 Whatever your feelings about Department of Homeland Security ex-Director Kristi Noem,  ...I mean, you have to admit that Donald Trump double-crossed her. Just like he double-crosses almost everybody who does any kind of work for him, from the contractors, small business owners, and workers he's hired then refused to pay for materials used and services rendered, to the staffers and law makers he's made use of to do or legitimize his dirty work then fired, or reneged on an understood promise of political compensation, or allowed to land in prison, or in some other way trampled or destroyed their careers or reputations. Or publicly humiliated, as he humiliated Kristi Noem in not telling her privately that she was fired, but making her find out along with the rest of the world when last Thursday he announced on social media that he was proud to announce that Senator Markwayne Mullin was the new head of the Department of Homeland Security. As for Noem, she was - surprise! - now special envoy to some new, comic-book-sounding outfit nobody ever heard of called The Shield of the Americas. And for which she's already been the object of much social media memery.      Of course as head of the Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem did Donald Trump's will right down to the minute. Did it with a vengeance, even. What human being could have done the job more to Trump's liking?  Well, that's Donald Trump for you. To him everybody is two Big Macs and a large Diet Coke. But while watching a clip of Kristi Noem's performance last week in the role of what some folks are calling Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing Barbie,  ...I found myself wondering about something. After everything Kristi Noem did to promote Donald Trump and his agenda,     ...she ended up the laughing stock of the universe (which is better than what she deserves after turning the Department of Homeland Security into the Kristi Noem Theater of Cruelty).         Anyway, I wondered if now she at all regretted all that plastic surgery she underwent to achieve the look - now commonly known as Mar-a-Lago Face - that has become de rigueur for women in Donald Trump's circle.    I wondered if she ever wished she could have her old face back, the face that got her as far as a seat in Congress,  ...as far as the Governor of South Dakota,  ...even as far as the 1990 South Dakota Snow Queen.  The face that was, in any case, authentically her own before she hitched her wagon to Donald Trump's star then went under the knife and needle to more closely resemble the proto-Mar-a-lago Face,  ...and to look 27 years old instead of her 54.  In fact, I wonder how many, if any, of the Mar-a-Lago- Faced women in the Trump orbit wish they could have their former faces back. Lara Trump  Kimberly Guilfoyle  Laura Loomer  Karoline Leavitt  Or is it more like that episode from the Twilight Zone called "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" (January 24, 1964, Season 5, episode 17)? The story tells of a future in which it's the societal norm for woman when they reach adulthood to go through a facial transformation, with two beautiful options to choose from. There was the Number 8:  ...or the Number 12:  And so all women were beautiful, though each looked like either Number 8 or Number 12. But it was all good, because when the women had their faces changed, their brains were changed, too, so that they all came out happy to look like each other.  Maybe it's like that in the MAGA Zone. But what about after you've been jettisoned from the Zone? Will you still like looking at your Mar-a-Lago Face then?  References
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/06/politics/kristi-noem-lost-trump-markwayne-mullin https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/kristi-noem-tapped-to-head-shield-of-americas-in-doral-summit-40529468/ https://www.nickiswift.com/2070369/what-happened-kristi-noem-face-transformation/ https://www.thelist.com/2081857/most-jarring-plastic-surgery-transformations-in-maga-history/?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_8713341
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 Last Saturday, February 28, in the middle of the night, when most Americans in the Eastern Standard Time zone were asleep and Donald Trump should have been, he was instead making a surprise announcement to the world - including to the United States Congress and the American people - from his luxury hideout in Mar-a-Lago that he had declared war on Iran. The bombs were already falling.  I believe I'll never forget how shocked I was to wake up on Saturday morning to learn that we were at war with Iran, with whom we were supposedly in the middle of negotiations. Though Trump offered a carnival wheel of reasons for bombing Iran - spin the wheel and see where it lands - he neglected to share at that time that Israel had joined the United States - or rather, that the United States that had agreed to join and empower Israel - and that this was in fact a joint Israel/U.S. war against Iran. One of the first places in Iran where the bombs were dropped was on a girls' school in the town of Minab. 180 people were killed, many more wounded, most of them school children, girls between the ages of 7 and 12. The walls of the school were destroyed and the roof collapsed. Children and teachers were buried and trapped beneath the rubble.     Faced with worldwide outrage and accusations of a war crime, both the United States and Israel denied that any of their planes were responsible for the bombing. But it doesn't matter whether it was an American fighter pilot or an Israeli fighter pilot who dropped the bombs on those girls; the guilt lies with the United States, since we supplied Israel with their planes,  ...and their bombs.  In fact, we supplied Israel with their whole war. Because, as is now coming out, this is not America's war; this is Israel's war. As reported yesterday in the New York Times, and reprinted in various other news sources since, Benjamin Netanyahu had been pressuring Donald Trump for months to take military action against Iran. According to a USA Today article from today, Netanyahu had been planning to attack Iran since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.  According to the New York Times article: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel walked into the Oval Office on the morning of Feb. 11, determined to keep the American president on the path to war. For weeks, the United States and Israel had been secretly discussing a military offensive against Iran. But Trump administration officials had recently begun negotiating with the Iranians over the future of their nuclear program, and the Israeli leader wanted to make sure that the new diplomatic effort did not undermine the plans." And so, though the United States and Iran were in the midst of nuclear talks which, as of Thursday, February, 26, were on track to continue the following week, Trump told the New York Times the day after the February 28 attack on Iran, "Toward the end of the negotiation, I realized that these guys weren’t going to get there. I said, ‘Let’s just do it.’” And so he and Netanyahu just did it. 
