Pritzker’s Call to Fight

Illinois Governor J B Pritzker spoke Sunday, April 27, to a gathering of Democratic activists in New Hampshire. He lambasted both the Trump administration and the moderate Democrats. Here are some excerpts:

“It’s time to fight everywhere and all at once. Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They must understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soap box … and then punish them at the ballot box.

“Remember, Trump, just last week, arrested and deported three children under eight years old. U.S. citizens, all of them. Preserving habeas corpus is not some fever dream of the left wing echo chamber. It’s a fundamental concept of justice that people have fought and died for dating back to the Middle Ages.”

“Standing for the idea that the government doesn’t have the right to kidnap you without due process is arguably the MOST EFFECTIVE CAMPAIGN SLOGAN IN HISTORY. Today, it’s an immigrant with a tattoo. Tomorrow, it’s a citizen with a Facebook post that annoys Trump.

 “[It's] time to stop wondering if you can trust the nuclear codes to people who don’t know how to organize a group chat. It’s time to stop ignoring the hypocrisy in wearing a big gold cross while announcing the defunding of children’s cancer research. And time to stop thinking we can reason or negotiate with a madman.

“Time to stop apologizing when we were not wrong. Time to stop surrendering, when we need to fight.”

"They [Republicans enabling Trump] must feel in their bones that when we survive this shameful episode of American history ... that we will relegate their portraits to the museum halls reserved for tyrants and traitors”.

Sources

https://tcinla757.substack.com/p/poking-around-on-day-100

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/28/politics/jb-pritzker-illinois-governor-democrats/index.html

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/28/jb-pritzker-speech

100 Days and Counting

It has become a tradition in American politics to report on the first 100 days of a president's term. 

The tradition started with Franklin D. Roosevelt. When he took office in March 1933 he called a special session of Congress to deal with the depression. They quickly passed 15 major bills and 77 others to stabilize and rebuild the economy. In July Roosevelt looked back on the last 100 days and his accomplishments in initiating his "New Deal" to make the American government work for the people.

In contrast, Heather Cox  Richardson reports 

"Trump has signed just five measures into law: the Laken Riley Act, which Congress passed before he took office; a stopgap funding measure; and three resolutions overturning rules set by the Biden administration." 

The 5 bills is a record low since at least Eisenhower. Instead of ushering bills through Congress, Trump has signed more than 140 executive orders, another record. Many of these EOs were illegal and some unconstitutional, which have triggered 220 lawsuits opposing them - yet another presidential record.

Another difference is that Trump is setting out to destroy what FDR began in his 100 days. Richardson describes it like this

Trump has turned the nation away from 92 years of a government that sought to serve ordinary Americans by regulating business, providing a basic social safety net, promoting infrastructure, protecting civil rights, and stabilizing global security and trade. Instead, he is trying to recreate the nation of more than 100 years ago, in which the role of government was to protect the wealthy and enable them to make money from the country’s resources and its people.

Much has been written on Trump’s first 100 days of his second administration.

It’s been a full onslaught against democracy and the rule of law while slashing federal programs and agencies all in the name of eliminating waste and fraud.

Max Stier wrote a piece for the Contrarian titled “100 Harms in 100 Days”

Robert Reich wrote

The most important lesson of Trump’s first hundred days is that the test of a successful president after 100 days has nothing to do with how much he gets done or how much power he accumulates. The real test is how much better off are the people, and how much stronger is our democracy, than before. By these measures, the second term of Trump is beyond a doubt the worst travesty in American history.

The Guardian article lists many of Trump’s “accomplishments" under the following headings:

·        Shattering alliances

·        Attacking rule of law

·        Trade wars

·        Government efficiency

·        Information war

·        Executive orders

·        Fortress America

·        Opposition and protest

The New York Times article has deeper dives along similar categories:

·        Foreign Policy

·        Federal Government

·        Immigration

·        Imperialism

·        Retribution

·        Tariffs and Trade

·        Economy

·        Diversity and Equity

·        Culture

·        Social Media

TCinLA quoted someone who posted this on social media: “William Henry Harrison had a better first 100 days, and he spent 70 of them dead.”

