Wednesday, April 30, 2025

Fear and chaos v. indecision and inaction

My big handbell event last Friday and Saturday went very well. The great music was a welcome balm. My Sunday movie was Bringing Up Baby from 1938. I found this one on a list of the best 100 movies of all time. It is a comedy and is on a few lists of best comedies. The title suggests something about the comedic hazards of raising a child. But Baby isn’t human. And is presumed dangerous. Cary Grant plays the befuddled and staid David, a professor who is missing just one bone from a huge dinosaur skeleton he is assembling for a museum. He is to marry Alice, his assistant, the next day but she wants the ceremony, then wants to get right back to work, no honeymoon or other entanglements allowed. David is off to see Mr. Peabody who represents a rich client ready to donate a million dollars to the museum. He encounters Susan, played by Katherine Hepburn, who bulldozes her way into the situation and his life. Her manner easily flusters him. Many times she seems to intentionally misunderstand him, but doesn’t give him a moment to correct what she’s saying. Once she gets to know him a bit she wants him to help her with Baby. A ways into the story she admits she is going to marry him, though he doesn’t know that yet. The story is about keeping track of Baby, making sure that big donation will still happen through all the complications, plus all the ways she connives to get him to help her so she has time to convince him he loves her. I got tired of her bulldozing ways, though still enjoyed the movie. Mark Sumner, staff emeritus of Daily Kos, discussed the low approval rating of the nasty guy and Republicans, prompting Democrats to gleefully anticipate the 2026 midterm elections and the chance to take back the House and perhaps even the Senate. Republicans should be scared. Sumner says there is currently one problem with that scenario. There is a group with a lower approval rating than the nasty guy and that is ... Democrats. Voters hate what the nasty guy is doing and the support given to him by Congressional Republicans. But they’re not looking for Democrats for help.
Trump is causing fear and chaos. People don’t like that. But you know what the public really hates? Indecision and inaction. That's what they see right now from the Democratic Party. ... Democratic leadership needs to be out there, not just marching with the protestors but leading the protests. They need to be pushing their way into social media and traditional media, shouting down Trump's actions and the support of Congressional Republicans in the strongest possible terms. They need to be angry. They need to be aggressive. They need to be, what's that term? Fired up and ready to go. ... Trump is historically unpopular. He's going to get more unpopular as prices rise, jobs decline, and people realize they've all been taken for a ride. We're even seeing something this cycle that we didn't see in 2018: A large number of Trump voters waking up to their mistake and looking for an alternative. Democrats better give them that alternative soon. Or someone will.
The news out of Canada is that the liberal party won more seats than any other party in their Parliamentary election, just three seats short of a majority. Just three months ago the conservative party had a big lead. Then the nasty guy started threatening them and imposed tariffs on them. The conservative leader Pierre Poliviere was being compared to the nasty guy and he didn’t even win his own seat. Anonymous tweeted, “Trump is the first US president to lose a Canadian election.” That brought a lot of comments in reply. Such as one from CK14. It includes a cartoon of the nasty guy firing a slingshot at China’s Xi, which bounces off his head. Behind Xi is a catapult with a hefty boulder in it. The caption says:
Xi to Trump: America will be a great Chinese province. We can hammer out the deal soon. I can assure you that your new title ‘Governor Trump’ will be well received by the world community. Your neighbor Canada is already on board w/this proposal. See you soon Gov Trump. Yes, we can work w/a peasant.
Last Friday Emily Singer of Kos reported that Judge Hannah Dugan of Milwaukee was arrested by the FBI and charged with obstructing the nasty guy’s efforts to deport Eduardo Flores Ruiz, a Mexican immigrant. The charging document says she had been advised of the warrant for the arrest of Flores Ruiz. But when government agents came to her courtroom she had already escorted Flores Ruiz out the jury door, which allowed him to leave the building safely. As with any warrant issued by this Department of Justice one has good reason to be very skeptical about its truthfulness. Wrote Singer:
The arrest of Dugan is a terrifying escalation of President Donald Trump's war on immigrants and his abuse of executive power to punish political enemies and go after the judicial branch. ... “This administration’s willingness to weaponize federal law enforcement is shocking and this arrest has all the hallmarks of overreach. Federal law enforcement coming into a community and arresting a judge is a serious matter and would require a high legal bar,” Democratic Rep. Gwen Moore of Wisconsin said in a statement.
RETIII of the Kos community discussed on Monday that the Supreme Court said people being deported needed to have due process, a chance for their side of the story to be heard. This decision was in response to deportations to El Salvador, where deportees were not allowed to plead their case. So a deportation case was brought before federal judge David Briones in Texas. His decision was an elaboration on “This Court takes clear offense to [the Government] wasting judicial resources to admit to the Court that it has no evidence.” An excerpt:
Respondents and the Government based the entirety of their case on multiple levels of hearsay, hidden within declarations of declarants who have no personal knowledge about the facts they are attesting to.
The respondents were not the ones who interviewed the petitioner, not the ones who captured her “confession,” not the ones who collected the highly classified “intelligence” they refused to share with the court, and not the ones who interviewed law enforcement who had identified the petitioner. They couldn’t even identify the people who had done those steps. All that comes down to: There is no evidence. Wrote RETIII:
So, that is what you get from the Trump Administration when due process is enforced, and it is why the Trump Administration has fought so hard to avoid its obligations under the Constitution.
