at Rystad Energy, told CBS News. “They’re adding to the cost of oil, and all these costs are being transferred to consumers.” 

 

Keystone Kash and His FBI Not Sure Who Shot Who at the Hilton

Three days after the White House Correspondents’ dinner, Keystone Kash's FBI is still unsure who shot a Secret Service officer during the assassination attempt outside the Hilton ballroom. The Secret Service officer was wearing a bulletproof vest, but sources say investigators haven’t found the fragment that pierced it — and can’t definitively say whether it came from the suspect.  Bottom line: investigators are still unable to say for certain whether the armed attacker shot the officer or how he was injured.

Law enforcement agents on the scene Saturday initially believed Cole Tomas Allen, the suspect who breached the dinner’s final checkpoint, fired his shotgun and struck the officer with buckshot from his weapon.  A check of Allen’s shotgun showed that he discharged one shell but did not reload, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters Monday. 

In its review, a Secret Service team estimated that Allen was running nine miles an hour and then stumbled somehow and fell a few yards past the checkpoint. That raises the question among law enforcement professionals of how a person moving that fast could have stopped, turned around, and fired his weapon at an officer behind him.

At a Monday news conference, Blanche said Allen had been charged with discharging a firearm during a crime of violence because the FBI determined he fired a single shell from the shotgun he was carrying.  But he said authorities were not prepared to say whether that was the shot that hit the Secret Service agent’s body armor.

Blanche said investigators also determined that the agent who was shot fired five rounds at Allen, none of which hit the suspect. He said they could not be sure those were the only rounds fired by law enforcement officers.  But this contradicts the Secret Service, who said its investigators collected the firearms of all Secret Service officers and agents on the scene and found no evidence that anyone else fired their weapons, a law enforcement official said.

Hopefully, the FBI will get its act together before tomorrow's hearing. 

 

Keystone Kash Paranoid About Being Fired

On Friday, April 10, as FBI Director Kash Patel was preparing to leave work for the weekend, he struggled to log into an internal computer system. He quickly became convinced that he had been locked out, and he panicked, frantically calling aides and allies to announce that he had been fired by the White House, according to nine people familiar with his outreach. Two of these people described his behavior as a “freak-out.”  News of his emotional outburst ricocheted through the bureau, prompting chatter among officials and, in some corners of the building, expressions of relief. The White House fielded calls from the bureau and from members of Congress asking who was now in charge of the FBI.  It turned out that the answer was Patel-- he had not been fired. The access problem, two people familiar with the matter said, appears to have been a technical error, and it was quickly resolved. “It was all ultimately bullshit,” according to one FBI official who spoke with the Atlantic.

But Patel, according to multiple current officials, is deeply concerned that his job is in jeopardy. And he has good reasons to think so—

DUI Hire Pete Kegsbreath Targeting Women and Minorities in DOD

Despite the conflict with Iran and other recent military activity overseas, the Pentagon seems focused on purging minorities and women. Last week, NBC News reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had intervened to block or delay the promotions of more than a dozen Black and female senior officers. 

The process within the Army, the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines is structured to ensure the most qualified officers get promoted. Hegseth’s decision to intervene in the process has raised concerns among some officials within those military branches and the White House, the nine U.S. officials familiar with the situation said.  “There is not a single service that has been immune to this level of involvement by Hegseth,” one of the U.S. officials said. 

According to both NBC and The New York Times, some officials are concerned that officers are being targeted because of their race, gender, or perceived political affiliation. In one instance last year, Hegseth’s chief of staff, Ricky Buria, bluntly stated that “President Trump would not want to stand next to a Black female officer at military events,” the Times reported.

Two officials said that among the attributes Hegseth has cited for removing officers from promotions are past support for Covid vaccines or mask mandates for troops, or whether officers were affiliated with DEI programs, or assigned to worke on such initiatives. Those same officials said an officer’s association with former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley (whom Trump still views as a political enemy) can also make an officer who is up for a promotion susceptible to scrutiny from Hegseth’s office.  “There is not consistency being applied to the standards” for promotions, another of the U.S. officials said.

Hegseth blocked three Marine officers (two women and a Black man) who were expected to be promoted or appointed to new roles, despite being recommended by Marine leadership. None of the three Marines were the subjects of internal investigations that might raise concerns about moving forward with their promotions, according to two of the officials.  

