Like Maria Said Paz

Wednesday, January 21, 2026

A few quick thoughts (C.I.)

C.I. filling in for Elaine. The disgusting Ana Kasparian spoke with the equally disgusting Bill Maher last week (link goes to POST-LEFT WATCH on BLUESKY) to explain, "I don't have kids. And I don't want to have kids." Those who remember her original nose thank her for her sacrifice.

Did everyone like her spare tire flopping over the waist of her dress? And how about that dress? Most females over the age of nine would find it too girlish but I-turn-40-this-year Kasparian thinks it's just the thing to wear. When you keep having to smooth the lower half down to avoid people seeing your kooch, you really need to get a grown up's dress. But maybe it helped distract from her face getting even uglier whenever she was braying -- and she was constantly braying -- at Bill's supposed 'jokes.'

When Ana went on with Tucker, it was noticeable that she'd paid for sub-standard plastic surgery and the right nostril's higher on the face than the left. People, people, if you're going to have vanity surgery, don't do it on the cheap. Mother Tucker, by the way, fears the homeless even more than he fears those demons who sexually assaulted him in his own bed while his wife just lie there selfishly sleeping as Tucker too it deep and hard.

Ryan Grim plays coy and girlish when he makes nice with Steve Bannon. And it no one commenting on how fat Steve Bannon's gotten? He looks Like Kelsey Grammer playing The Beast in yet another X-MEN movie. Ryan's looking more ridiculous, by the way. But Ava and I called out the bad 'hair' already a few years back and that did have impact. These days, I'd rather just let him look like a loon and laugh at him.

Max Blumenthal so desperate for attention, he's praising Matt Gaetz. I think Sydney sits around muttering, "I wish I'd had a boy. I wish I'd had a boy."

Elaine has a headache and I told her I'd cover. She said fine but do something quick and easy so I just went through POST-LEFT WATCH (I love them!) on BLUESKY.

"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, January 20, 2025. More insanity on the op-ed pages of NYT, if Chump's trying to invade Greenland over not getting a Noble Peace Prize what will he do Thursday when the Academy Award nominees are announced and he's not up for any prize? All that and more.

Let's start with garbage in THE NEW YORK TIMES. Zaid Jilani, has a piece attacking the Democratic Party. He does his usual assault on facts to carry his attack out -- we're not linking to trash. Around 2020, people began assuming that Ziad was a Republican. He's not. He's a Socialist. DSA. And you won't find that at the bottom of the article. If they want to publish attacks on the Democratic Party, they have to identify the part of who is writing the piece. And were it a Libertarian or a Republican, they would. But they give the Socialist a past. He's not a Democrat He's a Socialist and that's why his past includes all that praise for Josh Hawley. Also goes to why he can't keep a job. When you're in a political closet, it makes it hard to honestly interact with others. The piece is garbage and shouldn't have run to begin with. If you can't grasp that, I hope you can at least grasp that DSA is and always has been at odds with the Democratic Party. So when you publish them, you owe it the reader to explain wat the writer is. Zaid is a Socialist and no one should publish his work ever again if they're unable to acknowledge that basic fact.

The second item is also an opinion piece. I normally ignore the opinion pieces because they're pretty much always worthless. I'm not referring to the editorials. This piece of garbage identifies the two writers:

Tessa E.S. Charlesworth is an assistant professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Eli J. Finkel is a professor of psychology at Northwestern University and a director of the Litowitz Center for Enlightened Disagreement.

I do so love when the social sciences bring in someone who's an expert and professor in management. That was sarcasm.

Two idiots thought it might be a better time for gays -- I'm assuming gay men, they just say "gay" over and over. But this is how stupid they are: Six episodes. They're starting out with a premsie that it must be a great day to be gay man based on the success of HEATED RIVALRY.

Are they truly that stupid? Probably not. They're desperate for clicks so they mention a show that many are writing about currently and pretend like they've done something. They've done click bait. They never explore HEATED RIVARLY (which Ava and I have praised at least twie THIRD) the series. They're just two little whores trying to get their bad writing published and maybe including HEATED RIVALRY will help?

