On Second Thought

Felon Censors Late-Night Critic; Who’s Next?

By Michael Woyton

We are just a couple days from reaching the eighth month anniversary of the ascension of President Donald J. Felon.

Seems a whole lot longer, doesn’t it?

Where do we stand on the scale of 1 to authoritarianism? I would say without any doubt we are completely in an authoritarian state now.

The adjudicated rapist, who has repeatedly said he wants to be a dictator, showed Wednesday that his regime will not tolerate criticism by engineering the shuttering of another late-night talk show.

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ABC-TV’s Jimmy Kimmel on Monday had the audacity to comment on his late-night program about the accused killer of Charlie Kirk that “the MAGA gang [was] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” according to the New York Times.

He wasn’t commenting about Kirk, mind you, but about the many characterizations of the shooter that had nothing to do with reality, at least based on information prosecutors have released.

Enter the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Brendan Carr, a presidential sycophant.

He said on a right-wing podcast that Kimmel’s comments were part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people” and the FCC was “going to have remedies that we can look at.”

Nexstar Media increased the pressure by saying it intended to stop airing Kimmel’s show on its television stations, at which point Disney/ABC said it would “indefinitely” pull the late-night show, Variety reported.

BTW, Nexstar is seeking approval for a $6.2 billion acquisition of TV station owner Tegna.

Yes, the transaction requires an OK from, guess who, the FCC.

Coincidence? Doubtful. The piper has to be paid.

Putting aside the fact that someone like the current grifter-in-chief is so fragile that he can’t take criticism or ribbing from the likes of late-night television personalities, it is the height of irony that in “honoring” someone who made his living from extolling the virtues of free speech, this administration is doing its best to stifle free speech.

Stephen Colbert and Kimmel are shots across the bow, aimed to make people stop and think about what they should not say about Dear Leader lest he get his feelings hurt.

Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives, including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, issued a statement accusing Carr of engaging in “the corrupt abuse of power” and said he should resign.

“Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s war on the First Amendment is blatantly inconsistent with American values. Media companies, such as the one that suspended Mr. Kimmel, have a lot to explain. The censoring of artists and cancellation of shows is an act of cowardice. It may also be part of a corrupt pay-to-play scheme. House Democrats will make sure the American people learn the truth, even if that requires the relentless unleashing of congressional subpoena power. This will not be forgotten.”

The Mar-a-Lago makeup man lied during an interview while in England that Kimmel was fired “because of bad ratings,” Deadline reported, as well as saying “bad things” about Kirk.

He also posted on social media that Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, both of whom have shows on NBC, should be axed.

I’m hoping this will be wake up call to those Americans who haven’t been closely following what the elderly golfer has been doing or who haven’t yet been affected by his yearning to be king.

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Speaking of “No Kings,” the next big nationwide protest will be held Oct. 18. The purpose of the protest is to show that “America has no kings, and the power belongs to the people.”

Find an event near you through this link.

A mobilization kick-off call will be held from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18. For more information, go here.

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Lead art: Screen grab from BBC News via YouTube.

‘War’ Secy Finds Another Way to Kick Out Non-White Soldiers

By Michael Woyton

It’s almost as if ~~Defense~~ War Secretary Pete Kegseth was looking for ways to white-male-ify the entire military.

I’ve lost count of the number of non-white, non-male officers in leadership positions who have been fired by the former weekend Fox & Friends host since he was installed in the Pentagon.

The Army is getting ready to institute a new policy that could disproportionately affect Black men, leading to kicking them out of the service, Military.com reported.

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Soldiers with a chronic skin condition called pseudofolliculitis barbae, or PFB, have been able to receive permanent shaving waivers allowing them to grow modest facial hair.

PFB is a condition where the hairs curl back into the skin after shaving and become irritated.

Under the new policy — in March, the Marine Corps instituted a similar scheme — permanent shaving waivers would be banned and medical personnel would be required to come up with formal treatment plans for affected soldiers.

The soldiers could be directed to get laser treatment, the cost of which taxpayers would cover. The treatments can cause changes in skin pigmentation and scarring, however, and it is unknown how many sessions would be required.

If a soldier needed exemptions to shaving for more than 12 months over a two-year period, he could be kicked out of the Army.

Military.com spoke with one senior noncommissioned officer who was familiar with the plan, who said there is no tactical reason for the policy and that a soldier can look professional with facial hari.

“Of course, this is racially motivated,” the officer said, speaking anonymously to avoid retaliation.