Army chief of staff, General Randy George had recently asked to meet with Hegseth to discuss Hegseth's blocking of promotions for some Army officers, which seemed to focus on women and Black men, but Hegseth refused to meet or discuss his decisions, according to two additional U.S. officials.  Soon thereafter, Hegseth fired George instead.  George's term was expected to serve in his position an additional year and a half,  George, the Army’s top officer, was senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during the Biden administration.  Also during Hegseth’s tenure, several top military officers have been removed, including former Joint Chiefs Chairman CQ Brown Jr., a Black man, and former Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti, a white woman.

A retired senior military officer described the promotion process as rigorous and said any meddling by the defense secretary could diminish trust in it.  “Our officer corps trusts our promotion process,” the retired officer said, adding that intervention in the process without an explanation “will certainly cast a shadow across our officer corps that everything they have said, done and written about during their careers could be politicized in a career-ending manner with the stroke of a pen.”

 

Todd Blanche's DOJ Now Going After Low-Level Staffers in Pursuit of Trump's Revenge Agenda

Remember Cassidy Hutchinson?  She was the 25-year-old administrative aide to Mark Meadows that was subpoenaed by Congress to testify at the 2022 House hearings on the January 6 insurrection.   Everything she said at her four (legally-compelled) appearances was corroborated by Secret Service agents and other White House personnel.

There are now reports that Todd Blanch's Justice Department has assigned its civil rights division to investigate Hutchinson-- due to Trump's anger at anyone perceived to have done him wrong, according to four people familiar with the matter.

The decision is in keeping with the administration’s bid to find new ways to use the powers of the federal government to target convicted felon Donald Trump’s political opponents. Those efforts persist even though the department has struggled to carry out the president’s demands for retribution and has increasingly hit roadblocks from judges, grand juries and even some of its own prosecutors.

Blanche demonstrated his complete ignorance of DOJ's mission (to be an independent arm of the justice system) when he said (at a press conference last week) that Trump had “the right,” even “the duty,” as president to call for investigations of anyone [the President] believed deserved them.

 

Embarrassment for ICE Barbie as Trump Kicks Her to the Curb

I couldn't let this jaw-dropping piece of news pass by.  Kristi Noem, the fired former head of the Department of Homeland Security, suffered another round of embarrassment upon exiting the Trump administration.  The Daily Mail reported that Noem's husband is a cross-dresser who wears large fake breasts and hot pants while messaging with online adult entertainers.

According to the report, Bryon Noem sent at least $25,000 to interact with fetish models, whom he communicated with using a phone number that easily identified him as the now-former DHS secretary's husband.

Experts say his behavior opened his wife up to blackmail that could have endangered U.S. national security.  “If a media organization can find this out, you can assume with a high degree of confidence that a hostile intelligence service knows this as well," former CIA officer Marc Polymeropoulos told the Daily Mail.

And given that his wife appears to be openly cheating on him with sleazeball former Trump administration aide Corey Lewandowski, who can blame Bryon for working out his kinks on the side?  We can however, throw some shade his way for pretending to be some holier-than-thou Christian who claimed to have stayed with his wife because of “his calling from God to support her,” as an unnamed family member told the New York Post earlier in March.  We can also shame him for apparently being so careless and sloppy with his communications with the models, since it could’ve endangered American national security.

It's hard to feel bad for ICE Barbie Kristi Noem, who wasted millions of taxpayer dollars to fly around the country with her alleged fuck-buddy so she could film ads promoting herself and stage stunts to torture immigrants.  Noem’s detractors also are accusing her of lying about her knowledge of her husband’s reported fetish, saying it’s something that’s been openly known in Trump world for years.

Good riddance to basic white trash and the hillbilly-style drama that seems to follow her wherever she goes. 

Tony "Squeeze My Balls" Gonzales Still in Office

How is this creep still in office?

Explicit text messages published by the the San Antonio Express-News show GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales repeatedly asked his then-campaign director for nude photos and sex in 2020, years before admitting his 2024 affair with a congressional staffer who later died by suicide.

The previously unreported exchanges containing hundreds of messages were obtained by the newspaper. The messages, which the newspaper reported date from when Gonzales was a first-time Republican candidate in June 2020, show him escalating a late-night conversation with his campaign’s political director into explicit sexual requests over several days.