So by the indicators of polling that one of them has been doing -- shoddy polling, let's be clear, the second portion of it requires interpretation and judgement on the part of the pollster. But that's what you get when you move management into social sciences.

What they conclude is that strides in acceptance for gay men are vanishing and will soon be gone. The data doesn't really back that up. The date shows a trending which our two idiots are too dumb to grasp and that trending is when you've got an administration that attacks everyone, it emboldens people to not feel constrained so they express their hatred out right and don't hide it or sweeten it up.

At one point, in sort of a sotto voice, they acknowledge that their 'research' and 'findings would apply to all sub groups in American society -- including those who are overweight.

The research doesn't back up their conclusions. They have produced junk science at its worst.

The most anyone can say from their 'research' is that the influence of hate merchants does have an impact. Nothing they provide demonstrates a true shift as opposed to just a bunch of whiners (MAGA) who are already imploding on themselves.

Again, I don't read the garbage that is NYT's op-ed pages. I saw the titles this morning and thought, "Oh, they just wrote bad titles. Surely the two pieces themselves are not this bad." We got junk science and a Socialist who hates Black people (he was part of the DSA attack on Adolph Reed).

Let's go to Ben and MEIDASTOUCH NEWS.

President Trump is now claiming that one reason he is pushing to acquire Greenland is that he didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize, according to a text message he sent to Norway’s prime minister over the weekend.

Jonas Gahr Store, Norway’s leader, received the text message on Sunday, an official in the prime minister’s office said on Monday.

“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Mr. Trump wrote in the message, which was first published by PBS.

Mr. Trump also questioned Denmark’s claim to Greenland, saying, “There are no written documents,” and adding, “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you!”

This is where you move from talk about impeachment to talk about following the 25th Amendment and remove Chump from office due to his obvious mental decline and being a threat and to this country. See Ruth's " Chump is a Make A Wish child but doesn't realize it" and Marcias "Remove Chump from office" for more on these topics.

Abd see , , ,

No, don't see. I'm not interested in one MS NOW video. One specific one. Of the host last night talking about Greenland and alarmed by all that's happening. It's not even a full week since that host told viewers Greenland wasn't a real story, it was a distraction and they were wasting time by following it as though it were a real story.

Okay, the remarks never should have been made to begin with.

Maybe MS NOW needs to create a little cubby hole where hosts can go to get their viewer blaming out of their system before they go on air?

But if you said that on air -- and he did -- don't come back the following week insisting Greenland is important unless you have the guts to say, "Hey, folks, I got it wrong."

Here are some videos -- some from MS NOW -- worthy of your attention if Greenland is of interest to you.

Turning to ICE, Ewan Gleadow (RAW STORY) reports:

A former prosecutor has broken down why the Department of Justice will not be investigating the shooting of Renee Good.

Joyce Vance pulled apart the statement from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who confirmed the department would not be investigating the shooting of Good. The 37-year-old mother was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis earlier this month. Vance believes the investigation must go ahead as there are possibilities that cannot be ruled out without a probe. Blanche said, “No, we are not investigating."

Writing in her Substack, Vance explained, "Officer-involved shootings are virtually always investigated, most of them by state agencies, which is where the majority of these incidents occur. But this case isn’t just a 'shooting'; it’s a death, and possibly a homicide—a possibility that can’t be ruled out without investigation."

"There is also video evidence that a doctor who tried to treat Good, who was still alive when paramedics arrived 15 or more minutes later, was refused, which could lead to additional charges. This is the kind of case that demands a thorough, objective investigation."

Vance added, "Beyond that, Blanche’s claim that there are too many shootings every year to investigate—he says over 1,000—is as ludicrous as it is wrong. His argument is essentially that cops are shooting too many people to be bothered to investigate."

ICE is all about destroying civil liberties and about fudging the numbers. I believe we all already know ICE agents get credit for arresting people -- even the wrong people who have to be released days afterwards. But turns out they also get to claim numbers for 'arresting' people in prisons. Erkki Forster (THE DAILY BEAST) reports:

ICE is taking credit for arresting people who were already behind bars to sell its Minnesota crackdown as a success.