References https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/read-trumps-full-statement-on-iran-attack?fbclid=IwY2xjawQTzTlleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFlZ1ZkaHNYZzlPWndEYkFkc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHqYQ4wfsF-J87UCF0ckGDLi0F5esWpRo_C0wut9wSBMc6Piek4vJZh6gPA0Z_aem_dbPRHBCVPv2sFDbJtsABkg https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/us/politics/trump-war-iran-israel.html https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2026/03/03/israel-decision-kill-khamenei-after-oct-7/88957910007/# https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/daily-on-defense/4479726/trump-gut-told-him-time-strike-iran/ https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg1vd95nl9o https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/27/us-iran-nuclear-talks-oil-middle-east.html I stayed up on Tuesday night to watch Donald Trump's longest-in-history State of the Union address. Though, as everyone else who stayed up to watch along knows, it was really less of a speech and more of a gala show, chock full of guest appearances, awards, frequent declarations of praise by Trump for himself,  ...alternating with his barbed scorn for his Democratic enemies, not to mention his fierce immigrant hatred, especially against Somalians. All of that was interspersed with heart-touching human-interest stories involving Olympic athletes, children, parents, working folks, wounded soldiers, and two centenarian veterans, most of whom appeared to be exceedingly grateful to the Presidential Master of Ceremonies, who appeared exceedingly gratified by their gratitude. There was just so much to take in, all of it the same old excruciatingly predictable, unchanging, perpetually self-aggrandizing Trumpian schtick that we've had playing in our ears and flashing in our eyes for the past ten and a half years. I didn't take most of it in. Except for three times during the show when I found myself sitting up, taking notice, and wondering, now, what's going on here? The first time was when the President began talking up the benefits of some government pharmaceutical program called Trump Rx that, according to Trump, "took prescription drugs from the highest price in the entire world to the lowest." He went on to say, "The result is price differences of 300, 400, 500, 600 percent and more, all available right now at a new website called Trump Rx. gov." (He added that he didn't name the website, likely lest we suspect he had an oversized ego). I had never heard of Trump Rx and was intrigued, so I immediately went to the TrumpRx.gov website to check it out. Here's what I found on the hype-y home page:     However, when I went to the "Browse Medications" page, there were only 43 drugs listed, most of them for fertility, diabetes and weight-loss. Some of the drugs were not very expensive even without the discount,  ...though most were quite expensive even with the discount.  Apparently the way TrumpRx works is, one prints off a coupon from the website.  One then presents the coupon to a participating pharmacy in order to receive the discounted price on one's prescription. One must pay this price out of pocket, as insurance is not accepted with TrumpRx coupons. Nor does TrumpRx cover generic options. Subsequently, the price of the drug is likely to be much cheaper if one has insurance, but TrumpRx coupons are generally meant to be used by the uninsured. Ergo, mayhaps Donald Trump's State of the Union claims about TrumpRx giving Americans the lowest drug prices in the entire world was as inflated as the TrumpRx homepage? The second episode that made me wonder occurred when Trump directed attention to audience member Sage Blair.  Trump introduced Sage Blair as a young woman from Virginia who, when she was 14, school officials sought to transition from a girl to a boy without her parents' knowledge. He told of how Sage ran away from home, was sexually trafficked, then, in Trump's words, "After she was found in a horrific situation in Maryland, a left-wing judge refused to return Sage to her parents because they did not immediately state that their daughter was their son. Sage was thrown into an all boys state home and suffered terribly for a long time." Trump ended by saying that today all of that was behind her because now "Sage is a proud and wonderful young woman with a full ride scholarship to Liberty University." He then asked Sage and her paternal grandmother, Michelle, who has been Sage's legal guardian since she was two, to stand for a round of applause.  Now, one couldn't help - at least, I couldn't help - but notice during most of Trump's tribute to Sage Blair the sadness in their face, their frequent blinking,   ...the brief, inscrutable glance they exchanged with the man sitting next to them.  I wondered what Sage Blair was thinking and feeling. Did they want to be there? Were they there of their own will? Were they trying in their mind to be somewhere or someone else? Were they in fact a "proud and wonderful young woman" for whom their terrible suffering in the past was behind them? Was the life and identity they were now living their choice or was it being forced upon them? Were they receiving whatever mental health care they needed? And who were those two men sitting close next to them who looked like guards? And I mostly wondered what they meant by the little finger clap they gave while the rest of the audience was cheering for them.  