He then quoted Charlie Sykes: “… Trump is vulnerable and the cracks are showing. But that does not mean that he is not still dangerous. As bad as the last 100 days have been, the worst may be to come”.

Well, yes there's that budget coming up...

President Trump continues to dwell in another universe. Tuesday night at his rally near Detroit, he declared “This is the best, they say, 100-day start of any president in history, and everyone is saying it. We've just gotten started. You haven't seen anything yet.”

Exactly what Charlie Sykes predicted.

Sources

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/100-harms-in-100-days

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-most-important-lesson-of-trumps

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-29-2025

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/29/trump-100-days-president

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/04/28/us/trump-100-days-actions.html

https://tcinla757.substack.com/p/poking-around-on-day-100

Trump's Approval Ratings

Recent polls show Donald Trump's approval ratings continuing to decline. As he nears his 100 day milestone tomorrow, his rating at 39% is lower than any president for that point in their presidency in at least 80 years (since polling began). He even beat his own record from his first administration by 3 points. 

For comparison, Trump's 100 day approval rating is 23% worse than Nixon's, 44% worse than Reagan's, 24% worse than George W Bush's and 30% worse than Obama's. It has dropped 13 points from 52% on his inauguration day.

While this news provides hope that Americans are slowly waking up, there are two things that concern me.

The first is that Trump doesn't seem concerned. He certainly isn't changing his policies to align with what the majority wants. Does he think the midterm election is far away and the 2028 presidential election even farther? Or does he (or smarter people behind the scenes) have plans for those elections so he knows that he won't have to worry?

The other thing is: What is wrong with 40% of America? I just read an article saying that most evangelical Christians still support Trump even if he is doing some things they don't like. What will it take to wake these people up? When the secret police start arresting people in their homes in the middle of the night for wearing a cross or having a bible in their house, and sending them off to a concentration camp in another country with no due process? People - it will be too late to wake up then!

President Trump did not respond well to the news of his faltering approval ratings. He threw a tantrum on Truth Social claiming that these were “FAKE POLLS FROM FAKE NEWS ORGANIZATIONS. We don’t have a Free and Fair “Press” in this Country anymore. We have a Press that writes BAD STORIES, and CHEATS, BIG, ON POLLS. IT IS COMPROMISED AND CORRUPT. SAD!” He even accused the pollsters of being “Negative Criminals” who “should be investigated for ELECTION FRAUD”

What’s really “SAD” is an 88 year old man behaving like a 3 year old. As to the other accusations, we all know who the corrupt criminal is.

Sources

https://tcinla757.substack.com/p/poking-around-on-day-97

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/04/23/trumps-job-rating-drops-key-policies-draw-majority-disapproval-as-he-nears-100-days/

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-lowest-100-day-approval-rating-80-years/story?id=121165473

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/28/trump-evangelicals-christians

Birthright Citizenship

One of Donald Trump’s campaign promises in 2024 was to revoke birthright citizenship on day one. He is trying, but hasn’t succeeded yet.

Birthright citizenship is a legal principle granting automatic citizenship to anyone born within a country’s borders, regardless of their parents’ nationality or immigration status. The USA is one of about 33 countries that offer this right. Canada is one of them. Here is the full list:

Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Gambia, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Lesotho, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela.

This principle has been in effect since the 24^th amendment was ratified in 1868. The first sentence reads “All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

The interpretation of the 14^th Amendment was challenged in 1898 in the case of Wong Kim Ark. Ark was born in the US to Chinese parents who then returned to China where he grew up and married. He later returned to the US to live and on returning from a trip to China was denied entry. The case made it to the Supreme Court where his citizenship was confirmed, thus upholding the 14^th Amendment.