Within hours of initially discussing her dating life and complimenting her as a “smart girl,” the text messages show that Gonzales asked what she wore to bed, what kind of underwear she was wearing, and requested nude photos. The messages go on to describe how he wished to have sex with her and have her “squeeze my balls.”   

“I know what I want and won’t stop until I get it,” one message reads, according to the report.  When the campaign director declined his requests multiple times, he replied: “47 nos is about my limit.” The texts then include multiple requests for photos in the following days.  Despite the exchanges, the aide, granted anonymity, told the newspaper that no physical relationship occurred and that the pair “didn’t so much as touch.”

The revelations add to mounting scrutiny over Gonzales’s conduct following a separate 2024 affair with 35-year-old congressional aide Regina Santos-Aviles, which he publicly acknowledged as “a mistake” and “a lapse in judgment.” Santos-Aviles died by self-immolation in September 2025 after her husband discovered the messages.  Revelations related to that relationship prompted backlash from House Republican leaders and led Gonzales to abandon his bid for a fourth term. He is set to leave office in January. 

The former campaign director who shared the texts with the Express-News said she chose to come forward after learning of Santos-Aviles’s death in 2025. “He obviously pursued, pursued, pursued her like he did with me,” she said. “I never took him serious… It wasn’t until this poor girl died that I thought, ‘No, this guy is pure evil.’”

“This behavior needs to stop,” she added.

Pam's New Career as a Relationship Advisor

 

Market Prospects

 

Texas Town Revolts Against Kirk Memorial

Locals filled a recent Bastrop County commissioners meeting to push back against a proposal to memorialize bigoted far-right pundit Charlie Kirk.   

After County Commissioner David Glass proposed a “Charlie Kirk Corridor” in the up-and-coming tech hub neighboring Austin, over a hundred people aired their grievances until the motion was inevitably tabled.  "I'm going to take a breath and have some more conversations with my constituents," Glass told the Austin American-Statesman. It’s unclear why Glass would be vying for a Kirk memorial in his county, of all places, but the area isn’t a nobody on the map. Bastrop County is home to about 115,000 residents—as well as many of billionaire Elon Musk’s corporations.

Though Bastrop County used to be a quieter area, it has shot up in growth since Musk packed up what was once known as Twitter from its home in California and relocated it to the little-known area. Now, Bastrop and nearby counties and towns are home to X, Starlink, and the Boring Company, Musk’s environmentally stained tunneling outfit.   The unstable Tesla CEO built residential and commercial areas for his employees throughout the area. Residents now have Musk’s company towns. They even have Ad Astra, Musk’s attempted Montessori-style school that seems to be operating today as a “licensed child care program” for roughly 10 children under the age of 5, according to The New York Times. 

 

Another Salvo in the War of Hate

Transgender people living in Kansas have been ordered to hand back their driver’s licenses if they do not reflect their assigned-sex-at-birth, under a new law.  Residents received letters informing them that the controversial House Substitute for Senate Bill 244 would take effect immediately.

The letter, seen by Erin In The Morning, a website dedicated to covering issues impacting transgender people, says that drivers will be issued a new license upon handing in their old one.

“Please note that the Legislature did not include a grace period for updating credentials,” the letter reads. “That means that once the law is officially enacted, your current credentials will be invalid immediately, and you may be subject to additional penalties if you are operating a vehicle without a valid credential.”  The legislation was vetoed by Kansas Governor Laura Kelly, a Democrat, earlier this month, but was then overwritten by a Republican supermajority in the state legislature.

However, the rapid enactment of the new law has left transgender residents across the state scrambling to get the correct identification.  Iridescent Riffel, a transgender woman who commutes to work, says that she is now worried about getting into her car.  “I don’t want to get a misdemeanor just trying to go to work,” she told The Kansas City Star. “I’m salaried. I’m not working hourly, and not everyone has that same privilege as me.”

SB 244 also requires transgender Kansans to use bathrooms and multi-occupancy private spaces in accordance with their sex assigned at birth, while in government buildings.  The bill allows private citizens to take legal action against someone if they suspect them of not using the bathroom that is in accordance with their assigned sex at birth. If successful, someone who files a complaint against a transgender person in a public bathroom could stand to gain $1,000.