I googled "finger clapping" and learned that it signifies the expression "clock it," for which I found two meanings, this one:  ...and this one:  I wondered which meaning Sage Blair intended to communicate? And finally, I wondered about Chief Warrant Officer 5 Eric Slover who during the State of the Union was presented with the Medal of Honor (Which Donald Trump kept erroneously referring to as "The Congressional Medal of Honor"), the highest award given by the United States military. CW5 Slover is an army pilot who was shot several times in the leg and hip while landing the lead helicopter during the January 3 raid of this year that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro. Though seriously wounded, CW5 Slover landed the helicopter, enabling his crew to carry out their mission of overthrowing Maduro and taking him prisoner. When Trump called CW5 Slover to come forward he appeared holding on to a walker beside his smiling wife.  However Slover looked like a prisoner of war, stone faced, his uniform cinched in at the waist and hanging loose on his frame. His stony, hollow-eyed, flat affect didn't change while he received his Medal of Honor,    ...except for once while he was being applauded, when his face showed, for less than a second, a robotic-looking effort at a smile.  And I wondered, what happened to that man? What is going on behind those lightless eyes?  References https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBKYqf7emEo https://trumprx.gov/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8G4eQyjPSM https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/02/invited-an-ex-trans-christian-student-to-the-sotu-yesterday-who-is-she/ https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/us/politics/virginia-trans-student-trump-sotu-guest.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFtxacUUmZ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6S2xTlmGY4
 It wasn't that the thought had never occurred to me that posting blogs critical of Donald Trump and/or his accomplices might be risky. After all, the abuse of power for self dealing and the abuse of power to deal out retribution are twin pillars of the Trump agenda. But I never took too seriously the thought that I might be affected. True, these days my blog posts do tend to be jeremiads against the authoritarianism, misdeeds and cruelty of the MAGA powers that be,      ...still, the collective readership of my blog is, in truth, pretty small. And so I always figured that no matter what I said, my voice was likely hundreds, maybe thousands, of miles below the radar or interest of the Trump MAGAverse. But then a couple of nights ago my hubby Tom and I sat scrolling on our devices through the day's news when he looked up from his reading. "Listen to this," he said. "It says in the New York Times that tech company workers have leaked that the Department of Homeland Security has subpoenaed all the social media sites for the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of people who criticize ICE on social media." Upon hearing this I felt in the middle of my chest a sudden sensation of...something: Fear? Anxiety? Anger? I'd say anxiety was the closest. "No, wait," I said, "that can't be right. Just about everybody I know criticizes ICE on social media. And my blog is on social media. I mean, my blog is social media...isn't it?" "You better read for yourself," said my mate. So I did. Sure enough, there was the article in the Times.  And in multiple other news sources, as well.       I read a few of the articles, which were generally a dissemination of the information published in the Times and stated that the Department of Homeland Security has sent hundreds of administrative subpoenas to Google, Meta, Reddit, Discord and other social media companies demanding the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of users who've posted critical comments about Customs and Immigration Enforcement. But reading a little deeper, I learned that what DHS actually wanted was to find out the identities of the people behind social media accounts that don't have a real person's name attached to them. Such as:    Apparently the social media companies have given the Department of Homeland Security the personal information behind a few of the accounts, which is appalling. Still, I felt a moment of relief after reading that DHS was only after information on people whose names weren't attached to their critical posts. That wouldn't be me. My name is attached to the Facebook account on which I post my blogs. But then it took only another moment for the light to click on in my brain that the reason DHS didn't subpoena the names of the people whose names were already on their social media posts was because...our names were already on our social media posts. In an article in Military.com referenced below, Greg Nojeim, senior counsel and director of the Security and Surveillance Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology said, "The government can use (administrative subpoenas) to compel the disclosure of your personal information even when there is no suspicion that you committed a crime. ICE is apparently using them to silence people who speak out." Which is. of course, the obvious answer to the obvious question of why the Department of Homeland Security wants information on people who criticize ICE: to silence - or do worse to - those of us who speak out. In the same Military.com article there was a related story about a man in the Philadelphia area who, upon reading in the Washington Post about a person seeking asylum from Afghanistan who had been badly treated by the Department of Homeland Security, wrote an email to the DHS urging them to “apply principles of common sense and decency” in its treatment of the asylum seeker. Soon afterwards the man was notified that the Trump administration had issued a subpoena to Google seeking the man's identity and home address. Two weeks later two DHS agents and a police officer showed up at the man's residence and interrogated him. If this isn't proof that we are living in an authoritarian police state, I don't know what is. Still, I wonder - and worry: Is every one of us who has ever posted something negative about ICE on the radar of DHS? All tens of millions of us? Or are we all just little balls in a game of DHS police state roulette? In any case, do we dare to keep speaking up?  