One of the 23 executive orders signed on Trump’s first day of his second presidency was to end birthright citizenship. This was immediately blocked by District Court Judge John Coughenour with a temporary restraining order. The judge remarked that in four decades on the bench he couldn’t remember a case “… where the question presented was this clear. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order. Where were the lawyers when this decision was being made?”

An Executive Order is a directive to federal employees from the executive branch. They cannot create or change laws, spend or not spend money, and certainly not change the Constitution. Only Congress can do the first two and the third is much more difficult to accomplish. Trump is trying to do all three and then complains when the courts are pushing back at his illegal and in this case unconstitutional acts.

Fears that Trump would start deporting citizens next has already happened. On Friday April 25 ICE deported 3 American citizens ages 2, 4 and 7 along with their undocumented mothers. One of the children was being treated for stage 4 cancer.

Heather Cox Richardson in her April 26 substack post quoted Ronald Reagan who in his last speech as president recalled what someone had written to him:

“You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.

“We lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people—our strength—from every country and every corner of the world. And by doing so we continuously renew and enrich our nation. While other countries cling to the stale past, here in America we breathe life into dreams. We create the future, and the world follows us into tomorrow.

“Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we're a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future as a nation. If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.”

The Republican party under Donald Trump has replaced this vision of leadership and growth with a regime of hate for, and persecution of, immigrants. Under Trump American leadership has been thrown away.

Sources;

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-26-2025

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/6/which-countries-other-than-the-us-offer-birthright-citizenship

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/23/us-judge-blocks-trumps-order-restricting-birthright-citizenship

Anti-Abortion v Pro-Life

Is the anti-abortion movement really pro-life? Not if you count the mothers’ lives.

A recent report from Gender Equity Policy Institute (GEPI) looked at the effect of abortion bans on maternal mortality in the USA. It looked at CDC data for the year 2023.

Thirteen of the 50 US states enforced abortion bans (it is now 16). The overall rate of maternal mortality was 18.6/100,000 live births. California which has contraception and abortion enshrined in the state constitution has the lowest mortality rate in the country at 9.5. Texas has the highest rate at 27.7. On average, a mother’s chance of dying during pregnancy, childbirth or shortly after childbirth, is nearly twice as high in a state with an abortion ban. For some segments of the population it’s much more.

In Canada, for comparison, where abortion is legal, the mortality rate has been stable at 11.

It’s not just the state or the people living in them; the abortion bans strongly affect the outcome. In the first year after Texas enacted an abortion ban the maternal mortality rose 56%.

It is not just the availability of abortion that results in the lower mortality rate in these states. It’s the overall support for women, mothers and their babies. So if you really want to be pro-life, there is a lot more to be done to support people at all stages of their lives than just banning abortion.

Source:

https://thegepi.org/maternal-mortality-abortion-bans/

Judge Arrested

The battle between the Trump regime and the judiciary over illegal deportations is heating up.

For weeks now the Trump regime including the DOJ (Department of Justice) has been hostile to judges. Tony Evers, Wisconsin’s governor:

“Unfortunately, we have seen in recent months the president and the Trump administration repeatedly use dangerous rhetoric to attack and attempt to undermine our judiciary at every level, including flat-out disobeying the highest court in the land and threatening to impeach and remove judges who do not rule in their favor.”

The Trump regime has also threatened any local officials who tried to interfere with federal efforts to deport undocumented immigrants with investigation and prosecution.

Then yesterday a Milwaukee judge, Hannah Dugan, was arrested for allegedly attempting to protect a man from being arrested by ICE officials.

The purpose of the arrest is obviously to make an example to other judges and officials. One giveaway is the media attention. Kash Patel, the FBI director, posted a photo of Judge Dugan in handcuffs with the caption “No one is above the law”. One report said Patel left a party in Vegas to lead the arrest – guess he needed the photo op.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Fox News that when someone obstructs justice by “escorting a criminal defendant out a back door, it will not be tolerated. It doesn’t matter who you are, you’re going to be prosecuted.” Where is the usual protest “we can’t discuss this case that’s before the courts”?

