Archives for category: Trump

Joyce Vance is a former federal prosecutor who writes a terrific blog called Civil Discourse. In this post, she summarizes the major political events of the past week.

She writes:

What happened:

After a hearing Tuesday morning, Judge Christopher Cooper blocked the Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees from returning Trump’s name to the building. “Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing.” That includes proposals to add “renovated and restored by Donald J. Trump” on the main building or renaming the campus the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”

You can read Judge Cooper’s full opinion here.

Why it matters:

The administration has acted in bad faith on this one, stretching the court’s patience thin. In today’s order, the Judge noted that “the drama at the Kennedy Center continues.” The administration flirted with defying a court order when it delayed the removal of Trump’s name after the first court order. It then draped the front of the building in an apparent childish move akin to Trump announcing that if his name couldn’t be there, no one else’s would be visible. But there was absolutely no justification for Trump’s more recent efforts to get the Board to return his name to the front of the Center after the Judge had already entered an injunction. Had the administration moved forward, it would have been flagrant defiance of a court order. 

It matters when a court tells this particular litigant that it meant what it said and that compliance isn’t optional. “To obtain relief enforcing a prior order, a plaintiff must demonstrate that ‘a defendant has not complied with a judgment entered against it,’” Judge Cooper wrote. Then he ordered the relief the plaintiff requested—enforcing the injunction that the President refuses to comply with and sending a message that he had no intention of letting Trump get away with the semantic gymnastics when he’d attempted to put his name back up with President Kennedy’s.

What comes next:

Of course there will be an appeal. But the oxygen has been sucked out of the room. Trump cannot put his name back on President Kennedy’s memorial. The distraction value of this case is over. 

This decision, like so many others, was a no-brainer legally. The case has so little merit that one wouldn’t even expect a neutral Supreme Court to touch it on certiorari; they’d just let the Court of Appeals decision stand. Unless the Supreme Court wants to wake up one morning to discover they have been rebranded as the “Donald J. Trump-Improved Supreme Court” they would do well to follow Judge Cooper’s lead. 

But there’s still a cautionary tale: the destruction of the East Wing. We know how Trump operates. The lawyers may need to go back to court to seek an injunction to prevent him from tearing the Kennedy Center down. Today he told the press, “For me to go and fix it and subsidize it, I think the Trump administration should have recognition. If we don’t do that, it’s going to close and get ripped down.” It doesn’t get much more clear than that.

Tuesday, after the Court’s decision, Trump posted on Truth Social, making it sound like the Kennedy Center is falling apart. It is an older building, and it always needs some work. Just because Trump happens to be in the White House when repairs are done doesn’t mean his name belongs on it. Adam Klasfeld nailed it when he wrote: “Congress appropriated $250M+ in taxpayer money last year for Trump’s wish-list renovations for the Kennedy Center, inserting no language about holding the whole thing hostage if it’s not a shrine to Trump.”

But you get the tenor of how irrational Trump is about this whole affair in a lengthy Tuesday Truth Social post:

Shockingly, a Judge appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, Christopher Cooper, ruled that The Kennedy Center, which was going to close in early July for largescale renovations and construction due to years of neglect, decay, and poor maintenance, and which was to be transformed by the Trump Administration into the Finest Facility of its kind, anywhere in the World, is not allowed to close for these renovations, which would not be possible to properly do without such a closure. Additionally, Judge Cooper ruled that the 36 Member Board of Trustees, which unanimously voted to add the name “TRUMP” onto the former Kennedy Center, making it The Trump Kennedy Center, did not have the right to do such an addition, and the name, “TRUMP,” must be removed.

Judge Cooper and the Radical Left would rather see it DIE than have President Trump transform it into something that everyone could be proud of, much as I have done, in many cases, throughout my life, and recently, with all of the construction, renovations, and ‘fix ups’ that we have completed.” He concludes in vintage Trump fashion: “There has never been a President of the United States who has been treated so unfairly by the Courts as I but, that’s OK, I will continue to do, what is considered to be, a great job for the wonderful people of our Country.

You may not have had a constitutional crisis over the naming of the Kennedy Center on your bingo card for this year, but here we are. Any of the actions Trump seems to be contemplating here would run afoul of the court’s order.

Also Worth Noting Today:

Oral argument took place yesterday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in a case involving whether Lindsey Halligan, a Trump attorney with no experience as a prosecutor, was properly put in place as his US Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. (Halligan was appointed after the incumbent in that position was forced out in the debacle over the first—and now dismissed—indictment of Jim Comey.) The lower court’s ruling that Halligan was appointed illegally also led to the dismissal of federal charges against New York AG Letitia James. At least two of the judges on the panel seemed inclined to believe that the administration had broken the rules and the lower court’s decision should stand. 

In other news, Laura Weiss at Punchbowl reported on Kash Patel’s Tuesday outing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, noting that it became “incredibly tense – not just between Patel and Dems.” Senators Grassley and Booker tussled after Patel insulted Vermont Senator Peter Welch, calling him “a complete and total fraud” during questioning. Patel accused Democrats of “attacking him for campaign ads.” But it got worse for Patel, who all but begged Grassley to end the hearing during questioning from Senator Adam Schiff. That line of questioning recalled Schiff’s time as a federal prosecutor—he knows how to handle a difficult witness. Schiff grilled Patel about firing every agent who worked on the Mar-a-Lago investigation (reminder: agents don’t get a choice which matters they work on; they’re assigned). 

Schiff to Patel: “I will remind you, director, because you probably need reminding, that while this Congress is not going to investigate the wrongful termination of potentially hundreds of agents, the next Congress will. And you have an obligation as FBI director to ensure that none of the [documents] are destroyed.” Patel, who reportedly tried to pack up his things and leave, appealed to Grassley for help: “I would appreciate it if you concluded this hearing.”

Although Patel’s exchange with Louisiana Senator John Kennedy over bestiality and FBI hiring garnered the most media attention, the more important exchange was the one with Welch, who accused Patel of being “more than willing” to use the FBI to advance Trump’s personal grievances over election losses, saying, “My concern is that this means what you are willing to do for the president in this year’s midterm elections that the president is already saying are going to be rigged if he loses.” He asked Patel about sending agents to the polls and whether he would promise to “not in any way interfere in the will of the American people when they go to the polls in November.” Patel responded, “I have pledged unequivocally that I will not participate in your charade of lies.” That’s not exactly a no.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump seems to have found more crazy. Frantic for a new distraction, he is accusing the Biden administration of mishandling the investigation into one of the assassination attempts on him in Pennsylvania. You’ve just got to read this one to believe it.