The Department of Homeland Security has paraded lists of people it says ICE has arrested to market its Minnesota surge as a win and push the claim that they are rounding up “worst of the worst” criminals.

But a new report suggests the department has been spinning old transfers of people from Minnesota jails into ICE custody as fresh arrests.

MPR News reported that most people on a Jan. 10 “worst of the worst” list, in which the DHS boasted about ICE arrests in Minnesota, had been transferred to ICE custody before the start of “Operation Metro Surge” in December 2025.

Some transfers even took place under the Biden, Obama, and Bush administrations, according to MPR News, which looked at the criminal histories, public records, and available prison records of the 13 individuals on the list.

The DHS release states, “Below are the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens that our brave ICE officers arrested, despite the efforts of rioters and sanctuary politicians to protect them.”

Yet, five people on the list were simply picked up by ICE agents from Minnesota state prisons between August and November 2025, MPR News reported, citing Department of Corrections records.

Three more were reportedly transferred into ICE custody during previous administrations: one in 2021 during Joe Biden’s term, another in 2012 during Barack Obama’s term, and a third in 2003 during George W. Bush’s term.

When reached for comment, the DHS did not directly address the Daily Beast’s questions about the Jan. 10 list, and whether it counts jailhouse transfers as new arrests.

They're liars and the media needs to start including that into the reports on ICE. Scarlett O'Toole (THE MIRROR) notes they did it on FACE THE NATION (CBS):

Kristi Noem was left red faced as she was corrected live on air after contradicting statistics from her own agency.

The Secretary of Homeland Security appeared on CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday, January 18, as she discussed the amount of people being detained by ICE. New data released by the government has shown immigrants with no criminal record are now the largest group in U.S. immigration detention.

The number of people with no criminal history arrested by ICE has now surpassed those charged with crimes. Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan discussed the new data as she was joined by Noem. It comes after ICE Barbie Kristi Noem loses her temper over ICE agent Jonathan Ross on live TV in nervous rant.

WHEN ICE MET PANTYWAIST. So Chump lied to get out of serving in Vietnam. Not because he was opposed to the war -- he didn't protest it or anything. But the little prince didn't want to risk his life. That's behind his hatred of veterans to this day. Remember that as you read Carl Gibson's latest:

President Donald Trump's administration is now allegedly preventing a U.S. citizen and veteran from meeting with their attorney, according to a new report.

ABC News reported Monday that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is not allowing attorneys representing clients who are being held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the Whipple Building outside of Minneapolis. This apparently includes at least one U.S. citizen who also served in the Iraq War.

According to ABC, an unnamed "prominent local criminal defense attorney" verified that his client was a bystander witnessing an immigration enforcement operation near his home.

"They told me that because my client had not requested me by name, that I could not see him," the lawyer said. "I’ve been practicing law in Minnesota for almost 20 years, and I have never been denied access to a client."

Another attorney who withheld their name told ABC that the Whipple Building is unable to accommodate meetings between attorneys and their clients. They accused the Trump administration of denying their client a core Constitutional right that is afforded both citizens and non-citizens alike.

"One ICE agent said if we let you see your clients, we would have to let all the attorneys see their clients, and imagine the chaos," the attorney told ABC. "And I said to that person, yeah, you do have to let all the attorneys see their clients. You do have to accommodate that. That’s the Constitution. You chose to put them here. I didn't bring this guy here, you did."

He hates those who've served in the military. But then, he hates anyone who follows the law and applauds and pardons those who break it. Sean James (MEDIAITE) reports:

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara questioned the actions of the ICE agent who shot and killed protester Renee Good earlier this month during an interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday. O’Hara said the agent violated “basic steps” that officers know about approaching vehicles.

He's yet again abusing the office of the president by doing social media calls for a member of Congress to be arrested. Ewan Gleadow (RAW STORY) reports:

Donald Trump called for a Democratic Party representative to be jailed in one of several late night posts to Truth Social.