On Monday News Corpse of the Kos community reported that after the nasty guy and his administration have wrongfully deported legal residents to El Salvador’s gulag and arrested a judge, press secretary Karoline Leavitt took all this another step in an exchange with Peter Doocy of Fox News.
DOOCY: Would you ever arrest a federal judge or even a Supreme Court justice? LEAVITT: I'd refer you to the DOJ for individuals they are looking at ... anyone who is breaking the law or obstructing federal law enforcement officials is putting themselves at risk of being prosecuted, absolutely
Yeah, she is saying the FBI or the US Marshals or somebody might possibly arrest a Supreme Court Justice. First, justices aren’t prosecuted, they’re impeached and tried by the Senate. I have a bizarre image of a judge tasked with conducting a trial of a justice. Especially on charges brought by the nasty guy’s DOJ. Second, I would study very carefully whose definition of obstructing or breaking the law is being used. News Corpse takes my second point one more step:
By the logic that Leavitt is employing, a Democratic Justice Department could arrest Clarence Thomas for taking millions of dollars in gifts (bribes?) from wealthy defendants who have cases before the Court. They could arrest Samuel Alito for ruling that Trump has "immunity" from the crimes he commits, because that ruling would facilitate obstruction of justice. In both of those examples there is far more justification for taking legal action against the Justices than anything that Trump or Leavitt have alleged. These remarks by Leavitt are among the steps being taken by the Trump regime to turn America into a full fledged dictatorship.
Oliver Willis of Kos discussed why conservatives blame the “deep state” for everything.
In reality, it is a catchall phrase for failure. ... Republicans bring up the “deep state” when they can’t get the job done. To them, when they lose elections, it isn’t because voters rejected them—no, it’s because the “deep state” manipulated voting machines and stuffed ballot boxes. To them, when Trump mishandles the response to a pandemic, it isn’t his fault for underestimating the virus or attacking safety procedures—no, it’s because of the “deep state.” And to them, when the defense secretary blabs about military maneuvers on an unsecured app, the fact that the public knows about it is the dastardly work of the “deep state.” Conservatives refuse to take responsibility for their failures. It’s easier for them to blame the “deep state” and rile up the most diehard followers to fight an invisible force supposedly making everything so terrible. Then the right can coast along without needing to change their behavior. After all, “the deep state” did it.
In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Thomas Edsall of the New York Times:
Public opinion has turned against him, the economy is faltering, the Supreme Court has ordered him to stand down, his tariffs have backfired and such conservative mainstays as National Review and The Wall Street Journal are questioning his judgment. How does a stymied autocrat deal with defeat? As the opposition gains strength, frustrating the nation’s commander in chief, how will Trump respond? It is unthinkable to imagine him graciously acknowledging defeat, changing direction and moving on. [...] As Trump’s armor begins to crack, you have to wonder: Who is more dangerous — a triumphant Trump or a wounded Trump?
To which I add: This is not a reason to let the nasty guy be triumphant or to stop trying to wound him. Instead, it is a call to be ready for whatever nastiness he pulls. In another pundit roundup Greg Dworkin quoted the Nevada Independent that reported in the first three months of 2025 visitors to Law Vegas fell by 7% compared to 2024. February showed a 12% drop, but that was because Las Vegas hosted the Super Bowl in 2024. Much of the 8% drop in March is attributed to declines in international travel. Dworkin included a tweet by Merriam-Webster, the dictionary people:
Autocorrect has become our worst enema.
Down in the comments exlrrp posted a few memes: First:
Bezos killed the Post’s Kamala endorsement and caved on tariffs as soon a Trump commented. Imagine being that rich and still being such a sniveling coward.
Second, also about Bezos: “Trump bullied me. Now I’m afraid to show what you will pay for tariffs.” Third:
The nasty guy on the phone: My tariffs aren’t working. Tech support guy: Have you tried turning them on and off again?
Much further down exlrrp posted a meme with a quote from RFK Jr.: “There was no autism diagnosed before 1930.” A reply: “Pluto wasn’t discovered until 1930, but I’m pretty sure it was there the whole time.” Mike Luckovich posted a cartoon on Kos:
Left side: We need assault weapons to protect against a tyrannical government! Right side: We need assault weapons to protect a tyrannical government!
In the comments of a third pundit roundup exlrrp posted more memes. First, with images of ICE agents:
If what you’re doing requires hiding your identity, breaking laws, ignoring court orders, and defying the Constitution then you’re the bad guys. This isn’t “law enforcement.” It’s state sponsored kidnapping.
Second: a meme created from a couple tweets:
EssenViews: ICE can now enter your home without a warrant to look for migrants, DOJ memo says. SetPixels: 2nd Amendment ppl are being real quite right now. This is the tyranny you were always talking about.
Third:
Headline: NRA accidentally forgets to rise up against tyrannical government. Subhead: An Embarrassed National Rival Association says it totally forgot to do the one thing it has been saying for years it is solely there to do.
I wondered if this was actual or fake news. So I did a search. Some of the hits are recent and some are from 2020. And from the descriptions I think this is snark, though accurate. I watched another video by the band OK GO. It was posted to YouTube 3 months ago, so it seems to be in the same time period of the Love video (the one with the mirrors) I wrote about last week. This one is called A Stone Only Rolls Downhill. As with their other videos I don’t care much for the music, but the videos are amazing. This one features rows of cell phones. The images on the phones are synchronized so that a person (or just an arm) smoothly moves from one phone to the next. There are images of phones inside images of phones, all marvelously mind-bending. Of course, there is also a video explaining how they made the final product. They mention the more than a thousand individual video bits they put together for the final video.

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