This is what we can expect between now and the midterms, and likely beyond, especially if Trump is perceived as the cause of Democratic gains. It’s Steve Bannon’s “flood the zone with sh*t.” Remember that they want you to feel overloaded and incapable of coping. Take some time for yourself, and then remember we have work to do. There will be another “No Kings” event on October 17 to help us get out the vote, and we will be okay because we have each other.

I’m grateful you’re here with me at Civil Discourse. If you’re already a paid subscriber, thank you! If you’re not, today is a great day to become one and support a community that believes well-informed citizens can save a democracy.

We’re in this together,

Joyce

It is time for the Trump-appointed members of the Board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to be fired by Congress or to resign.

They have failed in their most fundamental duty, the duty to protect the function and reputation of the institution they serve.

Being a board member is not a perk. It’s a responsibility.

Above all, board members are responsible to safeguard the institution.

Before Trump, the Center had a bipartisan board and a nonpartisan reputation. It was dedicated to celebrating the best of American art and culture.

One doesn’t become a board member to destroy the reputation of an institution.

One doesn’t become a board member to destroy the finances of an institution.

The Kennedy Center was built as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy. He had a singular interest in the arts. He frequently invited artists and poets to speak and perform in the White House.

The board of the Kennedy Center appointed by Trump has been slavishly devoted to turning the memorial into a center honoring both Trump and Kennedy.

They violated their oath and their fiduciary duty from the beginning.

Their rank politicization of the Center drove artists and performers away. It drove away the Washington National Opera. It drove the National Symphony Orchestra to financial ruin.

It drove away the audiences who loved the Center and never thought of it as a partisan performance space. Ticket sales plummeted.

The board fought in the courts to keep Trump’s name on memorial, where it did not belong.

The Trump board repeatedly lost in court; a federal judge concluded that Congress named the Center and only Congress could change its name.

So the board has now decided to close the Center, and Trump has said he will block funding for the Center’s renovation unless his name is put on the facade. He wants to share the Kennedy memorial.

It is not his to share, anymore than the Lincoln Memorial or the Jefferson Memorial.

The board has joined Trump in desecrating the Kennedy Center.

The members of the board appointed by Trump are responsible for this mess.

They should resign or be fired by Congress.

For some of us, it is a delightful surprise when the U.S. Supreme Court rules against a request by the Trump administration. We were stunned when Justice Brett Kavanaugh rejected Missouri’s mid-term gerrymander and was backed by SCOTUS.

But nonetheless we worried about how SCOTUS would respond to Trump’s attempt to give the Postal Service control of voting. The Constitution is clear about the power of the states to regulate their elections. The Trump lawyers treated this radical shift of power as a minor regulatory adjustment. It was not. It was a power grab.

Ian Millhiser, senior correspondent for Vox, wrote:

On Monday evening, the Supreme Court handed down its long-awaited decision in United States Postal Service v. California — the case involving President Donald Trump’s attempt to sabotage voting by mail in the United States.

If Trump’s attack on mailed ballots had succeeded, it would have given a significant advantage to Republicans in the upcoming midterms because Democrats were much more likely to vote by mail than Republicans in the last several US election cycles.

The decision is a rout. Trump didn’t just lose; the Court’s brief order slips in a line indicating that Trump exceeded his authority and cannot implement such an attack on voting by mail under any circumstances. Not one member of the Court, including the dissenting justices, argues that Trump had the power to shut down voting by mail in the way he attempted to. Trump, in other words, found a line that even this Supreme Court would not let him cross.

The decision in USPS is also the second Supreme Court decision in less than a week that shuts down a Republican Party effort to skew the 2026 midterms in its favor. Last week, the Court ruled that the state of Missouri must use the same congressional maps it used in 2024 (which elected two Democrats), instead of new maps that were expected to elect seven Republicans and only one Democrat.

All of this, from a Court where Republicans hold six of nine seats, and where that Republican majority is often unafraid to go out on a limb to benefit the GOP and its leaders. This is, after all, the same Court that held that Trump is allowed to use the powers of the presidency to commit crimes.

So what’s going on?

The short answer is that, as the Court moves rightward, the mix of cases that reaches the Supreme Court also changes. Liberals and Democrats — or, at least, savvy liberals and Democrats — stop bringing lawsuits that rest on legal theories that right-leaning judges are unlikely to accept. Republicans, meanwhile, grow more brazen and start bringing cases that would be summarily rejected by a less friendly bench. And red-state lawmakers decide to roll the dice on laws that would be immediately declared unconstitutional if the federal courts were less Republican.

As Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan wrote after the Court (despite its Republican majority) had an unusually liberal term in 2015, “the court’s recent decisions may reflect a change in the cases being considered by the court rather than a shift in the preferences of the justices.”

Eventually, however, lawyers and policymakers who raise dubious legal theories or who enact clearly illegal policies will do something that is so beyond the pale that the justices will start to push back, and that’s what happened in USPS. Republican lawyers and policymakers will undoubtedly make more attempts to skew the midterms in the coming weeks. At the very least, the USPS decision shows that there are some limits to what this Court will tolerate.

Trump lost, badly

Trump’s attack on voting by mail wasn’t just illegal; it also imposed such heavy burdens on state election officials so close to the 2026 election that it likely would have been impossible for many states to comply with Trump’s new policy.

USPS concerned a wide range of new restrictions on mailed ballots that the Trump administration announced in late August, just weeks before states needed to start mailing those ballots to voters. Among other things, the new rules required states to mail ballots in envelopes that include several federally mandated design features. These envelopes were to be preapproved by a federal official, and the Postal Service would refuse to deliver ballots that do not comply.

The new rules also required state officials to enter certain voter data into an online platform that doesn’t actually exist yet, but that the Trump administration has insisted will be available anytime now.

Many of the new rules appeared designed to make it impossible for states to distribute ballots by mail. One new requirement, for example, was that mail ballot envelopes must be individually scanned in a process that the Trump administration claimed will take “less than a minute per mailpiece.”

But, as several states that sued to block the rules pointed out in their complaint, the state of California alone needs to mail 23 million ballots to voters. So that adds up to as much as “23 million minutes…or more than 43 years” that state officials would need to spend just to comply with one small part of the new regulations.

Trump had claimed that vague statutes that permit the Postal Service to adopt rules governing the “collection, handling, transportation, delivery, forwarding, returning, and holding of mail” or to make rules “as may be necessary in the execution of its functions” allow him to effectively shut down voting by mail throughout the United States.

Broadly speaking, the Court could have blocked these new requirements in two ways. They could have either concluded, as several lower courts already have, that the Trump administration lacks the legal authority to issue the new rules. Alternatively, the Court could have concluded that it would not be “equitable” to allow the new rules to go into effect during the 2026 election, given the high likelihood that states could not comply with them.