References: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/dhs-anti-ice-social-media.html https://www.military.com/daily-news/2026/02/17/dhs-collecting-big-tech-users-personal-data-issuing-subpoenas-ice-related-criticism.html  I know the town of Springfield, Ohio well. That is to say, I knew it well 15 years ago when one of my daughters was a student there at Wittenberg University from 2007-2011. Back then Springfield was a rather down-at-the-heels place, except for the area around the University, from which I imagine Springfield drew a good portion of its financial sustenance. I myself contributed minutely to Springfield's economy during my visits to my daughter, which mayhaps happened a bit more often than was absolutely necessary for a parent to visit their college student after I was introduced to (and subsequently developed a sporadic craving for) several of what I considered to be Springfield's culinary delights: The incomparable subs and fries at the Our Hero Subs;    ...the pizza at the Hickory Inn,    ...though it never made sense to me how a place that served up the standard variety of tasty American fare could also whip up what had to be in the running for the best pizza on the planet. I once asked one of the Hickory House staff what was their secret to making such excellent pizza. They replied, "Oh, we just make the sauce, and grate the cheese..." And that was as much of the secret as they saw fit to reveal. And then there was Schuler's bakery, where the donuts were, if not to die for, at least to travel the hour from Gahanna, where I live, to Springfield.  (Apparently Schuler's has since closed this old location and moved to a new one since my donut days there). But back then Springfield was hemorrhaging population, the life blood of any city, and continued to hemorrhage until, beginning in 2013, Haitians, who had been granted Temporary Protected Status as refugees after the earthquake that further devastated their already impoverished country in 2010, began arriving in Springfield, Ohio. Apparently word had spread among the Haitian refugee community that here was a city offering jobs, affordable housing, and the opportunity to build a new life. And so, in building new lives for themselves, the hard-working Haitian immigrants brought new life to Springfield. They worked in the factories, in the warehouses, in the service industries, in retail,    ...and started a number of new businesses, including restaurants, food trucks, and markets.     And in earning an income, they also spent money locally. They helped revitalize the economy and expand the tax base. They filled the empty houses and increased the flagging student population in the schools. In total around 15,000 Haitians moved to Springfield, Ohio and today make up 25% of the city's population. But now, thanks to Donald Trump's agenda of cruelty and economic recklessness, all that may change for Springfield and its Haitians. As living conditions in Haiti continued to deteriorate and became more dangerous than before the 2010 earthquake, Temporary Protected Status for Haitians was extended by both Presidents Barak Obama and Joe Biden. Donald Trump, on the other hand, actively tried to end TPS for Haitians during all four years of his first presidency, but was continually blocked by the courts. During this his second presidency Trump continues his campaign to send Haitian refugees back to a terrible fate and came very close to succeeding last week. On Trump's orders February 3, 2026 was to be the day that all Haitians in the United States lost their protected status and after this date would no longer be in this country legally. Amid predictions that hoards of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were set to swoop into Springfield and round up the city's Haitians, Springfield's churches and faith groups protested,    ...and our Republican governor Mike DeWine and the mayor Springfield spoke out against ending the Haitians' TPS. As for Ohio's two senators, both Republicans, one, Bernie Moreno, said the Haitians should solve the problem themselves by self-deporting,  ...while the other, Jon Husted, has been on radio silence.  In those days before their legal status was to end, their last days before the ICE agents would come for them, I could see the Haitians of Springfield, desolate, crying, terrified of what the future had in store for them and their families, their children. I imagined this is how it must have been for the final days of the European Jews before they were herded off to the trains that took them to the concentration camps,  ...where they had no better chance of survival than will the Haitians if they are sent back to the violent, lawless, no-man's-land that Haiti has become. Thankfully, on February 2, the day before the Haitians were to lose their TPS, a federal judge stepped in and blocked Trump's order, citing its invalidity on several levels. And though the Trump administration has filed an appeal to the judge's decision, the Haitians of Springfield have at least received a reprieve. They need not fear looking out their windows and seeing ICE agents barreling up their walk or hear them pounding on their door. At least not today. Those of us whose hearts go out to the Haitians are filled with gratitude and hope that their lives - and the life of Springfield, Ohio - may be spared.  As for the others, those who are saying, "Temporary means temporary, send them all back to Haiti now..." Well, I don't understand how people can be so cruel. References:
