16 I 2026: I.C.E., the Black and Tans, and the K.K.K.

The mobs of I.C.E. agents remind me also of the Black and Tans. The British government signed up over 10,000 out-of-work WWI veterans to do what neither the army nor the regular constabulary would do to crush the Irish rebellion. Their name, Black and Tans, came from the ad hoc uniforms they were given. They were meant to supplement the police, the Royal Irish Constabulary, but they were not trained as police and not subject to military discipline. They made their hatred and cruelty their guides.

So I.C.E. has over 20,000 agents. They too are meant to do what neither the real police nor the army would be willing to do. Their behavior shows all the signs of lack of training and lack of discipline, and they are guilty of countless infractions of the law and an increasing number of malicious attacks. They seem to have no uniform, but they cover their faces like the Ku Klux Klan, and for the same reason. And like the KKK they are recruited from among white supremacists who fear and therefore hate people of color. I’m sure, also, that if you want to sign on with I.C.E. and get the big sign-on bonus, it helps a lot if you are a “Christian.”

14 I 2025: I.C.E. and S.S.

I.C.E. agents, especially the hordes of them invading Minnesota, remind me of Hitler’s SS rounding up Jews for deportation. The S.S., aided by the Gestapo, had the job of arresting Jews and handing them over to Einsatzgruppen for immediate execution or loading them up for deportation to the SS camps. 

The SS used race, political orientation, and religion as criteria to determine who would fit into authentically German society and who had to be expelled. Countries where the local police did not help the SS to arrest the Jews faced overwhelming pressure from the Nazi regime.

I.C.E. has not gone so far, but it is well on its way towards the SS ideal. Facial complexion determines who they will snatch, and critics of the Trump regime who express their criticism in public are “dangerous rioters” whose rights as American citizens can be ignored. States that choose not to help I.C.E. are to be denied funding until they come around to the regime’s policy.

And the Trumpification of the United States has only begun.

8 I 2025: Villain with a thousand faces

Stephen Miller plays a variety of roles for Trump. He is sometimes Smee to Trump’s Captain Hook, sometimes Himmler to Trump’s Hitler, sometimes Mephistopheles to Trump’s Faustus, always tetanus in the body politic. 

He is also Trump’s Mini-Me, as good a Christian as Trump, as much a white supremacist as Trump. and, like Trump, a MAGA motor-mouth.

7 I 2025: Trump still a bully

Trump’s hoo-ha-ing and BS about his kidnapping of Maduro is just the latest instance of his acting the bully. I want to tell him to pick on someone his size. Why doesn’t he kidnap that author of countless war crimes, Putin? Or if he’s afraid of Putin or afraid of damaging their homoerotic understanding? Let him kidnap Kim Jon Ung, another dictator.

All Americans should be ashamed of their Dictator-President and repudiate him. But there are some MAGAs who are invincibly ignorant, some Republicans who know that Trump is their meal ticket, and some who have no idea what’s taking place.

24 XII 2025: Trump and Kaiser Bill

Trump has often reminded me of freakish Roman emperors, of Caligula and his bizarre sexuality, of Nero and his world-class narcissism. But lately he has been reminding me of Wilhelm II, Kaiser of the German Empire, known in American vernacular as Kaiser Bill.

Kaiser Bill was mercurial, with a minute attention span. He formed enthusiasms from the last person to speak to him on any subject. He was a complete authoritarian. He was hyper-sensitive to anything he could imagine to be an affront. His entourage and cabinet members had to work overtime to “control” his rude behavior and to prevent publication of his crazier statements. He loved ceremonies, undeserved medals, plumes and parades. He was fanatic about making the German navy equal to Britain’s and Wilhelm must bear more responsibility than any other individual for WWI.

So, yes, Trump nowadays often reminds me of Kaiser Bill.

22 XII 2025: Trump can’t stop pissing

A while ago we had a small rescue dog named Laddie, of happy memory. The very first time Laddie entered our house, he jumped up on a divan and pissed on it, thus claiming the divan as his particular place, a lookout for watching what was going on in the house and a comfy place for daytime naps.

Laddie was content to have one place to call his own and did not pee anywhere else. But Trump goes around peeing on everything and leaving his name wherever he can. He has most recently pissed on the Kennedy Center and now on a proposed set of new-fangled battleships to be referred to as “the Trump Class.”

Since the U.S.S. Kearsarge of 1900, U.S. battleships have always been named for states of the union. Will this be another Trump innovation? Maybe he could persuade some hyper-red state to change its name to Trumponia? But is not enough. The month of August was named for the Roman emperor Augustus. Now Augustus is no longer famous, and he was a foreigner. So how about changing the name of the eighth month to Trumpust?

16 XII 2025: Trump a mean drunk

Huffpost reports from the interview with Susi Wiles, Trump’s Chief of Staff, that appeared in Vanity Fair: “Wiles suggested she’s been adept at dealing with Trump because she grew up with an alcoholic father. Trump operates with ‘an alcoholic’s personality,’ she said, with ‘a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing.'”

Because of Trump’s reputation as a teetotaler, I discounted my original perception of Trump as a “mean drunk.” But here is some corroboration for that view from one who works with him all the time.

Trump behaves like a “dry drunk,” i.e., one who has stopped drinking, but continues alcoholic behavior. This behavior could include: psychological and physical abuse, utter certitude about one’s own feelings and perceptions, raw hostility against anyone who disagrees, unquestioned self-confidence, an almost infinite capacity for resentment, and a lust for revenge.

So Trump eschews alcohol, but we’ve no idea of the extent of Trump’s intake of narcotics. What kind of a drug cocktail must Trump’s psychiatrists be putting together to keep him from going completely off-track? And, of course, like many alcoholics and addicts, he is propped up by a circle of enablers who know just how to “handle” him. 

We know too well how self-centered and self-serving are all Trump’s utterances, how, for him, nothing at all is not about Trump. I’m sure that when he contemplates the prospect of his death, he really doubts that the world will be able to get along without him.

7 XII 2025: Don’t intend to stop attacking

There are parallels between the behavior of Israel and Russia.

• Each, in its own way, is fighting to reclaim land that was given to them, by God or by Stalin. 

• Both make their claims as successors to a more glorious regime, Russia, Tsarist Empire, Israel, the Kingdom of Herod.

• Both are continuing acts of violence while pretending to negotiate peace.

• Both are irredentists, and will not cease acts of violence until they get what they want.

• The governments and armies of both are chock-a-bloc full of war criminals.

• Neither can be believed about anything.

• America is the dupe of both of them.

3 XII 2025: Who is the garbage?

It has often been observed that the President has the trait of accusing others of the very offenses of which he is himself most guilty.

So I read that he has denounced our Somali immigrants as “garbage.” That leaves me to wonder if the term “garbage” would not better fit Trump and his lickspittle entourage.

25 XI 2025: The case of S. Claus

There seems to be some pessimism about this Christmas, due to the high cost of goods, the dearth of goods, and MAGA’s suppression of peace and good will. I don’t think that this depression will be alleviated by I.C.E.’s hunt for Santa Claus. 

     Mr. Claus is an alien who enters the United States illegally to work every year. He has been getting away with this for years and years, but that was before Kristi Noem and Tom Homan who deeply resent the cigarette butts and empty beer cans they routinely find in their stockings. They can be counted on to make an all-out effort to track Santa Claus and send a squad of ex-con I.C.E. agents to seize him and remove him to an unspecified site. Santa’s usual reindeer will not be able to protect him. Santa does enjoy a lot of support in the wider community, but will mobs of children be able to keep St. Nick free of the I.C.E. goons?