A majority of the justices, however, decided to go with both options. Though the Court’s order is brief — only three sentences long — it states both that Trump is “unlikely to succeed on the merits” of his claim that the new rules are legal, and also that “the equitable factors applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court do not favor” Trump.

Translated from the legalese, that means that most of the justices concluded both that the new rules cannot be implemented in 2026, but also that they most likely cannot be used in any election because the Trump administration lacks the authority to implement them.

Justice Samuel Alito is the Court’s most reliable Republican Party partisan, and so he did write a dissent, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, that would allow Trump’s attack on mailed ballots to take effect. But it’s notable that even Alito doesn’t try to argue that Trump’s rule is legal. Instead, Alito makes a convoluted procedural argument that, he claims, allows Trump to dodge judicial review of his new rules — at least for now.

Briefly, Alito argues that federal law makes it relatively easy for plaintiffs to challenge Postal Service rules governing “the mailability of matter,” but much harder to challenge rules that do not concern what can be mailed. He also claims that Trump’s new rules do not count as restrictions on “mailability,” even though those rules would forbid the Postal Service from delivering ballots that do not comply with a labyrinth of new restrictions.

Alito, in other words, is clearly much more willing to excuse weak arguments from the leader of his own political party than are many of his colleagues. But the biggest takeaway from the USPS decision is that not all of the Court’s Republicans are incapable of shame.

The Court’s Republican majority is extraordinarily tolerant of Trump’s antics. They gave him the right to commit crimes. They ruled that Trump may order the Justice Department to bring “sham” investigations and prosecutions against his perceived enemies. They’ve largely immunized ICE officers from the law, and blessed “Kavanaugh stops” that target suspected immigrants because of their race.

But there is apparently still a line that most of the Republican justices will not allow Trump to cross. And shutting down voting by mail a couple of months before an election crosses that line.

President Trump wants to put his name on the performing arts center established as a memorial to the assassinated President. A federal judge said no. Congress named the building and only Congress may change its name.

The board tried again, determined to acknowledge Trump for the work he had not yet performed to renovate and repair the building. Trump wants a legacy, even if it means adding his name to a memorial for another president. Trump was a young man when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Trump must have thought it would be impressive to make himself a co-equal of Kennedy.

Today, the same federal judge told the board that it still could not put Trump’s name on the building.

The Washington Post reported:

Washington  — A federal judge again blocked the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ Board of Trustees from adding President Trump’s name on the building on Tuesday, finding that a proposed resolution to add Mr. Trump’s name to the building “bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted.”

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper sided with Rep. Joyce Beatty, a board member who sued last year over Mr. Trump’s changes to the Kennedy Center. Beatty, an Ohio Democrat, argued that the board’s recent efforts to recognize the president violate federal law, and her legal team asked Cooper to issue emergency relief blocking the changes.

“Defendants are hereby enjoined from inscribing “renovated and restored by Donald J. Trump” on the main building or renaming the campus the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza,” Cooper wrote in a 22-page opinion. “Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing. The board resolution bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted.”

The board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts may go bankrupt as soon as tomorrow. The only way to avoid bankruptcy, the board says, is to put Trump’s name back on the building so he will save it.

The board was hand-picked by Trump right after he returned to office.

This is the definition of chutzpah. He destroyed the Kennedy Center by taking personal control of it, naming it for himself, and driving it into the ground, as he has repeatedly done to multiple businesses before he became president. He bankrupted six casinos, as well as Trump Airlines, Trump University, and a long list of Trump–branded items, like Trump wines, Trump steaks, Trump vodka, Trump magazine, and various other failed ventures.

Make no mistake. No other president has packed the board with his cronies, who named him chair of the board. The board immediately put his name on the Center, making it the Trump-Kennedy Center.

As soon as he politicized the Kennedy Center, its reputation was tarnished. Artists and performers canceled, ticket sales plummeted, the National Opera moved out, the National Symphony went into financial crisis.

A federal judge ordered the board to remove Trump’s name. Congress named it; only Congress could change its name. The board reluctantly removed his name but has not removed the tarps covering the Center’s original name.

And now, the board says the Center will be bankrupt unless Trump’s name is restored!

He destroyed it. Only he can save it.

With the billions of dollars he and his family have friends have profited from crypto and other deals in the past year, maybe they will.

But as long as his name is attached to the Center and his board controls it, it will be shunned by the nation’s leading performers. It can’t buy back its tarnished reputation.

Highway robbery.

Andrew Tobias is a writer and a financial whiz whose insights about politics are worth reading.

He wrote today:

Seriously!*  

Because if it’s a good idea to hand everybody a check for $5,000, isn’t it twice as good an idea to hand everybody $10,000?

That’s what all our candidates should promise to do if we win the House and Senate!

If Trump thinks $10,000 is too much, he can simply promise to veto or pare it back when we pass it.  Stingy Don.

When the press asks where we plan to get all that money to give away, we can say:

“The same place Trump got the money to give everybody the $2,000 checks he promised the last time.”

And when the press pushes back, noting that he never did give anyone those promised $2,000 checks, we can say, “Well . . . duh!”

Or we can say, “Don’t worry, we have the concept of a plan.”

Or we can say, “We’re going to get every penny of it by raising tax rates on corporations and billionaires and by closing tax loopholes that only benefit the rich.”  (Which would be the only defensible way to get it.)

Or we can say, “Look.  Obviously, we’re no more serious about this than Trump is.  He just dangles it out there as a bribe, as he dangled giving everyone “terrific health care at a tiny fraction of the cost.”  Or dangled “lower prices on Day One.”  Or promised to cherish his first wife “until death did them part.”  And his second.  And his third.

Once he gets what he wants, what does he care?  He breaks his promises on virtually everything, every time.  (He did close the border; but is he really deporting just the worst of the worst?)

On the remote chance he’s serious about the $5,000, where would he get it?

Clearly not from taxing billionaires or corporations.  

He’d just add it to the National Debt.  Because if Republicans have proved anything since Reagan began ballooning it, it’s that they are the “borrow and spend”party.  Forty trillion?  Fifty trillion?  Who cares, so long as they can cut taxes on the wealthy donors who keep them in power.  

His other reason for dangling this phony bribe is to deflect attention.  

From the Epstein files.  From groceries and gas.  From the millions about to lose health insurance.  From the rural hospitals soon to close.  From his staggering corruption.  From his disastrous war.  

Tobias also noted that the Democrat running for Senate in Kansas was endorsed not only by its Democratic governor but by a former Republican governor.