Republican politicians are calling for Dugan’s resignation while Democrats are accusing the Trump administration of going too far in attacking the judiciary system and destroying Democracy. Jamie Raskin said:

“This is a drastic escalation and dangerous new front in Trump’s authoritarian campaign of trying to bully, intimidate and impeach judges who won’t follow his dictates.”

I confess to having fantasies about Pam Bondi, Kari Lake and Kristi Noem. No, not that kind of fantasy (although they are superficially attractive women, their hearts are black as soot). My fantasy is taking Pam’s words that if you break the law “… it doesn’t matter who you are, you’re going to be prosecuted,” and applying it to them for contempt of court and other crimes. In my fantasy they would be arrested, locked up, and ideally held without bail until the Venezuelans were safely back in the U.S. But I’m afraid now that it would be seen as retaliation for Judge Dugan’s arrest.  Darn – Boasberg and Xinis waited too long.

Sources

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/25/us/politics/fbi-arrest-judge.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/26/wisconsin-judge-hannah-dugan-democrats-republicans

DOGE and Data

What is DOGE, the illegitimate Department of Government Efficiency headed by Elon Musk, really up to?

It’s certainly not to make the government more efficient. Randomly firing thousands of employees is not the way to make any agency or department operate more efficiently.

Not even to save taxpayers money.

One of the strongest clues on the real purpose of DOGE is the expertise and actions of its employees. Most of the people working for DOGE are young computer software engineers, not the forensic accountants you would expect if their purpose was to look for fraud and waste. And these people have no security clearance, no vetting, and no experience with the agencies they are invading. What they appear to be after is access to data. Sensitive personal data of millions of Americans held in the computers of each organization or department that DOGE invades.

In his April 16 substack Thom Hartmann wrote about the whistleblower Daniel Berulis who had disclosed what DOGE did at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). DOGE employees breached the NLRB computer system to access very sensitive data. Hartmann writes:

What’s being looted here isn’t just random bureaucratic files. We’re talking about the private information of whistleblowers, union organizers, witnesses in federal cases, proprietary corporate data, and labor rights enforcement strategies. Including complaints and complainants against Elon Musk’s companies.

They did not do it openly like you would expect if what they were doing was legal. No, they covered their tracks, refusing to log their activity, turning off monitoring tools, and deleting records of their access. This is what criminal hackers do, not government employees on legitimate government business. 

Jake Braun, a former White House cyber security official said any security officer "... would look at network activity like this and assume it's a nation-state attack from China or Russia." 

Shortly after the DOGE employees breached the NLRB computer security staffers noticed large amounts of data leaving the system – data that should never leave the NLRB and that has nothing to do with efficiency or saving money.

When Berulis reported the breach of security to agents of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) their alert was squashed by higher-ups in the Trump Administration. And Berulis received a threatening note taped to the door of his home, and was under drone surveillance while walking his dog.

What will the Trump administration do with access to such data? If nothing else, they can use the threat of access to intimidate anyone thinking of opposing their regime and to force others to comply with their wishes. Hartmann writes:

This isn’t just about controlling government agencies and the courts; it’s about creating a culture of fear so pervasive that no one dares to challenge power. Workers won’t organize. Regulators won’t enforce. Whistleblowers won’t come forward. Democracy withers not with a bang, but with a whimper of silence and complicity.

But DOGE is doing more with the data than just obtaining access.  It appears that they are giving access to this data to Russia. Minutes after the DOGE breach NLRB staff detected log-in attempts from a Russian IP address, using the new DOGE username and password.

Even Berulis can’t imagine the purpose of stealing this data. He said:

"I can't attest to what their end goal was or what they're doing with the data. But I can tell you that the bits of the puzzle that I can quantify are scary. ... This is a very bad picture we're looking at."