In March, Kegseth ordered a review of military standards. That included physical fitness, body composition and grooming, CBS News reported.

He said before he was nominated to be the defense secretary that he opposed opening up all combat roles to women, a policy that has been in effect since December 2015.

“We should not have women in combat roles,” he said at the time. “It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal.”

Kegseth tried to walk that opinion back during his confirmation hearings.

Of course, the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion by the administration of President Donald J. Felon has allowed the current Pentagon, under Kegseth, to reduce recruiting efforts linked to minority groups.

The reality is, though, in the years between 2018 and 2023, there was a 43 percent drop in recruits identified as white, with no other demographic seeing such a major decrease.

“Much of the recent recruiting slump was attributable to men being less qualified, or willing, to don the uniform while women have been joining the ranks at a steady rate,” Military.com said.

It’s hard to imagine military readiness being maintained under this administration’s zeal to purge anyone who is not a white male from the armed services.

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Lead art: Army Spc. Carrol Walter Hughes IV from U.S. Department of War website

Is Groundwork Being Laid for Throttling Free Speech?

By Michael Woyton

First it was political analyst Matthew Dowd who got fired from MSNBC for on-air comments about Charlie Kirk’s shocking murder Wednesday in Utah.

Then a reporter in Florida was suspended for asking a congressman a question and a comic book writer lost her job because of social media posts, as did teachers in Tennessee and Mississippi, according to the Associated Press.

A website was created — and registered anonymously — to “Expose Charlie’s Murderers.” It published a running list of posts, identifying the names, locations and employers of people alleged to support online political violence.

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This is chilling stuff — the targeting of those who assume they have the right to free speech because someone disagrees with what they’ve said.

Especially when Kirk “approached much of his work under the banner of free speech and civic engagement.”

What is troubling is that some people are being told they cannot say or write anything about Kirk even using his own words and opinions as examples of the type of public persona he made a living from.

That is the case of Karen Attiah, now a former opinion writer for the Washington Post.

She was fired last week for one reference to Kirk using his own words on the record: “Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s slot.”

Attiah said in a Substack article that the paper “rushed to fire me without even a conversation — claiming disparagement on race.”

She said the Post declared her posts on Bluesky as being “‘unacceptable’, ‘gross misconduct’ and of endangering the physical safety of colleagues — charges without evidence, which I reject completely as false.”

Speaking of “without evidence,” the felon-in-chief rushed to blame the radical left hours after Kirk’s death, calling them “vicious and horrible”, and vowing to seek revenge against “organizations that fund and support” political violence,” the Guardian reported.

Those sentiments were voiced all over the weekend news programs — well after 22-year-old Tyler Robinson was taken into custody, a result of his family turning him in to authorities.

Robinson, a native of Utah, appears to be far from a “radical leftist.”

And nothing so far points to any involvement by organizations that fund and support political violence. You can be assured that if there were anything that FBI Director Kash Patel could get in front of microphone and accuse the left of doing, he would have done it by now.

According to Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, Robinson is a third-year student in an electrical apprenticeship program and grew up in a small southern Utah community, CNN reported.

His family is staunchly Republican, but he is not affiliated with any political party. While he is registered to vote, he did not participate in the two most recent general elections, Al Jazeera reported.

A motive for the shooting has still not been determined, but family members said Robinson turned political recently and talked about “his dislike for Kirk.”

Cryptic messages etched on shell casings point to the online gaming world and a possible connection to white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

You know who didn’t get fired over the past few days for saying something reprehensible?

Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade got on the TV machine Wednesday and, while talking about the murder of a woman in Charlotte, North Carolina, allegedly by a homeless person, said that mentally ill homeless people should be euthanized — by “involuntary lethal injection.”

“Just kill ’em,” he said.

Not surprisingly, Kilmeade received no push back from his co-hosts, and he didn’t offer anything like an apology until the weekend.

Remember that in July the adjudicated rapist signed an executive order that allows the Justice Department to roundup and institutionalize unhoused persons and those with addiction and mental health disabilities. It is not that much of a leap from the EO to what Kilmeade suggested — just sayin’.

I guess that Fox News just has different standards for what is allowed to be uttered on the air, in public or via social media.

But it’s what we have come to expect from state television during the second administration of President Taco.

Make no mistake, no one deserves to be gunned down by a person with a gun and a grudge — not pundits, moviegoers, churchgoers, bar patrons or children not old enough to walk to grade school by themselves.

The circumstances surrounding Kirk’s death are horrifying and still a mystery.

Unfortunately, there are those in this administration who are looking for any opportunity to foment fear and make citizens less willing to speak out.