Kansas’s two-term Democratic governor has endorsed Hamilton — obviously — but get this:  Former two-term Republican Governor Bill Graves just endorsed him, too. 


For the last six years, Sen. Roger Marshall has turned his back on Kansas. In contrast, Adam Hamilton stands as a bulwark of kindness, humility and service to others. It is for those reasons, and many more, that I believe Kansas should send Adam Hamilton to the U.S. Senate, and I am proud to endorse him. . .

As an ob-gyn, Senator Marshall sued 300 patients and 81 were arrested.

What a cruel, heartless man.

Heather Cox Richardson writes about an important and devastating turn in Trump’s disastrous war on Iran. The Houthis have captured a key port that enables them to target the transit of oil from the Red Sea. This could drive the cost of oil even higher than it is today, which inflates the cost of most other products.

Think about it: Trump is unqualified to lead the nation into war. He never served, and he has no relevant knowledge or experience. He doesn’t trust American intelligence services, and he has fired top advisors. Pete Hegseth is totally unqualified for his position. He served, but his head is full of nonsense about “manliness” and “the warrior ethic.” He has fired the military’s top generals and admirals.

These two incompetents have dragged us into a war without end.

Heather Cox Richardson describes an ominous development:

We woke up today to news that Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militants have taken control of the city and seaport of Mocha and much of the shoreline of the Red Sea near the Bab el-Mandeb strait, another chokepoint for world trade including trade in oil. With the Strait of Hormuz largely closed, Saudi Arabia has relied for seagoing transport on the Red Sea route that empties into the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.

As Diana Roy of the Council on Foreign Relations wrote in July, the Red Sea is one of the most important routes for global shipping. It carries twelve to fifteen percent of the global maritime trade every year, worth about $1 trillion. The waterway extends about 1,400 miles from the Suez Canal—which connects it to the Mediterranean Sea—at the northern end to the Bab El-Mandeb strait in the south.

The Iran-backed Houthis are in a struggle against the Saudi Arabia–backed Yemeni government. A fragile truce has been in place since 2022, but clashes between the two forces have escalated for weeks, and on Tuesday, September 8, Houthi attacks on Saudi targets started fires at oil facilities and wounded more than 70 people.

The Yemeni government told Reuters that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have guided the Houthi advance, and according to Zachary Cohen, Katie Bo Lillis, and Kylie Atwood of CNN, U.S. officials think that hundreds of IRGC officers are currently in Yemen working with the Houthis to shut down the Bab el-Mandeb. The journalists note that CNN has previously reported that in case U.S. negotiations were unsuccessful, Iran had planned an economic “nuclear option”: closing the Bab el-Mandeb.

Cohen, Lillis, and Atwood reported this afternoon that more than 100 U.S. military advisors are in Saudi Arabia as part of a new joint forces command, providing the Saudis with intelligence and helping them find Houthi targets.

The sources who told the journalists about the joint effort emphasized that the U.S. routinely shares intelligence with the Saudis and that it is neither participating directly in the strikes nor providing operational support. Still, U.S. airstrikes on the Houthis in 2025 killed 153 civilians and wounded 243 others in Yemen in 2025.

The price of oil jumped to $109 a barrel, and U.S. gasoline rose to an average of about $4.28 a gallon. GasBuddy said the national average price of diesel had hit $6.00 for the first time in history. Just a year ago, the national average was about $3.70.

GasBuddy issued a statement, saying: “While gasoline gets the headlines, diesel is the fuel that moves the economy, powering the freight trucks, trains, agricultural equipment, and construction machinery behind nearly everything Americans buy. That means its impact reaches far beyond the transportation sector. As diesel climbs, higher supply chain costs work their way into the price of groceries, household goods, deliveries, and countless other products families rely on every day, even for households that never fuel a diesel vehicle.”

GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis, Patrick De Haan, said the new record “will be a particularly painful one for the economy” and is “likely to reignite inflation up and down the supply chain.” He continued: “I suggest Americans anticipate a costlier holiday season, as it appears diesel prices could continue climbing as geopolitical tensions continue to remain a main factor.”

While all this was going on, tonight President Trump attended the second day of his Dallas rally to fire up his base before the midterm elections. There, a video from the Republican National Committee intoned: “And on June 14th, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker,’ so God gave us Trump.”

Notes:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/10/houthis-seize-key-port-mocha-yemen-red-sea-coast-iran-saudi-arabia-us

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/09/10/politics/us-military-support-saudi-arabia-houthi-iran-yemen

https://www.npr.org/2026/09/08/g-s1-142296/houthi-attacks-saudi-arabia

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trump-says-iran-war-end-after-us-midterm-elections-threatens-attack-pickaxe-2026-09-10/

https://www.cfr.org/articles/another-hormuz-the-red-seas-threat-to-the-global-economy

Bluesky:

atrupar.com/post/3mv7ckybguq23

One of the best bloggers is TC in LA. In this post, he or she eviscerated the madness of our political scene.

This is one you should read. Consider subscribing.

There are 56 days to the midterms.

My apologies for the late delivery. “Life” got in the way.

Monday morning, as if Sunday’s scheduled daylong Adderall overdose posting memes that could only come from a raving lunatic – one of which resulted in Iceland summoning the U.S. ambassador on Monday after Sundowning Gramps shared a doctored map of the American flag covering Iceland as well as Greenland, Canada, Central America, and the Caribbean in which Iceland’s foreign minister, Thorgerdur Gunnarsdottir, said she demanded answers from Ambassador Billy Long over Trump’s “completely inappropriate” post – wasn’t enough, Doddering Dilbert had his sweet little Natalie post a Lie Anti-Social in which he claimed: “Oil prices will drop precipitously, like everything else is dropping (but more!), when we WIN the war with Iran. Three Dollars a gallon, but ultimately, below Two Dollars a gallon. It will all happen quickly, and Iran will never have a Nuclear Weapon. MAGA!” Interestingly, the shitpost revealed he knows he hasn’t won any part of his war with Iran.

As part of his celebration of Labor Day, Delusional Doddering Dilbert went on Lies Anti-Social to attack a months-old report by the Center for American Progress that found his costly National Guard deployments did not curb crime, going so far as to threaten a lawsuit. He wrote, “The report is just another Radical Left SCAM, as are the people who fund this gaggle of Lunatics.” He went on to name George Soros, Bill and Melinda Gates, Google, Apple, Visa, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Walmart, Toyota, T-Mobile, NBCUniversal, the Embassy of Japan, the Korea Foundation, Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, and even the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates as fellow perpetraors of the CAP’s “lie,” continuing, “The Dumocrats love it, and are against anything ‘TRUMP.’ These people, and others like them, are so bad for our Country. Their stated course is anything to hate or demean ‘TRUMP.’ This will be met with a lawsuit, which is being drawn now. I am also strongly considering adding some of the contributors to this Fake Organization.”