Today about 50 House Democrats sent a letter to William Cowen, acting general counsel of the NLRB demanding answers about this issue. The letter says in part:

"If true, these revelations describe a reckless approach to the handling of sensitive personal information of workers, which could leave these workers exposed to retaliation for engaging in legally protected union activity."

"Given DOGE's desire to access sensitive information at other federal agencies with a focus on payment information, it is unclear why DOGE would be interested in NLRB data that has nothing to do with federal payments." 

NLRB acting press secretary Tim Bearese denied that DOGE had requested access to the agency's data and denied that access had been granted. Bearese also said that the agency conducted an investigation and "determined that no breach of agency systems occurred."

This is the White House response by spokesperson Anna Kelly: 

"President Trump signed an Executive Order to hire DOGE employees at agencies and coordinate data sharing. Their highly-qualified team has been extremely public and transparent in its efforts to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse across the Executive Branch, including the NLRB."

Kelly is trying to make the point that accessing and sharing data between agencies will somehow eliminate waste and make the government run more efficiently. That seems highly doubtful. Plus some sensitive data needs to be protected and sharing it will not benefit anyone (unless they want it for blackmail). And giving Russian hackers free access to this  sensitive data does not benefit America by any stretch of the imagination. And how is covering your tracks and pretending that they weren't there being "public and transparent"?

As Hartmann noted “the Rosenbergs went to the electric chair for far less.”

Sources

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5355896/doge-nlrb-elon-musk-spacex-security

https://hartmannreport.com/p/the-department-of-government-efficiency-fbd

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/24/nx-s1-5375118/congress-doge-nlrb-whistleblower

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5355895/doge-musk-nlrb-takeaways-security

Update

Here is an April 30 article from the NYT outlining the Trump plan to create a "surveillance state".

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/opinion/musk-doge-data-ai.html

“Major Questions” Doctrine

Aaron Tang wrote a “Guest Essay” for the NYT April 20 about the legal doctrine called “major questions”. Tang is a law professor at U California, Davis, and a former law clerk to Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Major questions is a doctrine invented by conservative Supreme Court justices to limit presidential power. Essentially it argues that the president cannot make decisions of great “economic and political significance” unless there has been clear authorization from Congress.

 It was used to strike down President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program and to limit the ability of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Now it is being used in court against the Trump administration in several situations in which Congressional authorization is lacking:

·        Tariffs

·        Freezing federal funding for government agencies and NGOs

·        Revoking birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants

·        DOGE’s slashing of government funding and employees

When it was used against the Biden administration Democrats complained that it was preventing the president from achieving some of his goals. Justice Elena Kagan called it a “heavyweight thumb”.

Now the tables have turned and liberals are using it to try to curb Trump’s power grab and no doubt the Republicans are complaining that it is preventing Trump from achieving his objectives.

There is an old saying “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander”.

Politicians pushing for something need to consider how it could be used by the opposition when they are in power. When the Supreme Court last July granted presidents immunity from prosecution for criminal acts committed while in office, some Democrats were urging Joe Biden to make good use of the opportunity because they knew that Donald Trump certainly would.

A more current example is the Trump administration’s pushing the president’s ability to have people arrested and deported to an offshore prison without any due process, based solely on an allegation or the whim of the leader. The Republicans should consider if they would want, say, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to have that power should she become the next president.

 

Source:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/20/opinion/trump-challenge-supreme-court.html

Harvard Hypocrisy

I’m away for the Easter weekend without access to a computer so will post another quick item for tomorrow.

Harvard University has defied the Trump regime’s illegal demands and has been punished for doing so.

In an open letter April 14, Harvard’s president Alan M. Garber wrote: “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

In response the government rescinded $2.2 b in grants to Harvard and is threatening the university’s tax exempt status. Trump posted on Tuesday “Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’”

This move is not only illegal but dumb. Harvard has done nothing to violate its tax exempt status. In any case, law professor Sam Brunson wrote “In 1998 Congress explicitly provided that the president could not, directly or indirectly, request that the IRS start or end an audit or other investigation of a taxpayer.”

