26 II 2026: Croaking chorus (of toads); Bull Shit banners

I read that Trump was ecstatically applauded at the State of the Union address by his Megamites in the Congress. This comes as no surprise. It showed the esteem of also-ran, day-to-day liars for the performance of a Master Liar.

Years ago, at an institution where I once taught, students responded to lies and half-truths in speeches by the President by waving little pennants that said “Bull Shit,” thus making known their views silently, politely without interrupting the spiel. I recommend this for members of Congress that care about truth.

23 II 2025: Trump as dog

Today I found this headline: 

Trump Posts Unhinged Video Of Himself As U.S. Olympic Hockey Hero.

I have formed the impression that Trump is like a paranoid dog who has to piss on everything and everyone he encounters.

How much “unhinged” behavior can the country stand? I fear that, in the face of Trump’s insanity, the American people and their representatives are like the proverbial frog in the water-filled saucepan on a stove, who forces himself to become accustomed to the ever increasing heat of the water until it kills him.

12 II 2026: Wannabe criminals

The criminal behavior of some ICE agents is the result of putting a mask on a semi-criminal. ICE is not (I think) hiring convicted criminals, but it looks like ICE it is hiring people with semi-realized criminal fantasies, bullies and others whose lack of respect for themselves manifests itself, when anonymity is assured, in brutality to others.

10 II 2026: Rabid dogs

I just watched a video of an ICE thug throwing a woman to the ground and then spraying objecting bystanders with pepper spray. We can see this incident. How many cases like this and far worse are we not allowed to see? ICE has been recruiting the dregs of society, people with anti-American values and lacking impulse control, and siccing them on “illegals” and citizens alike, with a license for any kind of brutality.

That is what the Trump regime is doing in our name! No funding at all should be allowed for these out-of-control bullies. They are not in any way different from the SA and the Black and Tans.

6 II 2025: Failing to think huge …

I’ve heard that Trump wants to have Dulles Airport and the Penn Station re-named after him. I guess he is just thinking uncharacteristically small.

America was named, due to a series of false assumptions, after the explorer Amerigo Vespucci (died 1512), a man well enough known in his own time, but now known, if at all, because the name America was derived from his forename.

There were attempts to name America after Christopher Columbus, Columbia, as in “Hail Columbia the Gem of the Ocean,” but that did not catch on. So we’re left with America named after an also-ran 16th-century geographer. Not very grand at all.

So, I propose we change the country’s name to Trumpland or Trumpica or Trumpiania, to give the USA the kind of name it deserves.

24 I 2025: Lying madman

I read a news item about an exhibit on slavery being removed by the Nat’l Park Service pursuant to an executive order from Trump intended to restore “truth and sanity to American history.” This is a paradox, for Trump is an enemy of truth and a leading exponent of insanity.

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.