https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/this-is-good-for-us-patrons-at-springfield-haitian-restaurant-react-to-judge-blocking-end-of-tps-for-haiti/RMXV2EBOMRCVNOQPVCS55SK https://www.statenews.org/government-politics/2026-02-06/ohio-agencies-making-plans-to-help-kids-of-haitians-if-tps-ends-and-ice-surges https://www.dispatch.com/picture-gallery/news/2026/02/02/hundreds-gather-to-support-haitian-immigrants-in-springfield-ohio/88477816007/?link_source=ta_first_comment&taid=69850be2a9c7ef00019d6938&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawPzbWZleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFVRXN3WVdFQTdTajNsdTU4c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHschz3T14qXZFzKFQOqPE0_QVlMWYSjMg_Xp9eikjgtU1K-i5ULCTvPEmvMV_aem_sdQXuzuPVcSZQJOndnr_6w https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2026/02/05/ohio-senators-governor-respond-to-calls-from-brown-to-extend-protections-for-haitians/ https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5725642-ohio-gov-defends-haitian-tps/  Yesterday, Sunday, February 1, in my town of Gahanna, Ohio, our good townsfolk turned out in the 15-degree weather and 12 inches of snow for a demonstration calling for immigration justice.  The exact number of citizens who braved the chill to be part of the Intentional Chain of Empathy, as this peaceful gathering was called, I cannot say; I suppose as many as could fit along the shoveled half mile of sidewalk down our main street, from the Dairy Queen to the Golden China Restaurant.       Among the demonstrators were some of the members of my group of gal pals who refer to ourselves as The Posse.  Though The Posse's principle raison d'être is to get together once a week for brunch and conversation,  ...of late we've taken to showing up at protests around the Columbus area, as we did at a No Kings march last August.  For this protest I spent the day before constructing my sign, the message of which I figured was simple,    ...but to the point,  ...and the amateur artistry of which I figured would be okay from a distance.  There were plenty of signs at the event besides mine, some of them more cries of protest or lamentation,       ...though most were messages of kindness and hope.        Our protest seemed to hearten the drivers-by, as most who passed us gave a honk, a shout-out, or a peace sign. The local police were friendly and helpful, and even a postal truck that passed by gave us a wave and a honk of encouragement. After the protest my friends, my mate and I decided to get some food from the Blue Agave, the Mexican restaurant up the block from our protest location.    Meanwhile, on the same day on the other side of the country, some of my long-distance relatives were among the 15,000 marchers who staged a pro-immigrant, anti-ICE march for two miles along the Strand, the walking path that runs for 22 miles along the Los Angeles oceanfront. The marchers walked from Manhattan Beach to the next community over, Hermosa Beach. My relatives, who were involved in the coordination of the event, sent me some photographs,     ...and videos. We have not yet begun to protest.   One of my favorite social/political commentators is David French,  ...a formerly staunch conservative and evangelical Christian intellectual who these days sounds like a voice crying out in the wilderness in his relentless opposition to the corruption and inhumanity propagated by Donald Trump and the MAGA ideology. I believe his writing must come from the heart, because it always speaks to mine. But David French's commentaries also tend to be informative and illuminating, as was an op ed piece he wrote for the New York Times last week entitled "An Old Theory Helps Explain What Happened to Renee Good." (Published, ironically, a few days before the similar death of Alex Pretti also at the hands of ICE agents). The theory Mr. French referred to in his article was one put forth in 1941 by a German Jewish labor lawyer named Ernst Fraenkel in his book, "The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship."  Though Ernst Fraenkel fled Germany in 1938 and emigrated to the United States in 1939, he had lived enough years under Adolph Hitler's Nazi regime to have formulated his observations as a Jew in a country where those considered enemies of the Nazi ideology - this included all Jews - were denied any civil rights and so could be oppressed, assaulted, killed, or dragged off to the concentration camps by the Gestapo, Hitler's brutal secret police who operated above the law and without accountability. Meanwhile, for the rest of the German population, that is, most Germans, life went on day to day in a normal way under protection of the law as it had always done, business got taken care of, things were fine. Too bad what was happening to those others. Here, then, was Fraenkel's dual state: a country where part of the population lives a seemingly normal, stable, law-governed existence which he called the "normative state," alongside others who are delegated to what he called the "prerogative state," which "exercises unlimited arbitrariness and violence unchecked by any legal guarantees.” This was Fraenkel's description of how dictatorships in general, and Nazi Germany in particular, functioned. David French contends that the precautions that were set up by our founding fathers to protect our country from falling under an authoritarian rule have failed in the era of Donald Trump. "And so," he writes, "we’ve slowly but surely created the mechanisms of 'the dual state'...you can see the emerging