My question is, was the grifter-in-chief floating a trial balloon when he accused the radical left of being complicit in Kirk’s death?

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Lead art: Screen grab from MSNBC

Epstein Emails; School Shooting Industry: Recommended Reading

By Michael Woyton

A day without another revelation about Jeffrey Epstein is a day without sunshine.

Bloomberg just released an exclusive about 18,000 previously unreported emails from the personal Yahoo account of Epstein.

The report reveals new details about the role of Ghislaine Maxwell in, well, everything.

Read the Bloomberg report here.

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There’s a school shooting industry? And it’s worth as much as $4 billion?

Is that why we can’t seem to do anything to prevent school shootings — such as what happened Wednesday in Evergreen, Colorado?

Read the NPR school shooting industry article here.

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Filed under “you reap what you sow,” a senior FBI bureau official in the Salt Lake City field office was forced to resign, leading some to say there is a campaign to get rid of women and people of color.

An associate deputy director told the Pakistani American woman “she wasn’t a good fit for the office” and offered her a lower-level job in Huntsville, Alabama. She chose resignation.

Removing well-qualified people from leadership positions can’t be helpful to solving or even preventing high-profile political violence, right?

Read Ken Dilanian’s report on MSNBC here.

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From Ann Telnaes:

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Lead art: Screen grab from Bloomberg.com.

Should Dems Shut Down the Government; Do They Have the Guts?

By Michael Woyton

Remember the last time the government was set to run out of funding?

Sure you do. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, instead of writing a strongly worded letter, sweet talked enough of his Democratic colleagues to vote with the GOPmagas to advance the continuing resolution and thereby prevent a government shutdown.

Chuck’s rationale, in part, was that shutting down the government would give the felon-in-chief “even much more power.”

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How’s that worked out for us?

In the interim, the ultra-right-wing Supreme Court continues to tell the Oval Office grifter that he can pretty much do whatever he wants. He continues to pull congressionally approved spending, threaten and actually fire the heads of supposedly independent agencies, order ~~his law enforcement goons~~ the Justice Department to harass people who were mean to him and call up the National Guard to patrol an ever-growing list of large liberal cities, to name only some things.

The continuing resolution which was passed in March expires at the end of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30.

That puts us squarely on course for another showdown with the question being, Will the Senate Democrats, still led by Chuck, roll over and play dead again, hoping that in 14 months the adjudicated rapist will be taught a lesson in the midterms? (If we are allowed to have elections in 14 months.)

Or will they finally grow a collective spine and do something?

In a remarkable opinion piece in the New York Times Sunday, Ezra Klein described the choice Democrats face as the deadline approaches: “Join Republicans to fund a government that President Trump is turning into a tool of authoritarian takeover and vengeance or shut the government down.”

Klein takes readers through the differences between the last impending shutdown and the one upcoming.

Read the full opinion piece in the New York Times here (no paywall).

Last time the president was losing repeatedly in the courts. Also last time, Elon Musk’s DOGErs were attempting to gut the executive branch and the market was “quaking at the threat of Trump’s tariffs.”

Schumer felt that a shutdown would play into the mayor of Mar-a-Lago’s tiny fingers and give him more power.

“Not a single argument Schumer made then is valid now,” Klein wrote.

It’s painfully clear that SCOTUS, led by John Roberts, is not going to stop President Taco. DOGE is no longer making hourly headlines, due in part to Musk and Trump’s messy, public divorce. And the markets, according to Klein, “have settled into whatever this new normal is, at least for now.”

Then Klein comes in with the kicker: “But something else has changed, too. We are no longer in the muzzle velocity stage of this presidency. We are in the authoritarian consolidation stage of this presidency.”

Authoritarian consolidation stage.

Look at what the leader of the free world has done lately, as outlined by Klein.

They include: firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because the data didn’t make him look good, siccing his legal dogs on a California senator and a New York state attorney general, raiding the house of a former administration official turned critic, suggesting the broadcast licenses of two major TV networks be pulled.

Then there’s the monetization of the government by Trump’s family, including crypto, a jet plane, golf courses, and on and on.

Take all of the above, Klein writes, and add military occupation of major United States cities along with masked immigration “officers” disappearing people off the streets.

“This is not just how authoritarianism happens,” Klein said. “This is authoritarianism happening.”

There is so much more in Klein’s piece, which is free to read through this link,

What is the real question Klein is posing?

To me, is the current Democratic leadership — Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — up to the fight?

As Klein says, this is not a normal Republican administration.