Heather Cox Richardson reported that a Wall Street Journal editorial noted that the Supreme Court “has repeatedly held that the government may not use federal benefits or funds to coerce parties to surrender their constitutional rights. This is what the Administration is doing [to Harvard].”

It’s dumb because of the possibility of another government revoking the tax exempt of right-wing ideology organizations. Here is where the hypocrisy comes in. Heather Cox Richardson also reported that

Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark reposted a clip of then-senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) on the Fox News Channel when a right-wing group falsely alleged the IRS was targeting them. "This is about whether we have functional constitutional government in this country,” Vance told host Laura Ingraham. “If the IRS can go after you because of what you think or what you believe or what you do, we'd no longer live in a free country.“

There you have it, right from the Vice President (watch it in the link below). Americans no longer live in a free country.

 

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/15/us/why-harvard-resisted-trumps-demands.html

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-administration-reportedly-asks-irs-revoke-harvards-tax-exempt-st-rcna201695

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-16-2025

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:yj2yzzvnylclt3ghwjnkcxxz/post/3lmxkthtxb22b

Courts Push Back

Heather Cox Richardson reported in her substack this morning that Judge Boasberg is pursuing the government over their disregard of his ruling to halt the deportations to El Salvador. I can't say it any better so will quote her paragraphs on this in their entirety.

Today, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued an opinion saying that the administration’s “hurried removal” of the men to El Salvador after Boasberg had issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) prohibiting them from doing so, demonstrated “a wilful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt.”

“The Constitution does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial orders—especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it,” Boasberg wrote. Quoting Chief Justice John Marshall, who laid down the foundations of much of America law, Boasberg wrote: “To permit such officials to freely ‘annul the judgments of the courts of the United States’ would not just ‘destroy the rights acquired under those judgments’; it would make ‘a solemn mockery’ of ‘the constitution itself.’”

If the government decides not to try to repair its contempt, Boasberg says the court will use declarations, hearings, or depositions to identify the individuals responsible for making the judgment to ignore the court. Then he will ask the government to prosecute the contempt, but if—as is likely—it refuses, Boasberg says he will appoint a private prosecutor to move the case along. As legal analyst Joyce White Vance puts it: “These cases are about making sure that, American citizen or not, criminal or not, peoples’ right to have the day in court that the Constitution guarantees them is honored. That’s all. But it’s everything.”

Yesterday David French in an Op-Ed published in a NYT April 16 newsletter, made the point that the Supreme Court’s rulings may not solve the current issues but are necessary first steps. He compared it with the 1954 decision Brown v Board of Education which established that segregated schools (essentially barring Black students from “white” schools) was unconstitutional. That ruling wasn’t sufficient to end segregation, which wasn’t complete until 2016 when the last school district in Mississippi became desegregated, but was a necessary first step.

French wrote “… the best Supreme Court decisions don’t just have legal force, they represent a moral indictment of rogue presidents and rogue governments.”

The Courts may not have their own police force but they do have power, especially when they support rights that are dear to most Americans. In this case it’s the right not to have secret police break into your home in the middle of the night, arrest you without a warrant or charge, and send you to a concentration camp without a trial, all on the whim of the president.

Sources:

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-16-2025

https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?campaign_id=292&emc=edit_df_20250416&instance_id=152727&isViewInBrowser=true&nl=david-french&productCode=DF&regi_id=111894135&segment_id=196149&sendId=196149&uri=nyt://newsletter/181ad146-bcea-5dff-b28f-4dbb1077668b&user_id=a86f572dc05f638f2225466c96a625a2

Two More Trump Supporters Discover Reality

My March 31 post featured Jennifer Piggott as an example of buyer’s remorse – people who voted for Trump that now regret it.

Another Trump fan had a rude awakening to the reality of Trump regime on the weekend.

Bachir Atallah and his wife Jessica Fakhri drove to Canada for the weekend and were stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on returning to the States.