After posting 24 other equally-demented posts between 0950-1045 Monday, he concluded with his official Labor Day message: “Happy Labor Day to all, including the Radical Left Lunatics, Communists, and Dumocrats who will do anything possible to destroy our Country. These Deranged People, after fighting for 10 years, should finally acknowledge that your Favorite President (ME!), knows how to WIN! They should be exhausted by now but, sadly, they’re not. They’re going to give it one last shot at ruining America, but we’re not going to let that happen. We’re going to win the Midterms, BIG, and SAVE AMERICA!”

Yes – He. Is. Delusional.

Among the delusional droppings on Lies Anti-Social yesterday was one in which Doddering Cilbert unveiled a mockup of proposed Space Force uniforms, which he acknowledged are based on ones worn by fictional fascists, saying that the gray and black look was “inspired by the discipline of the Starship Trooper uniform,” while being “modernized for the guardians of the space domain.” Starship Troopers, the 1997 science fiction film, was intended to undermine what Dutch director Paul Verhoeven interpreted as fascist themes in the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein. Verhoeven told the Guardian in 2018, “I decided to make a movie about fascists who aren’t aware of their fascism.” Nazi-inspired iconography is prevalent throughout the film. Even Jonah Goldberg had a reaction: “I liked the movie, which was very different from the book. My concern is whether these guys understand the point Verhoeven intended in Starship Troopers. The thing is I don’t know what would be worse: whether they got it or didn’t.” Menswear writer Derek Guy added: “this is the kind of design costume designers make to tell you who are the bad guys in a space movie.” Another user responded: “If the costume designer on Star Wars had suggested this for the Empire uniforms George Lucas would have told them to dial back the Nazi.” 

Canada’s retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. went into effect at midnight last night, affecting hundreds of goods, including steel and aluminum, appliances and electronics and wood, pulp and paper products. There are no reports of any negotiations. Maladministration II levied 50 percent tariffs on $27.6 billion worth of Canadian goods two weeks ago, raising tensions between the neighboring countries.On Monday, Trump threatened Canadian aircraft maker Bombardier, posting on Lies Anti-Social that it must start building in the U.S. to access the American market, otherwise he demanded that Bombardier be barred from doing business in the United States altogether, claiming the company’s products “aren’t good enough.” He seemed to have forgotten (assuming he ever knew) that the company has a U.S. headquarters in Wichita, Kansas, where it employs more than 1,000 people. In the meantime, the Canadian Energy Minister said he’s ready to cut off all Canadian electical suply to the U.S. if Doddering Dilbert keeps pushing his crazy trade war.

Bastet

Republican Senator Jerry Moran has represented Kansas since 2011. Trump’s threat to eliminate over 1,000 jobs in the “Air Capital of the World” sent Moran and his team scrambling. He posted to his official social media account that he’d already reached out to the White House to make sure the president understands how significant Bombardier is to Kansas’ economy. In his X post, Moran noted the company’s local workforce includes more than a thousand of his constituents whose skills help the country’s aerospace and defense capabilities. He also promised he’d not only keep working to make sure Bombardier stays in Kansas, but that its presence continues to expand. In its own statement, Bombardier praised its American workers not only in Kansas, but in more than 20 states including Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois and Texas. Delusional Dilbert’s dumbassed trade war is threatening American jobs, to the point a loyal Republican senator is begging him to call off his attack.

Back in 1911, Canada and the United States had a free trade deal on the table until House Speaker Champ Clark boasted that he hoped to see the American flag flying over every square foot of British North America. Canadian voters heard that, threw out the government that negotiated the deal, and killed reciprocity for decades, which is the lesson Dilbert apparently never learned about telling your neighbor you plan to swallow them whole.

Sunday, the Alternative fur Deutschland Party (AfD) won 43.8% of the vote, falling three seats short of the majority necessary to form a government by itself. AfD, a party whose regional branch in Saxony-Anhalt is considered a right-wing extremist group by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, finished well ahead of the other parties in the regional election. It would need partners from other parties to form a governing coalition. That would normally be difficult, as Germany’s mainstream parties have refused to work with AfD as part of a so-called “firewall” to prevent the party from gaining power. But AfD may reach out to the far-left BSW party. The two parties are on opposing sides of the political spectrum, but AfD and BSW both share anti-immigration and Russia-friendly sentiments. Ulrich Siegmund, AfD’s candidate in the race for governor, responded to Elon Musk’s X post in which the Afrikaner Nazi wrote “Gut gemacht,” which translates to “good job” in English, posting: “Thank you, @elonmusk, for your support and for your clear and highly important perspective on the political developments of our time – including here in Germany.”

Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City who is the son of a Mafia “button man,” and later worked as Trump’s personal lawyer, publicly criticized current Mayor Zohran Mamdani for planning to attend a 9/11 commemoration ceremony at Ground Zero on Friday. In an interview with Newsmax on Sunday, Giuliani – whose decision to locate the city’s emergency responce HQ in the World Trade Center so he could use the bedroom in the facility for his “nooners” – said: “Frankly, whatever he’d like to say, he doesn’t agree that Sept. 11 was an Islamic terrorist attack on the United States of America. Having lost friends there, and being very close to many of the families, it offends me that he’s coming.” Mamdani has said nothing like that. Most New Yorkers would appreciate it if Giuliani dropped off the face of the earth.

Back in 2023, Ron DeSantis’ short-lived presidential campaign employed Nate Hochman, who was fired that year after posting a video that included the Sonnenrad, a symbol used by neo- Nazis and white supremacists. Before joining the DeSantis campaign, Hochmann worked at the National Review and the Claremont Institute. He eventually lost a journalism fellowship after publicly praising white supremacist Nick Fuentes. Now, the New York Times is reporting Hochman has been hired as deputy director of the State Department’s policy planning office. According to Hochman’s email signature, he’s also serving as Rubio’s chief speechwriter. The policy planning office is a big deal, as it directly advises the Secretary of State on broad strategic priorities. The State Department both confirmed and defended hiring Hochmann, calling him a trusted staffer who has helped advocate for Maladministration II’s foreign policy agenda. It’s amazing how people with a documented history of racist and extreme rhetoric keep getting hired and/or promoted into influential roles in Maladministration II. 