dual state in action in Minneapolis right now." French then offers that Renee Good died as she did because when an ICE agent began circling her car she thought she was still in the normative state, where, as Mr. French points out, "your life almost never depends on immediate and unconditional compliance with police commands." Renee Good had no idea that in her encounter with that ICE agent she had crossed over a line from the normative to the prerogative state where, French writes, "you can be shot dead recklessly, irresponsibly and perhaps even illegally, and no one will pay the price. Your killer might even be rewarded with more than $1 million in donations from friends and allies." Of course, David French could have - and probably would have - said that Alex Pretti lost his life two weeks after Renee Good lost hers because in trying to help a woman who had been pepper sprayed in the face by ICE agents he, like Ms. Good, also crossed over from the normative state to the prerogative state. I expect it's good to have thinkers like David French - and Ernst Fraenkel - provide us with the words to help us shape and clarify our our own thoughts in these troubled times. But why, in 2026 in the United States of America, should we have to be thinking such thoughts?  References:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/18/opinion/renee-good-ice-immunity.html https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-dual-state-a-contribution-to-the-theory-of-dictatorship-ernst-fraenkel/53d8d232e332b285?ean=9781616190699&next=t&next=t&affiliate=12476  Let them call me a pearl-clutching liberal snowflake. Let them snicker that I'm suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Let them lob at me every sling, arrow, jeer, sneer, burn and verbal dig in the MAGA quiver. I don't care, I want it known that I condemn Donald Trump. I want it out there on the internet from where, it's said, nothing ever truly disappears. I want anyone who looks now or in the future to see that I am part of the anti-Trump resistance. Not that I've likely done anything that qualifies as resistance, other than campaigning for Trump's opponents, voting against him and the Republican party, the soul of which he now owns, writing my blog, occasionally writing a letter to my senators, occasionally attending a demonstration,  ...carrying a whistle, believing what I believe, and helping those who believe as I do to keep the faith, just as they help me to.  And in truth, I know that it doesn't even make any sense in this country - at this point, at least - to talk about an anti-Trump resistance movement, since - at this point, at least - we live in a democracy and are free to elect our leaders, so that our leaders represent the will of the majority of the people - at this point, at least - even if I'm not among the majority who put Donald Trump into office. In other words, Trump was elected President fairly and squarely by the American people. Donald Trump is what the majority of Americans wanted. And, for all I know, continue to want. But I don't. I want it known that I am against what Donald Trump has done to our country, how he has turned it into his own personal kingdom for him to rule as he pleases, for his own profit, pleasure, gratification, and vengeance; to rule selfishly, unjustly, cruelly, without regard for our Constitution, our rule of law, our cherished traditions and institutions, our freedoms, our well-being, our healthcare, without morality or human decency. I want it known that I condemn Donald Trump for unleashing on cities whose leaders and populace displease him a cruel army of ICE agents, drunk on their own power, stripped of their souls and humanity and who subsequently take sadistic pleasure, while dressed as Terminator cyborgs, in terrorizing immigrants and citizens alike.  (I want it known that I condemn Donald Trump for making me afraid to write these words even though I know they'll only be read by a very small number of people. Because in the United States of America today, in spite of our constitutional freedoms of speech and of the press, anyone, no matter how obscure, needs to be afraid of speaking out against Donald Trump). I want it known that I condemn Donald Trump for the havoc he's wreaked on our international relationships and our standing in the world. Like the Biblical rich man in fine clothes who feasted while refusing to share even crumbs with sick and starving Lazarus, Donald Trump has cut off food and healthcare aid from our country, the richest on the planet, to our suffering brothers and sisters in the poorest countries.  Donald Trump has turned our best friends and allies into enemies and embraced the world's worst tyrants, murderers, and aggressors.    I condemn Trump's piracy in the Caribbean and his invasion of Venezuela in order to steal that country's oil. I condemn his threats against Cuba, Mexico, Columbia, Gaza, and Canada. But today, January 19, 2026, what I most of all condemn is Donald Trump's lust to own Greenland.  