“I was treated like a criminal” Atallah said. He was handcuffed and held for hours in a cold room with no jacket or shoes. His wife was held in a different room. They didn’t tell him why he was detained.

The CBP agents insisted on looking through Atallah’s cell phone emails and forced him to write a signed statement giving them permission to do so, despite his protests that as an attorney he had confidential client correspondence on his phone.

After calling Atallah’s sister, an immigration attorney, the CBP finally released the couple after 5 hours.

When asked about the incident, CBP Assistant Commissioner Hilton Beckham said

"The traveler's accusations are blatantly false and sensationalized. CBP officers acted in accordance with established protocols. Upon arrival at the port of entry, the traveler was appropriately referred to secondary inspection—a routine, lawful process that occurs daily, and can apply for any traveler. Officers worked to ensure an attorney-client privilege was respected during the electronic media search. The traveler provided written consent to a limited search of his electronic device.”

Celine Atallah, Bachir’s sister said “It’s not about the immigrants. It’s coming to us Americans, and it’s going to go after all of us.”

Atallah has been an American citizen for 10 years. He is a New Hampshire real estate attorney. Referring to the detaining he said: “I really thought things would change after this administration, when we have Mr. Trump in office, things would change to the better. Things actually changed to the worse”.

Another case of buyer’s remorse is American citizen Jensy Machado who was stopped in early March by CBP agents while driving to work. The agents, with guns drawn, told Machado to get out of the car with hands raised. He was then handcuffed. When Machado told the agents that he was a citizen they just looked at each other and laughed; one said to the other “Do you believe him?” The agents eventually released him.

Machado complained “I voted for Trump last election, but, because I thought it was going to be … you know, like… against criminals, not every Hispanic looking, like, that they will assume that we are all illegals.”

Welcome to reality, Mr. Atallah and Mr. Machado.

Sources:

https://www.newsweek.com/us-citizen-detained-canada-criminal-2060280

https://www.newsweek.com/ice-detains-us-citizen-trump-supporter-2041385

American Democracy is Dead

 I'm sorry. I was too sad and - I don't know what word to describe my emotion: resigned, angry, frustrated, and much more - to write last night.

Pro-democracy writers agree that yesterday, April 14 2025, was the day that democracy officially died in the United States of America.

For months they have predicted that when (not if) the Trump regime defied a Supreme Court order that the fascist coup would be complete.

The critical case involves the "detaining" and deporting of one man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a legal U.S. resident who is married to an American citizen and has three American citizen children, one of whom is autistic. Garcia had a full time job. He has never been convicted or even charged with any crime. He came to America at age 16 fleeing persecution in El Salvador and was granted a court order in 2019 forbidding him from being deported back to that country. The acting Deputy Director of the Department of Justice's office of Immigration Litigation, Erez Reuvini, even admitted in court that his deportation was in error.

In a rare unanimous ruling the Supreme Court sided with the District Court that the government should "facilitate" Garcia's return to the U.S. and ensure that his case is handled properly.

An administration with an ounce of morals and empathy would have immediately apologized and done whatever is necessarry to bring him back. The Trump regime did the opposite. They fought the court orders to have him returned to the the U.S. They even reprimanded Erez Reuveni and put him "on administrative leave" for telling the truth instead of zeaalously fighting for the government's position.

The government's postion is that since Garcia is now in custody in another country that the US has no authority to bring him back. They interpret the word "facilitate" in the Supreme Court ruling to mean that they would supply an airplane should El Salvador choose to return him. Attorney Pam Bondi even said that it is up to El Salvador to return him if they want. Also that the Court has no business interfering with the President's foreign policy.

Yesterday President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador met with President Trump in the Oval Office of the White House. When asked about returning Garcia, Bukele repied that it would be "preposterous". Why would we want to smuggle a terrorist back into the United States?

The government's positions are what is preposterous. Thom Hartmann in today's substack post lists all the Constitional points that they are violating (see link below).