Israeli newspaper Haaretz is reporting In the days leading up to Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 – in which, let us remember, 1,200 people were killed – United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan warned Netanyahu that Hamas’ leader in Gaza was planning the deadly attack. According to Haaretz, Netanyahu failed to inform Israeli security agencies of the impending attack. Netanyahu’s office called the report an “absolute lie” and denied speaking to the UAE. Of course he would – what’s 1,200 of his own dead? It was the perfect excuse to start his long-planned genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza. Israeli opposition leaders demanded Netanyahu’s removal from office. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a candidate in the upcoming vote, said Netanyahu “bears personal and direct responsibility” for the deaths on Oct. 7 and “cannot continue to serve in his position for even one more minute.”

Maladministration II administration must hand over the names of the people who devised the structure of the $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” slush fund that was of the bogus settlement of President Trump lawsuit against the IRS, a federal magistrate judge in the Eastern District of Virginia ruled in a case challenging the slush fund.

Brian Jose Morales Garcia was born in Denver, Colorado. Thispast spring he was installing air conditioners in Texas. On April 3, his boss got pulled over near Fredericksburg over the car’s window tint. Brian was in the passenger seat. Troopers called in local police to translate, because he speaks Spanish. Then they called ICE. Brian’s birth certificate was sitting at his house. His family drove it over, but agents wouldn’t even look at it. Agents told him he’d go to prison if he kept insisting he was American. He signed their papers rather than disappear for months. On April 7 – four days after the traffic stop – they deported him to Mexico. Then Brian hired lawyers who got him a hearing on Judge Robert Pitman’s calendar. Days before that, the government agreed he could walk back in if he presented his birth certificate and a photo ID at the border. The same birth certificate the government refused to look at in April. On August 30, he walked back across the border into Texas. Nobody had to look at his citizenship until a federal judge was about to make them explain. His damages case is ongoing.

Republicans suffered yet another blow in their legal war against mail-in voting, this time in Delaware. A Delaware court has once again upheld the state’s 16-year-old permanent absentee voting law, dealing a fresh defeat to Republican state Sen. Gerald Hocker in his years-long crusade against the program. Hocker, who is running for re-election, as well as fellow Senate candidate Steven Washington, argued Delaware’s Permanent-Absentee Statute unconstitutionally lets voters receive absentee ballots indefinitely, without reaffirming their eligibility each election, violating the state constitution’s specific list of qualifying reasons for absentee voting. Vice Chancellor David disagreed, ruling the law does no such thing. The court found the law only allows a narrower slice of voters, those with qualifying illnesses, disabilities, military service, or caregiving duties, to skip reapplying every cycle, while still requiring them to notify the state the moment their situation changes. If a voter’s reason for needing absentee status stops applying, the state must cancel it immediately. “’Permanent’ is therefore a misnomer,” the court wrote, explaining the label doesn’t mean what plaintiffs claimed.

Missouri’s redistricting war has spiraled into chaos, and observers say the state’s own emergency filing to the U.S. Supreme Court hints that county officials could defy the courts to keep the Republican map alive. In a reply brief to the justices, Attorney General Catherine Hanaway argued that the Missouri Supreme Court “derailed an imminent federal congressional election” when it threw out the GOP’s “Missouri First” map for November. Buried in that same filing is a line that political reporter Mark Maxwell warned should worry anyone who cares about orderly elections. Now, her brief concedes, “local election officials in counties are now left to make individual decisions” on whether to follow the order or stick with the map used in the primary while they wait on a federal court. Maxwell warned that the filing signals officials could defy the state Supreme Court and keep the Republican map anyway, “which would be absolute chaos. The state court explicitly forbade this.” People Not Politicians attorney Chuck Hatfield has called the state’s position “open defiance of the court.” Meanwhile, candidates don’t know which district they are running in, and lawsuits are piling up.

The Talarico campaign in Texas just rolled out one of its most eye-catching endorsements yet . 

The huge development, which comes as Talarico’s Democratic campaign seeks to be the first to win Texas in over 30 years, was revealed in a brief political ad on Tuesday. The ad said: “This is Ken Paxton, and this is Ken Paxton firing an honest Texas Ranger. David Maxwell spent five decades in law enforcement and was inducted into the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame. The best of the best. Let’s just say he knows a bad guy when he sees one. So when he saw his boss, Ken Paxton, trading favors with a convicted felon, he had to speak up. He reported Ken Paxton to the FBI and Ken Paxton fired him for it. Ranger Maxwell testified in Ken Paxton’s impeachment trial. Ken Paxton was impeached by his own party. But Ranger Maxwell isn’t done speaking up against bad guys.” Ranger Maxwell concludes the commercial:”My name is David Maxwell. Ken Paxton ended my five-decade career because I blew the whistle on his corruption. I am supporting James Talarico for the U.S. Senate … He’s one of the good guys.”

Don’t worry, there will be far more presidential looney toonies to come this week.

Remember, you are not the crazy ones, and we were made for these times. Regardless of what you may feel right now, act as if you believe that and redouble your efforts.

“Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty, as we understand it.” – Abraham Lincoln

Heather Cox Richardson sums up the sickening feeling that many of us have about the Trump-Musk alliance and their efforts to torpedo the November midterm elections. Musk has corrupted our politics with the vast amounts of money he spends to elect far-right politicians. Most of his wealth comes from government contracts, and he wants to maintain his friends in office. You have to wonder how a man who celebrated the killing of US AID, leading to the deaths of at least 700,000 people, can sleep at night. Did he enter the U.S. legally?

She writes:

On Sunday, Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (Alternativ für Deutschland, or AfD) party won 43.8% of the vote in a legislative election in the small state of Saxony-Anhalt, formerly part of Soviet-dominated East Germany. The AfD is anti-immigrant and pro-Russia and has won the support of both Vice President J.D. Vance and billionaire Elon Musk.

When Musk posted “Well done!” in German to the co-founder of AfD, Alice Weidel, another AfD leader responded with thanks, posting: “If we take on responsibility here, I would very much welcome the opportunity for strong and constructive cooperation. Germany would then once again be a place worth investing in. Best regards from Saxony-Anhalt!”

Jon Henley of the Guardian noted that right-wing leaders across Europe celebrated the outcome, including ousted Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who called the election results “a huge night for Germany and Europe,” adding: “Buckle up. This is just the beginning.”

Musk was the largest donor to any political committee in the 2024 U.S. elections, putting around $290 million into the 2024 election to help elect President Donald J. Trump and Republicans. On August 28, Andrew Howard, Erin Doherty, and Meredith Lee Hill of Politico reported that Musk was planning to meet with House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) as he considered investing at least $100 million to elect Republicans in the midterm elections.