Anyone found to have used a bathroom not in accordance with their assigned sex at birth will be given a written warning on their first offense. On their second offense, they will receive a $1,000 fine. A third offense carries a $ 1,000 fine and a six-month prison sentence. Another change enforced by the sweeping bill relates to the term “gender,” which has now been defined as a person’s “biological sex at birth.”

As the law continues to be rolled out, Democratic Representative Abi Boatman has slammed the new legislation.  “The persecution is the point,” Boatman told The Kansas City Star.

Kelley Robinson, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, also accused Kansas’s lawmakers of choosing “politics over people.” “Forcing people into the wrong bathrooms, stripping them of accurate IDs, and allowing government-sanctioned harassment doesn’t make anyone safer - it targets transgender Kansans for no reason and will undoubtedly impact many others who are targeted with animus whether or not they are transgender,” Robinson said in a press release.

Governor Kelly vetoed SB 244 earlier this month, describing it as poorly drafted legislation.  “Not only will this bill keep brothers from visiting sisters’ dorms and husbands from wives’ shared hospital rooms, it will cost Kansas taxpayers millions of dollars to comply with this very vague legislation,” she added. 

 

Sports Always Seem to Turn the GOP Into Sore Losers

Oliver Willis of the Daily Kos opined last week on how the Olympics almost always seem to turn conservatives into sore losers.  Convicted felon Donald Trump himself started digging his own hole in this regard when he attacked Team USA skier Hunter Hess as a “loser” for speaking out about the toxicity of Trump’s presidency.  Snowboarder Chloe Kim later backed up Hess and told reporters,“Obviously, my parents being immigrants, this one definitely hits pretty close to home. I think in moments like these it is important for us to unite and stand up for one another.” Kim called on athletes to “lead with love and compassion” as their home country is roiled by violent and lawless mass deportation efforts.

Trump and other Republicans’ objections to athletes voicing their beliefs highlight conservatives’ lack of understanding about the Olympics. The games are about respectful athletic competition, global unity, and mutual respect. In contrast, the right’s world view—especially under Trump—is of an archaic past where domination, not cooperation, is the default.

Taxpayers Pay for Keystone Kash Boondoggle in Milan

FBI Spokesman Ben Williamson spent days trying to discredit reports by MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian and others who reported Patel would be attending the Winter Olympics in Milan.  “Your rag outlet wrote that [Patel] went to hang out at the Olympics on the taxpayer dime – even when provided information that your theory was false. When you’re ready to correct that let me know. Won’t hold my breath,” Williamson posted on social media in response to a reporter.

But social media junkie Keystone Kash himself made a liar out of the FBI spokesman, when he posted pictures of himself in Milan, pathetically celebrating with the USA men's hockey team.  Even Steve Baker, reporter for the pro-Trump outlet The Blaze called out Patel’s spokesman, writing, “Ummm…what was that you said, @_WilliamsonBen?”

Reporters and social media users immediately began calling out Patel's "meetings with law enforcement" as the lamest of cover stories, and immediately began asking how much taxpayer money was spent on the boondoggle. Patel is not related to anyone on the team, and is not a donor or supporter of USA Hockey organization.  It is believed that he used his political position to force his way into the locker room.

Plenty of critics piled on to accuse the FBI director of wasting taxpayer money when they felt Patel should have been solving crimes in the U.S. The FBI’s highest profile case currently is weeks-old disappearance of Today Show host Savannah Guthrie's mother Nancy.  During Patel's shenanigans, a would-be assailant was shot dead on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.  At the same time, global tensions are increasing because Trump has been threatening military action against Iran. Such an attack could lead to violence against U.S. citizens via retaliation in the form of terrorism or other means.  On top of all that, Americans living in Mexico were being warned by the federal government to shelter in place in response to increased drug gang violence after the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel was killed by the Mexican army. 

But Keystone Kash has to get in his party time!  Patel has previously come under fire for using the FBI’s private jet to attend a wrestling event, and to see his country singer girlfriend perform at State College, PA. Patel also provided her with government security.  To make things worse for "KK" Patel, critics dug up a 2023 quote from the pint-sized showboat, who (at the time) criticized the FBI Director's use of jets: “I’m just saying [FBI Director] Chris Wray doesn’t need a government funded G5 jet to go to vacations. Maybe we ground that plane. $15,000 every time it takes off. Just a thought.”