Judge Xinis wrote in her April 6 ruling “there were no legal grounds whatsoever for [Abrego Garcia’s] arrest, detention, or removal.… Rather, his detention appears wholly lawless.” It is “a clear constitutional violation.”

Heather Cox Richardson quotes Adam Serwer in the Atlantic: "the rhetorical game the administration is playing ... is an expression of obvious contempt for the Supreme Court - and for the rule of law,"

National Public Radio Journalist Steven Inskeep points out the ludicracy of the government's position that they have no authority to ask for Garcia's release. : 

“If I understand this correctly, the US president has launched a trade war against the world, believes he can force the EU and China to meet his terms, is determined to annex Canada and Greenland, but is powerless before the sovereign might of El Salvador. Is that it?”

I would add that if it was the son of Trump or Bondi that was kidnapped and deported on false charges, it might be a different story. 

The U.S. has a contract withi El Salvador to house these prisoners and is paying them $6 million. if you rent a storage locker and place some things for safekeeping and later want to bring one of them back home, is the storage company going to say - "Sorry, can't do it"?

The reason the Trump regime is fighting his return is to establish that he has the power to arrest and deport anyone he wants, including American citizens. No evidence or even criminal charges are required - just his whim. No one is safe it they displease the president. Trump even told Bukele that "home grown criminals" are next and to build more prisons. All it takes to become a criminal in Trump's eyes is to criticize him (see my April 11 post "A New Low").

Hartmann put it this way: Yesterday was the day democracy in our nation officially died.

Sources

https://hartmannreport.com/p/this-is-how-democracies-die-one-man-6ae

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-14-2025

Palestinian Christians

An April 9 article in the NYT caught my attention: “Why Palestinian Christians Feel Betrayed by American Christians” by Nicholas Kristof. For this article Kristof interviewed a community of Christians at Bethlehem which is in the West Bank a few km south of Jerusalem.

The strongest supporters of Israel’s war on Gaza are not the Jewish community but the American Evangelical Christians. They believe from Biblical end-time prophecy that Israel’s destiny is to control all of “The Holy Land”. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recognizes this too, once saying “we have no greater friends than Christian supporters of Israel”.

Nicholas Kristof wondered what Palestinian Christians thought about this so he visited a community of them in Bethlehem to find out. Christians in the West Bank make up a small minority of fewer than 2%.

Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian Christian writer, said that far-right American Christians embarrass the Christians who actually live in the Holy Land. “When the Bible is used to justify land theft and war crimes against civilians, it puts the faithful in an awkward position” he said.

One Christian community, Tent of Nations, promotes nonviolence. They hold youth camps on their property and promote peace towards all people. That peace has not been reciprocated – they have been subject to the same treatment as their Muslim neighbors. They have been assaulted by settlers, had their olive trees destroyed, been denied running water and electricity, and are forbidden to build new structures on their property. Some have had buildings demolished and been driven off their land by settler attacks.

Travel is restricted with frequent Israeli checkpoints throughout the West Bank. Daoud Nassar, one of the Tent of Nations family, noted that it is easier for American Christians to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (where Jesus is believed to have been crucified) than it is for West Bank Christians to get permission to do so.

Christians from other countries (like 92 year old Dutch woman Riet Bons-Storm) frequently volunteer at Tent of Nations partly to protect the residents and property because, as they explain, it would look bad if settlers or soldiers killed them.

American (and Canadian) Christians denounce persecution of Christians around the world but in Palestine they unwittingly (or indifferently) promote it. Nassar wishes more American Christians would visit them so they could see for themselves what is happening. He added “we are also people”.

Source:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/opinion/palestinian-christian-us-evangelicals-gaza.html

In the comments section two readers pointed out that the reason that the Christian population in Palestine is so small is because of years of persecution by fanatical Muslims. They also pointed out that Israel is the only country in the middle East where the Christian population is growing. My response is that it is the religious fanatics of all faiths – Judaism, Islam and Christianity – that are the problem.