Since that meeting, Musk has plowed money into the Texas Senate race to support Texas attorney general Ken Paxton against Democratic nominee James Talarico. According to Theodore Schleifer of the New York Times, Musk’s investments—many through political action committees—target Senate races in Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, and Ohio, as well as House races in at least California, Wisconsin, and Washington.

Musk’s open attempt to buy elections for the Republicans should be bigger news, not only because of the political power his money has given to one man, but also because of what his behavior says about the MAGA administration’s ideology and its goals.

After supporting Trump in 2024, Musk appeared to become the head of the Department of Government Efficiency—the administration was coy about who actually held that title—where he worked to slash government spending. On February 3, he posted on his social media: “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could gone [sic] to some great parties. Did that instead.” Musk called USAID—the United States Agency for International Development—“a criminal organization” and “a viper’s nest of radical left-marxists who hate America.”

In July 2026, Ari Daniel, David Augustine, Kazeem Olawale Nasiru, and Lameck Nyagudi of NPR reported on a study by Boston University infectious disease modeler Brooke Nichols that estimated more than 700,000 people had died from the sudden stop in USAID funding, including more than half a million children in developing countries.

And yet, for all his talk about slashing government expenditures, Musk’s DOGE did not appear to save much. Emilio Perez Ibarguen of Politico reported in August, when DOGE officially ended, that a report by the Government Accountability Office found that the savings it claimed were in large part exaggerated or couldn’t be corroborated.

Meanwhile, government contracts continued to flow to Musk’s businesses. As Desmond Butler, Trisha Thadani, Emmanuel Martinez, Aaron Gregg, Luis Melgar, Jonathan O’Connell, and Dan Keating reported in the Washington Post in February 2025, Musk himself has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of taxpayer dollars in history, taking in at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits over the course of more than 20 years. Once he was in power in Trump 2.0, government investigations into those businesses ended.

The very public nature of Musk’s antics has helped to wake the public up to the fact that our current system is skewed toward billionaires. In July, economist Paul Krugman noted a growing backlash against those billionaires. A poll by UMass Amherst found that 58% of Americans think billionaires are a threat to democracy, and 45% of them say the U.S. is an oligarchy, “a government in which a small group exercises control especially for corrupt and selfish purposes.” As Krugman noted, only 28% of those polled disagreed.

Krugman pointed out that wealth has been concentrating at the top of the U.S. economy for decades, so the growing wave against that concentration of wealth appears to be driven by those like Musk and Trump himself, who has flaunted his use of taxpayer money for his own interests while dismissing the pain of regular Americans.

This flow of taxpayer dollars to favored businesses rather than to programs that serve the needs of the people seems to be a feature rather than a bug in the Trump administration and reflects its rejection of democracy in favor of the right-wing axis of authoritarianism.

Last night, Tarini Parti, Josh Dawsey, Michelle Hackman, and Summer Said of the Wall Street Journal published a deep investigation into the machinations of Corey Lewandowski when his colleague Kristi Noem was secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. They report that Lewandowski, who was Trump’s campaign manager for part of 2016, appeared to offer aid to foreign countries navigating U.S. bureaucracy in the department for a fee, selling government services for his own gain.

The journalists also report that Lewandowski may have been involved in awarding government contracts improperly, an accusation covered in a November 14, 2025, article by Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan, and Alex Mierjeski of ProPublica. The Wall Street Journal reporters note that Congress gave the Department of Homeland Security an additional $75 billion to spend during Trump’s term on deportations, detention facilities, and technology, providing deep pockets for corruption.

While the administration appears to have sidelined Noem and Lewandowski since Noem resigned under pressure in March, the journalists say Lewandowski “has told people close to him he expects the president would pardon him in the event of a criminal case.

Lewandowski responded on social media that the story was “just another example of the kind of anonymous-source, politically driven reporting that Americans have seen time and again. We’ve lived through the Russia collusion hoax the fake Birthday card and countless other sensational allegations that ultimately failed to withstand scrutiny. I’m tremendously proud of my work as a volunteer in advancing this administration’s agenda and remain confident that the facts and not anonymous accusations will ultimately speak for themselves.”

But, of course, every official investigation into the 2016 election, including the one conducted by the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee and unanimously adopted, agreed that Russia did work to get Trump elected in 2016. And while Trump claims he did not create the birthday card to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein apparently bearing Trump’s signature on a drawing of a nude girl that was produced by the Epstein estate, the story was convincing enough that it helped to push Congress to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act and the first case he brought against the Wall Street Journal for publishing the story was dismissed. A second case is pending.

There is, in fact, increasing pushback against the world Musk and Trump are trying to put into place instead of liberal democracy. In the U.S., the growing opposition to data centers, which seems to represent anger at the very wealthy tech bros who want to call the shots, is perhaps a sign of the direction the wind in the U.S. is blowing.

Whether that popular pressure can withstand the extraordinary amounts of money Musk and other right-wing billionaires are pouring into the midterms is unclear. Judd Legum of Popular Information reported today that Musk is funding an advertising campaign encouraging people in swing states to check their voting registration status at a different website than the one run by the Election Assistance Commission, which is an independent agency of the U.S. government.

Instead, Musk’s campaign urges people to go to “votesafe . org,” which collects their full name, home address, date of birth, email address, cell phone number, IP address and location (which identifies city and zip code), every link clicked, every page looked at, and voter registration status, among other information.

Legum reports that the privacy policy of the website “allows [Musk’s super PAC] America PAC to ‘share’ or ‘sell’ personal information ‘with our business partners,’” including “whether you are registered to vote” and “how you submit your vote… where permitted by law.” America PAC can also sell “inferences” it makes about a user, including “psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities and aptitude.”

A new documentary about Musk by filmmaker Alex Gibney argues, as Steven Zeitchik of the Hollywood Reporter put it, that Musk is “a dangerous huckster [who] is stealthily aggregating power to exploit us, primarily by centralizing and controlling massive amounts of data.” The documentary, called Musk, notes that, under Musk, DOGE had access to federal IT systems and, as Zeitchik recalls, a whistleblower warned that members of DOGE accessed and shared sensitive data from the Social Security Administration.

Zeitchik reports on the onscreen comments of Nobel Prize-winning scientist Geoffrey Hinton, known as “the godfather of AI,” who said: “It’s fairly clear to me that Trump is hell-bent on corrupting the midterm elections,” he says onscreen. “If you wanted to corrupt those midterm elections and you wanted to use AI, all you needed to do was get detailed information on U.S. citizens. And what DOGE did looked like just what you would do.”