Because this lust of his is about to get us into a war, either a trade war or, God forbid, a real war. Trump has already declared a trade war to begin on February 1 in the form of 10% tariffs on goods from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland if he is not handed over Greenland by then. Europe is already planning retaliation in the form of an extremely destructive economic weapon called their Trade Bazooka - developed to use against China or Russia - which would essentially cut off all meaningful trade with the United States. Who would have thought that it would be not China or Russia, but us that would be the aggressor nation that would bring Europe to the brink of the unthinkable? But it's us, the United States of America, that has Greenlanders shivering in fear and likely the rest of Europe, too. And for that matter, me, too. I'm afraid, because I believe that if Donald Trump fires the first volley in an economic war against Europe that degenerates into a real war, there will come a day of reckoning for our country when the rest of the world will band together against us to stop American aggression, and to this end those who were once our good allies will bring the war to our shores. And I believe if that terrible day should arrive, the day the rest of the world comes after us to pay for Donald Trump's transgressions, then, unlike in the Bible, the wheat won't be separated from the chaff, but we'll all burn together, whether we were for or against Donald Trump. We'll all suffer, just as all the Germans suffered, whether they supported or condemned Adolph Hitler, when Hitler's Reich finally crumbled under Allied bombs and armies. Still, today I want it known where I stand.  References https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/18/business/europe-greenland-trump-tariffs-trade https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-administration-news-01-19-26  On Sunday, January 3, at 6:59 am I was sitting in my favorite writing chair in front of a cozy fire writing in blissful ignorance a blog about leftover Christmas cookies. At 7 am my spouse turned on the radio to listen to the news and my visions of sugarplums suddenly turned into visions of a shock attack, bombs, explosions, and squadrons of helicopters from which hordes of foreign soldiers rappelled to the earth. I knew that it was the United States that had attacked Venezuela, American planes that had dropped the bombs on Caracas, American cyber units that had sabotaged Venezuela's electrical infrastructure and plunged its civilians into darkness, and that it was American troops that had rappelled from helicopters into their capitol and captured their president and their country, and for what reason.  Still, for a moment in my mind it wasn't Venezuela but my country the planes were flying over, my country the bombs were falling on, my country that was without power, my country that the foreign soldiers were rappelling down from their helicopters to attack. And I was seized with a moment of fear. Because even before the attack on Venezuela Donald Trump had been threatening to seize, acquire, or take military action against a number of countries, among them Greenland, Canada, Panama, Gaza, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Iran. And when I heard that Trump, of his own volition, without so much as consulting Congress, had started a war with Venezuela, I thought, this is just the beginning. He won't stop with one country. He'll go right down the line, using America's superior military strength to overpower and vanquish country after country until the world finally unites to fight back back against us, and then the day will come when we Americans will look up and see helicopters in our skies with foreign soldiers rappelling down. I've thought that thought more and more often since January 3, as since then Donald Trump has doubled down on his determination to personally own Greenland, and to accomplish this goal either, in his his words, the easy way or the hard way. Today's meeting in Washington D.C. among the Danish, Greenlandic and American (that is to say, JD Vance and Marco Rubio) delegations resulted in no change in Trump's ultimatum that he will own Greenland, nor in any lessening in Greenland's resistance to his ultimatum. And Denmark's Defense Ministry today announced that its troops will fire on any enemy, including the American Army, that tries to take Greenland by force. In the meantime Donald Trump has cut off oil to Cuba, exacerbating the economic hardship of the Cuban people, and he's already talked about installing his Secretary of State Marco Rubio as that country's new president. Trump continues to talk up taking military action against Colombia and Mexico, but front and center, right next to his threats to invade Greenland, are his threats of an imminent military strike against Iran. I wonder if, when Adolph Hitler and his allies were raining down death and terror in Europe, Asia and Africa, they, as military superpowers, felt safe and impervious to conquest because oceans separated their territories from the United States, which was, in any case, a mid-level military power at best in the late 1930's and early 1940's. According to the 12/11/2014 post on the U.S. Army website: "'The U.S. Army went into World War II with an end-strength of just 189,000, ranked about seventeenth in effectiveness among the armies of the world, just behind Romania,' wrote Cristopher R. Gable in the U.S. Army Center of Military History publication: 'The U.S. Army GHQ Maneuvers of 1941.'" (https://www.army.mil/article/139620/americas_entry_into_world_war_ii_remembered_73_years_later). But that was before Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor propelled the United States into a massive and unprecedented production of military equipment, a well-answered call for military enlistment, and the will to once again fight to make the world safe for democracy. I wonder how many countries Donald Trump's armies will have to invade before the day comes when an alliance of world powers decides to make the world safe for democracy by crossing the oceans and landing on our shores. References: https://www.google.com/search?q=Which+countries+had+Donald+Trump+talked+a+out+conquering%3F&rlz=1C1OPNX_enUS1166US1166&oq=Which+countries+had+Donald+Trump+talked+a+out+conquering%3F&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRiPAjIHCAIQIRiPAtIBCjE4ODkzajBqMTWoAgywAgHxBZL1JTZ-Fmmv8QWS9SU2fhZprw&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/article/poll-62-of-americans-would-oppose-us-military-action-in-greenland-215222605.html https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/03/trump-venezela-mexico-00710063 https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/10/politics/us-will-take-greenland-the-hard-way-if-it-cant-do-it-the-easy-way-trump-says https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01/14/us/trump-news?