Democrats “cannot ignore masked agents in the streets, armed troops in the cities, billions of dollars of money going into the Trump family’s pockets, an administration that spins off several scandals in a week that would have consumed other presidencies for years. If Democrats cannot make an issue out of all that, then they are screwed and so are we.”

It’s time once again for those of us who care about this country and want our democracy back to start letting our representatives in Washington know that we are paying attention.

And tell them that they sure as hell should be paying attention as well.

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Lead art: Screen grab from The Handmaid’s Tale via Hulu.

Some States to Ignore CDC Politics, BS re Vaccines

By Michael Woyton

With Florida eliminating vaccine mandates, it’s going to be more important for the rest of us to continue doing what we need to do to stay healthy.

You know, herd immunity and all that.

To that end, it is comforting to know that some states are now taking matters into their own governmental hands to assure the public that people like former heroin addict and serial philanderer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. don’t get to decide whether or not certain vaccines are available.

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Even before RFK Jr. spewed his lies and misinformation in front of Congress Thursday, three states on west coast — California, Oregon and Washington — formed a public health alliance “to provide ‘credible information’ about vaccine safety in response to the turmoil within the Trump administration,” NBC News reported.

The governors of those states said they would make certain they were unified in making recommendations that would “ensure residents remain protected by science, not politics,” after weeks of dubious actions coming out of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On Thursday, the governor of Hawaii said his state would also join the West Coast Health Alliance, KPTV Fox 12 reported.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said the new alliance is “critical as we all go forward into an era with severe threats from infection diseases.”

I would call any statement or comment out of RFK Jr.’s mouth a severe threat as well.

Take for example the exchange between Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, and the director of Health and Human Services from Thursday.

Warren tried to get RFK Jr. to confirm that anybody could get the COVID booster by walking into a pharmacy as he said.

His reply was that that the vaccine “was not recommended for healthy people,” to which Warren said “if you don’t recommend then the consequence of that, in many states, is that you can’t walk into a pharmacy and get one.”

In other words the insurance companies don’t have to cover the cost, the result of which is a denial of services for people, Warren said.

Warren reminded the director that he promised in his confirmation hearing that he would not take away vaccines from anyone who wanted them.

So, Bobby left out the part of the promise that if you are rich enough to pay out of pocket you can do whatever you want vaccine-wise.

That also seems to be a theme throughout the felon-in-chief’s administration.

Residents of New York and Massachusetts are being looked after since the federal government is abdicating responsibility for public health.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey announced Thursday measures ensuring “vaccines remain available to Massachusetts residents of all ages,” according to a news release.

MA insurance carriers will be required to continue covering vaccines recommended by the state’s Department of Public Health, not solely what the CDC says.

“We won’t let Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy get between patients and their doctors,” Healey said. “When the federal government fails to protect public health, Massachusetts will step up.”

On Friday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order allowing people to get the COVID vaccine at pharmacies across the state without a prescription, Long Island Business News reported.

The EO gets around “newly imposed federal restrictions on vaccine access introduced last week that limited eligibility to those 65 and older, or younger with underlying health conditions.”

Hochul said she wanted to avoid having people take extra time to go to a doctor’s office to get a prescription.

“I don’t want there to be barriers to their or their family’s health because of an artificial roadblock,” she said.

In New Mexico, where some pharmacies said they could not administer the COVID vaccine unless a CDC advisory group said they could, a public health order was issued to remove potential barriers and ensure access to the vaccine at pharmacies across the state. And neighbor to the north Colorado is making sure it citizens can get the COVID shot without having to visit a doctor.

So at least a few responsible states — who actually respect the wishes of their citizens — are stepping to the plate and telling the grifter-in-chief and his no-nothing, non-medically educated minion where they can take their so-called medical advice.

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Lead art: Screen grab from CBS News via YouTube.

Felon’s Approval Rating Continues to Fall: Quinnipiac

By Michael Woyton

There’s more bad news about what Americans think of the job that the man who loves to call himself a dictator is doing.

A poll from Quinnipiac University was published Wednesday showing that only 37 percent of registered voters approve of the way Donald Trump is handling his duties as president, with 55 percent disapproving.

The approval rate is down from 40 percent in July, the Quinnipiac Poll said, with the disapproval rate up from 54 percent.

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The poll, in which 1,220 self-identified registered voters were surveyed, showed 84 percent of Republicans approving, while 98 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of independents disapproving.