Observers point out that the office of the FBI Director carries symbolic weight and that perception shapes how power is received. The FBI director does not operate as a personality. And yet Patel seems more committed to acting like a wannabe Instagram influencer than the nation’s top cop. 

 

Musk is Trying to Buy Elections Again

Right-wing billionaire Elon Musk continues to exert his influence over the Republican Party, this time with a $10 million donation to a political action committee backing Senate candidate Nate Morris in Kentucky.  Axios reported  that Musk made the donation after meeting with Vice President JD Vance and other senior White House officials in November. The contribution is Musk’s largest ever to a Senate candidate. So far, nine other Republican candidates have declared their candidacy for the seat, which is being vacated by retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell. 

The donation comes at an awkward time for Musk and Morris. Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, has recently been blocked in several countries after it generated unauthorized sexual images of people—including children. The bot is also under investigation in California.

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont slammed the donation, highlighting the transaction as a symptom of the corrupting influence of money over politics.  “Are we really living in a democracy when the richest man on earth can spend as much as he wants to elect his candidates?” Sanders wrote on X. “The most important thing our nation can do is end Citizens United and move to public funding of elections. Billionaires can’t be allowed to buy elections.”

Morris is a friend of Vance’s from when they worked together in the venture capital industry. A self-labeled MAGA extremist, Morris once said that he supports a ban on legal immigration until undocumented people residing in the United States are removed.

While Musk’s contribution to President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign certainly helped him win, Musk’s donations haven’t always translated into success. In 2025, he poured millions into the conservative candidate in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, but liberal Susan Crawford won.

Musk has announced plans to support other Republican candidates this year—a reversal from his very public fight with Trump in 2025. Musk’s support for the GOP also undermines his own political party, the “America Party,” that he rolled out last year.

But like so many other of Musk’s promises, that has gone absolutely nowhere.

 

A Letter to the GOP From the Daily Kos

The Daily Kos'  Markos Moulitsas has written a letter to the GOP, imploring them to impeach the convicted felon that is running our country into the ground: 

President Donald Trump is gone. Far gone. And yes, the evidence is vast—from illegal tariffs that his own party hates; to recalcitrance on releasing the Epstein files, which his own party ran on; to blowing up the deficit, which his own party pretends to care about; to half-assed nation-building in Venezuela, which he himself ran against.

Indeed, at a time when Republicans desperately need their president to focus on affordability and the economy ahead of the midterm elections, he is instead demolishing the White House and obsessing over armrests at the Kennedy Center. You know, the issues top of mind to struggling Americans trying to make ends meet.

Trumps Marks His First Year Back in Office with Cruelty and Lies

Convicted felon Donald Trump marked the one-year anniversary of his return to the presidency with a rambling and nearly incoherent press conference. However, instead of addressing the issues on which his administration is failing, Trump ranted about a host of other topics.

A considerable amount of Trump’s time was dedicated to justifying the killing of Minnesota mother Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.  “They’re going to make mistakes sometimes. ICE is going to be too rough with somebody—you know, they deal with rough people. Are they going to make a mistake? Sometimes it can happen,” Trump said.

Trump inaccurately claimed that Good’s father was “a tremendous Trump fan” and that “I hope he still feels that way.” This appears to actually be a reference to Good’s former father-in-law, whom conservative outlets like Fox News have touted because he said he doesn’t blame ICE for the killing.

Trump also criticized a woman, apparently Good’s wife, Becca Good, who witnessed the killing.  “When [Good] was shot, there was another woman that was screaming ‘shame, shame, shame, shame,’ right? We saw it. So loud. Like a professional opera singer, she was so loud and so professional,” Trump said.  The right has repeatedly pushed the made-up conspiracy theory that people protesting against ICE actions in Minnesota are paid political agitators.

In another section of his bizaare speech, Trump held up mugshots of purported criminals who were also allegedly undocumented immigrants, using the photos to justify the brutality of ICE’s actions across the country.  As has often been the case during his time in the public eye, Trump made racist remarks. This time, it was his decision to call the majority-Black nation of Somalia “a backward country” where “they just have people running around, killing each other, and trying to pirate ships.”  Trump and other Republicans have recently attacked the Somali immigrant community in Minnesota for attacks and racist smears, most notably singling out Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar.