In Europe, in the wake of the rise of the AfD, German defense minister Boris Pistorius said today that Germany will send missiles to Ukraine to help it fight off a winter incursion from Russia.

Notes:

https://apnews.com/article/germany-afd-saxony-anhalt-election-e9c2b1bb69a9dab1778b80866ffa4c4f

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/berlin-says-vance-should-not-interfere-german-politics-2025-02-14/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/germany-afd-won-saxony-anhalt-election-alarm-for-centrist-politics/

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/far-right-afd-courts-conservative-support-after-historic-german-state-election-2026-09-07/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/07/first-thing-elon-musk-german-far-right-afd-election-win-russia

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/07/afd-thanks-elon-musk-german-state-elections-2026-win

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/28/mike-johnson-plans-meeting-elon-musk-midterms-01054083

https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2026/07/30/musk-reportedly-spending-up-to-120-million-helping-gop-in-midterms-after-saying-he-got-a-little-too-involved-in-politics/

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/sep/01/how-misconceptions-and-woeful-pr-allowed-musk-to-shred-usaid-so-easily

https://www.npr.org/2026/07/17/g-s1-133651/usaid-elon-musk-rubio-deaths

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/06/doge-savings-overstated-watchdog-report-01027797

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/elon-musk/elon-musks-regulatory-issues-begun-melt-away-trumps-second-term-rcna202848

https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/13/business/musk-trillionaire-government-tesla-spacex

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2025/elon-musk-business-government-contracts-funding/

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/corey-lewandowski-influence-dhs-43d3fe03?mod=hp_lista_pos1

“The photograph of his leg, posted on Instagram, documents his sense of shame at having to wear the device, at being branded somehow a criminal. His short life had followed the same arc as hundreds of millions of Americans, immigrants or descendants of immigrants, who came here seeking hope, opportunity and a chance for dignity. He wanted to grow and prosper and be free of tyranny — in this case, the tyranny of crime and instability.”

Philip Kennicott of The Washington Post wrote about the death of Pierre Damas Bel.

Kennicott says we all share responsibility for his death. I disagree. Pierre’s death belongs to Stephen Miller, who wants to expel as many dark-skinned immigrants as possible. His death belongs to Donald Trump, who knew that racism and hatred was a good political issue for him, who told Republicans in the Senate not to pass a bipartisan immigration bill in 2024 because he wanted to run in the issue. His death belongs to the Republican elected officials who bowed to Trump’s wishes and have failed to rein in the heartlessness of ICE. His death belongs to all those who turn a blind eye to the reign of brutality and violence imposed on anyone who is swept up in the un-American crusade against immigrants, especially those who are black and brown.

Kennicott wrote:

The most haunting photo of the past week shows not a whole human, just part of one. Sometime in the past few weeks, a 20-year-old college kid named Pierre Damas Bel took a photograph of the lower part of one of his legs. He’s wearing black pants and gleaming, thick-soled, black-and-white brogues, the toe so polished it reflects the light. Around his ankle is a heavy plastic GPS tracking device, with a red, LED status light glaring like a demonic eye

Bel was one of about 350,000 Haitian immigrants who lost temporary protected status after a Supreme Court ruling in June. He fled Haiti, a country racked by gang violence and crime, in 2024, and he apparently despaired at the thought of having to return. On Monday morning, he stepped in front of a tractor-trailer on Interstate 70 in Springfield, Ohio, and now he is dead. His family believes he died by suicide, but that doesn’t seem quite the right word. He was desperate and depressed, but that misery was forced on him. No matter how he died, his life was taken from him.

Bel, who is seen in an earlier image in a blue tuxedo jacket beaming as he receives his high school diploma, entered the country legally to rejoin his family and request asylum. He graduated from high school, matriculated at university, joined the ROTC program, and he had a pending asylum hearing. But just after 8 a.m. Monday, he called his father and said, “I’m not feeling okay.” Less than an hour later he was dead.

The photograph of his leg, posted on Instagram, documents his sense of shame at having to wear the device, at being branded somehow a criminal. His short life had followed the same arc as hundreds of millions of Americans, immigrants or descendants of immigrants, who came here seeking hope, opportunity and a chance for dignity. He wanted to grow and prosper and be free of tyranny — in this case, the tyranny of crime and instability.

“I came to this country to pursue my education. I didn’t come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone,” he wrote on Instagram in late July. “Yet now I’m walking through the streets of the United States with a GPS monitor on my leg, carrying a feeling of shame and humiliation that I never imagined I would experience.”

Likely, the GPS device made his leg feel foreign to him, just as this young asylum seeker, perhaps an aspiring American, had suddenly been branded foreign to the country he hoped to serve. The weight of the device made it impossible for him to play soccer, a sport he loved; according to his father, it also made him an object of ridicule to his classmates, who mimicked on an interpersonal level what has become the basic tool of this country’s domestic politics and foreign policy: bullying.

No administration in my lifetime has used imagery and narrative more effectively than the Trump administration. A White House webpage called “Aliens” uses “X-Files” music and text to suggest that we have been secretly invaded, and that President Donald Trump alone can repel the enemy living among us.

“Millions arrived under the cover of darkness and embedded themselves directly into our society,” reads the scrolling text, with a spooky electronic, sci-fi soundtrack suggesting the invaders are extraterrestrials. “They’ve shopped in the same stores, attended the same classes as our children, and lived seemingly normal human existences,” the site also says. “With one exception — they do not belong here.”

From emphasizing the supposed criminality of immigrants, the administration moves on to stressing their normality. The very things that are, for so many Americans, definitive markers of being American — living peacefully, shopping, learning — become markers of suspicion. And so we are invited to look at ourselves as Bel looked at his leg, the normal as abnormal. Even people who abhor this cruelty face what is essentially an existential question: If I am American, and America does this, what am I? To remain within this ugliness is insufferable; to flee would only make it worse.

“I do not know how long it will still physically be possible to breathe this European air,” wrote critic Walter Benjamin in 1938, as the Nazi’s made life unlivable for Jews. He killed himself in 1940, in a small border town in Spain, where he was denied entry after fleeing France. That, too, was an act of desperation.

The loss of temporary protected status for Haitians means that the U.S. will have to find tens of thousands of new health care workers to staff an already overburdened system. A recent study by the Yale Budget Lab found that even if immigration returned to normal after the Trump administration, by the 2030s there will be thousands fewer new businesses than would be expected, and the economy will be smaller than it could be, with effects lasting as far as 2075.

And thus, another metaphor travels through the body, upward and outward, from the death of a young man on a highway in Ohio to include all of us. Bel was desperate, and his death is a kind of murder, but what the U.S. is doing to itself is simply suicide.