When asked about issues of crime, Russia/Ukraine, foreign policy, the economy, trade and Israel/Hamas, voters said they disapproved of the way Trump was handling them all — from 53 percent (the Israel/Hamas conflict) to 57 percent (the economy).

Regarding the Epstein files, 70 percent of voters said they were very closely or somewhat closely following the news about Jeffrey Epstein.

About one-third of voters, or 67 percent, said they disapproved of the way the administration was handling the Epstein files. Broken down by gender, 70 percent of women disapproved, as did 63 percent of men. More men than women approved of the administration’s handling of the Epstein matter.

Do voters think the Justice Department is being transparent in the way it’s handling the Epstein investigation?

Nope. Seventy-three percent said no, with only 16 percent saying yes to the matter of transparency.

Sending the National Guard to Washington, D.C., supposedly in an effort to reduce crime, is also not popular among voters.

The poll found that 56 percent of those surveyed opposed the move, with 41 percent approving. Republicans overwhelmingly support it — 86 percent — and Democrats overwhelmingly opposed it — 93 percent. Sixty-one percent of independents oppose the decision.

Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy described what independent voters said of the deployment of troops as “a big thumbs down.”

“Posting the National Guard in D.C. to fight local crime gets faint support,” he said.

With 57 percent of voters telling Quinnipiac they don’t approve of the way Trump is handling the economy, it’s no surprise that a majority describes the nation’s economy as either not so good or poor — 37 and 25, respectively — for a total of 62 percent.

Only 4 percent said the economy was excellent; 33 percent said it was good.

The Quinnipiac Poll was conducted from August 21 to August 25 using random digit dialing with live interviews calling landlines and cell phones. The margin of error is ± 3.4 percent.

Complete results can be viewed here.

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Lead art: Screen grab from Fox Carolina.

FEMA Staff Warns of Consequences from Cuts, Mismanagement: In the Headlines

By Michael Woyton

Led by a man who has no emergency management background, employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency sent Congress a letter Monday warning that cuts to the agency could result in “another national catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina.”

The “Katrina Declaration” criticizes the felon-in-chief’s drastic scaling down of FEMA and shifting more disaster response, along with more costs, to the states, the New York Times said.

The employees cite the administration’s “ongoing failure to appoint a qualified FEMA administrator, as required by law,” a lesson learned from Hurricane Katrina.

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“Mr. Trump installed first one and then another acting FEMA administrator who lack experience in emergency management,” the Times said, including David Richardson, the current acting head.

Richardson, you will recall, unnerved FEMA employees in June by saying he didn’t know the United States had a hurricane season. A spokesperson later said Richardson was kidding. Right.

Read more about the FEMA employees’ letter in this free article.

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The convicted felon and adjudicated rapist — release the Epstein files — continues to have his sycophants torture Kilmar Abrego Garcia, all because no one in the administration can or will admit they made a mistake.

Abrego Garcia was taken into ICE custody Monday after he reported to a required immigration check-in, NBC News reported.

He had been reunited with his family last week after spending more than five months in a prison in El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported in violation of a 2019 court order.

The people in the administration who made the mistake have repeatedly accused the man of being an MS-13 gang member. His lawyers said he illegally came to the U.S. at the age of 16 to escape gang violence.

Read the entire NBC News article here.

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The homicide rate in Chicago, Illinois, is down 33 percent for the first half of 2025, and overall crime complaints are down 14 percent as well, according to an article in the New Republic.

So what is the reason the golfer-in-chief has for saying he is going to deploy National Guard troops in the Windy City?

As in Washington, D.C., where Big Balls got beaten up by a 15-year-old girl, the grifter-in-chief is “trying to demonize places with ‘Democrat’ mayors and governors,” TNR said.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, has already come out swinging, saying on social media that there is “no emergency that warrants the President of the United States federalizing” the state’s National Guard or “sending active-duty military within our own borders.”

Read the full article by the New Republic here.

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People are being mean to grampa — and he thinks they should pay!

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Lead art: Screen grab from MSNBC via YouTube.

Felon to Detain Immigrants in Former Japanese Internment Camp

By Michael Woyton

Because cruelty is the driving force behind many if not all of the policies of President Donald J. Felon, it is only natural that a new detention center for immigrants has a dark history of imprisoning people — more than two-thirds of whom were American citizens — during World War II.

The ICE detention center at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, opened last weekend, NBC News reported, and it will be able to hold “as many as 5,000 detainees upon its completion in the coming months,” making it the largest federal detention center in United States history.

Japanese American advocates were quick to call out using the facility because it once imprisoned people who were called “enemy aliens.”