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20260114&instance_id=169279&nl=breaking-news®i_id=57152138&segment_id=213658&user_id=bd7dcba13f30625c4d8a54f9f4eaa28e https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/01/what-would-trumps-threatened-strikes-colombia-mexico-or-cuba-achieve https://www.army.mil/article/139620/americas_entry_into_world_war_ii_remembered_73_years_later  Multiple videos have turned up of the shooting of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross last Wednesday, January 7. Most of the videos were taken on cellphones of witnesses. One of these evidential videos was taken by Ross himself on the cellphone which he held in his hand while circling Renee Good's car. He continued holding his phone and recording even while he shot her three times. There've been all kinds of back and forth from opposite sides of the political aisle on what the videos tell us happened, and yet with all the captured angles and points of view and all the subsequent analysis and some rushed conclusions up to date, none of the visual footage actually shows how close Jonathan Ross was to Renee Good's car when she began pulling away, or whether he was in danger of being run over, or, what appears to be the most important element, whether Renee Good's car made contact with Jonathan Ross's body, and if so, when. Me, I don't get why someone doesn't just ask Jonathan Ross whether or not he got hit by the car. Or maybe the FBI investigators did ask him, but don't want to share his answer in case it does nothing to support the conclusion required of them by Donald Trump and his clownish vassals, FBI Director Kash Patel and Department of Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem.  But there are things that the videos do tell us, things so obvious that that you don't have to study the frames with a stop-action camera or a magnifying glass to see them. What the videos tell us is that ICE agent Jonathan Ross was poorly trained for the job he was supposed to be doing. According to Department of Homeland Security policy, officers are required to try and de-escalate tensions in potentially volatile situations. But Ross and his fellow agents did exactly the opposite when, instead of allowing Renee Good to leave the scene, they surrounded her car and ordered her to exit. Also per DHS policy, officers are in general forbidden to shoot into a moving vehicle because shooting into a moving vehicle may kill the driver but won't make the moving vehicle stop (Duh). The vehicle then becomes a two-ton missile careening out of control that endangers lives and property.  Tragic as the shooting of Renee Good was, one can only shutter at the thought of how much more tragic it could have been, had her car crashed into humans instead of parked cars. The video footage further tells us that here is a law enforcement officer who knew no better than to record on his cell phone with one hand while shooting his gun with the other, cowboy style. And here's a question that the video begs: if Ross had time to pull out his weapon, why didn't he instead use the time to jump away from the slowly moving car? The videos tell us that Ross and his comrades were either ignorant of or dismissive of the basic law enforcement training that instructs officers never to stand in front of or behind a moving vehicle, don't grab a door handle, and don't reach into a car.  I imagine that smashing a car window then reaching into the car is such unthinkable behavior for a law enforcement officer that no purveyor of police policy ever even thought to include forbidding it in the training manual. But it was this very behavior on Jonathan Ross's part - smashing a car window then reaching inside to try and unlock the door - that caused him to be dragged and seriously injured just last June. Which knowledge gives us the big picture of what it was we actually saw in the video footage. What we saw was a man who underneath his mask and his Kevlar and his weapon and his authority was afraid. A man who was perhaps still suffering from PTSD. A man who has been indoctrinated that these people are the enemy.  We saw a man who was angry that two women, one of them in a car,  ...were showing him no respect in spite of his boots and his Kevlar and his mask and his gun and his authority and his masculinity.  What the videos tell us is that this is what our country has degenerated into.  Reference:
https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/09/us/ice-shooting-minneapolis-renee-good-cell-phone-invs https://www.newsweek.com/jonathan-ross-ice-agent-shooting-minneapolis-minnesota-11332093 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/01/08/ice-shooting-minneapolis-use-of-force/88082677007/ https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-02/23_0206_s1_use-of-force-policy-update.pdf https://www.justsecurity.org/128498/dhs-doj-cbp-policy-force-vehicles/#:~:text=or%20other%20Conveyances-,a.,solely%20to%20disable%20moving%20vehicles. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/01/10/minneapolis-shooting-ice-officers-training-policies/ |
"Tropical Depression"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTPN7NYY Archives
March 2026
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