In response to criticism of his deployment of armed federal troops to American cities with large minority populations, Trump said, “To me, a town, it looks better when you have military people. These are big, strong guys. The bad guys look at them and say, 'We're not gonna mess with them.'”  He argued that crime has fallen in the cities where federal forces were deployed, which is generally false.  In addition, crime rates were already going down under former President Joe Biden.  In a weird reference, Trump said, “Your lover’s not going to be killed anymore, so he can act like a real lover,”  “You can walk right through the middle of the town. And D.C. is beautiful again too.”  For the record, DC has always been beautiful-- especially before military personnel began prowling tourist areas of the city (instead of where actual crime occurs).

Trump also returned to a favorite topic of his—long-debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election. He claimed the race was “rigged” and that “numbers are coming out that show it even more plainly.”  None of this is true. Trump lost to Biden because more people voted for Biden.

The cringeworthy event reinforced why, after a year back in the presidency, Trump faces numerous crises of his own making. Costs are generally up, people live in fear of being harassed and killed by their own government, and the United States has become an international pariah.  Even Trump’s longtime allies at Fox News have begun to admit his unpopularity is a drag on the party. But Trump’s press event makes it clear he has no intention of shutting up any time soon.

 

Not Even U.S. Citizens Are Safe from ICE!

This week, ICE agents broke into a family home without a warrant, and kidnapped an elderly U.S. citizen without allowing him to produce ID.  Chongly "Scott" Thao spoke of his terror after the agents broke through the door of his home while they were singing karaoke and hauled him out semi-naked into the snow at gunpoint in front of his grandchildren.

ChongLy “Scott” Thao said that his daughter-in-law woke him up from a nap and said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were banging at the door of his residence in St. Paul. Masked agents then forced their way in and pointed guns at the family, yelling at them, Thao recalled. “I was shaking,” he said. “They didn’t show any warrant; they just broke down the door.” Thao, who has been a U.S. citizen for decades, said that as he was being detained he asked his daughter-in-law to find his identification but the agents told him they didn’t want to see it.

The agents then dragged the 56-year-old U.S. citizen, who was wearing only boxer shorts and crocs, into the snowy street as temperatures hovered around 14 degrees, as he pleaded with them that he was an American.  Thao, an American born in Laos, came to the U.S. with his parents at the age of 4 and became a U.S. citizen in 1991. During the ICE raid, Thao told Reuters he used a blanket from his 4-year-old grandson's bed to cover his bare torso.  “I was praying. I was like, God, please help me, I didn’t do anything wrong. Why do they do this to me? Without my clothes on,” Thao later told a local news outlet as his friends tried to repair the broken door. 

Thao said agents drove him “to the middle of nowhere” and made him get out of the car in the frigid weather so they could photograph him. He said he feared they would beat him.  Only then was Thao asked for his ID, which agents earlier prevented him from retrieving.  Agents eventually realized that he was a U.S. citizen with no criminal record, Thao said, and an hour or two later, they brought him back to his house. There they made him show his ID and then left without apologizing for detaining him or breaking his door, Thao said.  He described feeling “fear, shame, and desperation” over the incident. A statement from his family called the treatment “unnecessary, degrading, and deeply traumatizing.”

Thao’s experience has shattered the idea that citizenship would shield his family from such scenes. “We came here for a purpose, right? To have a bright future. To have a safe place to live… If this is going to turn out to be America, what are we doing here? Why are we here?” he added.

The Department of Homeland Security insisted agents were at the property looking for two convicted sex offenders with deportation orders, and said a U.S. citizen at the address who “refused to be fingerprinted or facially identified” was detained because he matched their description.  Thao’s family said in a statement that it “categorically disputes” the DHS account and “strongly objects to DHS’s attempt to publicly justify this conduct with false and misleading claims.”

Thao told reporters that only he, his son and daughter-in-law and his grandson live at the rental home. Neither they nor the property’s owner are listed in the Minnesota sex offender registry. The nearest sex offender listed as living in the zip code is more than two blocks away. 

ChongLy Thao says he’s planning to file a civil rights lawsuit against DHS and no longer feels secure to sleep in his home.  “I don’t feel safe at all,” Thao said. “What did I do wrong? I didn’t do anything.”