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Ann Burroughs, president and CEO of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, said the use of “national security” to justify mass incarceration echoes the same thinking that led to Japanese Americans during World War II being forcibly removed from their homes and imprisoned.

“It is inconceivable that the United States is once again building concentration camps, denying the lessons learned 80 years ago,” she said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said the comparison of the detention center with WWII internment camps was “deranged and lazy,” adding that the people ICE will be holding and rounding up include “murderers, MS-13 gang members, pedophiles, and rapists.”

What about the grandmothers, grandfathers, military men, sick children, farm workers and delivery people who are being kidnapped by masked gangs of thugs? Just sayin’.

An article on the ACLU website points out that temperatures in the summer in El Paso regularly rise above 100 degrees making detainees at serious risk of heat-related illness.

Not only was the camp one of several bases used during WWII for internment of Japanese Americans, as well as Italian and German immigrants, 20 years earlier during the Mexican Revolution, the base was used as a holding site for thousands of Mexican refugees.

The ACLU points out that many of them were kept in military tents and exposed to toxic chemical delousing agents, some of which were later using in Nazi gas chambers.

More recently, during the convicted felon’s first term, Fort Bliss was used to detain children who were separated from their families. Government investigators under the Biden administration said in 2021 that the children held there suffered panic attacks and other emotional distress because of improper care and inadequate staffing.

Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-16th congressional district, was elected to serve the El Paso, Texas, area, which included Fort Bliss.

She toured the East Montana Detention Facility Monday and said the massive prison cost $1.24 billion.

She said there were 1,000 men being held there. That number is expected to grow to 5,000 and will eventually include women.

Escobar took issue with the administration and others calling the people being held in Fort Bliss “the worst of the worst” or only those with final orders of removal or criminal convictions.

“[N]one of those claims are true,” she said. “It’s all about fulfilling Stephen Miller’s fantasy of departing at least a million immigrants a year.”

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Obama has given his blessing to California redistricting, now that Texas has passed its scheme create districts that will keep Democrats from getting elected to Congress.

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Lead art: Screen grab from KTSM.com via YouTube.

When Is a Negotiation Not a Negotiation?: Good Reads

By Michael Woyton

The meeting Monday between the president of the United States and the president of Ukraine was very different from the one in March in which Volodymyr Zelensky was berated for not being grateful to the U.S. and for not wearing a suit.

This time Zelensky brought backup in the form of supportive European leaders. And he wore a suit.

“Despite optimistic words by Trump and some more lukewarm assessments from his European partners, by Monday evening there were no concrete commitments to security guarantees or steps towards a peace deal,” BBC News reported.

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The takeaways, according to the BBC, included the possibility of a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelensky, European leaders pushing back on the felon-in-chief’s dismissal of the need for a ceasefire and the vague possibility the U.S. would help guarantee Ukraine’s security.

Lastly, “the Ukrainian president went to considerable lengths to charm his American hosts — including a flurry of six ‘thank yous’ within the first few minutes of the meeting,” BBC News said, adding the European leaders “dialled up the flattery with Trump” and heaped praise on him for bringing them all together.

Ya gotta know your audience; the adjudicated rapist/serial liar loves to be praised.

A different take on the meeting was penned for the New York Times by Opinion columnist M. Gessen, in which they pointed out that calling it a negotiation of “a possible land swap and security guarantees” wasn’t really accurate.

How could there be a land swap, Gessen wondered, when Putin is demanding more territory than his not-so-mighty military has been able to seize in the three-and-a-half years since he invaded Ukraine?

And regarding any “security guarantees,” Gessen explained that it seems unlikely that Putin would agree to protecting a country he has repeatedly called “a historical mistake” and said “there is no such thing as a Ukrainian nation or a Ukrainian language.”

There is much more in Gessen’s article, including comparisons to World War II, Yalta and Sudentenland.

The article can be read for free through this link.

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The American Academy of Pediatrics has gone against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recommend that “all young children get vaccinated against COVID-19,” Reuters reported Tuesday.

The CDC said in May that COVID vaccines were now optional for healthy children.

Read more about the AAP’s rationale here.

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Have you noticed a jump in prices at the grocery store?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week a “whopping 38.9% increase in wholesale dry and fresh vegetable prices from June to July, the biggest since March 2022,” NBC News reported.

What’s being blamed so far? The immigration crackdown and tariffs.

Read the NBC News article for more information here.

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When was the last time you were asked for your license plate when you went to vote?

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Lead art: Screen grab from CNN.