The president took aim at Minnesota rep Ilhan Omar and, in separate posts, denounced a plan for a New York Stock Exchange in Texas and called out Denmark for failing to stand up against Russia in Greenland. The series of posts were made in the early hours of January 19, with Trump calling out Omar.

He wrote, "There is 19 Billion Dollars in Minnesota Somalia Fraud. Fake 'Congresswoman' Illhan Omar, a constant complainer who hates the USA, knows everything there is to know. She should be in jail, or even a worse punishment, sent back to Somalia, considered one of the absolutely worst countries in the World. She could help to MAKE SOMALIA GREAT AGAIN!"

Trump had earlier used Truth Social to make conspiracy-filled claims about the Dem rep. "They should be thrown out of the USA. Get it done, NOW!" wrote Trump at the time. "That includes their loser Rep. Omar, who married her brother (gross!). President DJT."

Omar has to wake up laughing each day regarding how obsessed Chump is with her.

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One month after the congressionally mandated deadline to release all its files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the Justice Department has made only a fraction of the files public — and it remains silent on its plans to fully comply with the law.

Also keeping quiet about the DOJ delays are congressional Republicans, almost all of whom voted in November to release the records after spending months heeding President Donald Trump's opposition to the move.

Some of them are openly admitting it's no longer a priority.

“I don’t give a rip about Epstein,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) said last week when she was asked to take stock of the month since the Dec. 19 deadline.

“Like, there’s so many other things we need to be working on,” she added. “I’ve done what I had to do for Epstein. Talk to somebody else about that. It’s no longer in my hands.”

Boebert was one of four House Republicans, alongside Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who joined with Democrats to force a House floor vote on the Epstein legislation when leadership resisted moving it.

Next up a press release from Senator Ron Wyden's office that I missed unti I checked the spam folder this morning:

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Ron Wyden said today he is joining legislation that would ban sitting presidents from putting their names on federal buildings while in office.

The bill follows December’s announcement that the State Department is renaming the U.S. Institute of Peace after Donald Trump. Two weeks later, Trump’s appointees to the board of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts voted to add his name to the website and the front of the building. Both decisions violated existing federal laws.

“Donald Trump is more focused on putting his name on buildings than he is on helping families in Oregon and across the country afford food, housing, or health care,” Wyden said. “This legislation will help ensure that presidents can’t abuse the Oval Office or taxpayer dollars with shameless vanity projects while depriving families of the help they need.”

The Stop Executive Renaming for Vanity and Ego (SERVE) Act would:

Prohibit the naming or renaming of any federal building, land, or other asset in the name of a sitting president;
Prohibit the use of federal funds to do so; and
Ensure this applies retroactively to the Kennedy Center and Institute of Peace by returning any federal assets named for the current sitting president to the name given under United States Code.

The SERVE Act was introduced by Senators Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Angela Alsobrooks D-Md. In addition to Wyden, this bill was cosponsored by Senators Cory Booker D-N.J., Adam Schiff D-Calif., and Chuck Schumer D-N.Y.

The text of the bill is here.

And let's wind down with this from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse' office

Department of Justice filed a bogus disciplinary complaint against Chief Judge Boasberg in July as part of pressure campaign targeting judges who have ruled against Trump administration

Washington, D.C. – Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Courts Subcommittee, sent a letter yesterday to Attorney General Pam Bondi asking her to disclose, as soon as possible, the result of the Department of Justice’s disciplinary complaint against Judge James Boasberg, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Chief Judge Boasberg, a distinguished federal judge who has found the Trump administration in violation of federal law in several high-profile cases, has been the target of a coordinated campaign of threats by the MAGA movement and the Trump administration. These threats appear intended to intimidate Chief Judge Boasberg from examining potential contempt of court by the MAGA Department of Justice. Last week, Federal Courts Subcommittee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-TX) held a hearingcalling for the impeachment of Chief Judge Boasberg, during which allegations from the complaint were amplified.

“Your Department of Justice filed a disciplinary complaint against Chief Judge James Boasberg on July 28, 2025. As you know, I believe that complaint was unfounded and without merit. It appears to be part of a campaign to harass and threaten Chief Judge Boasberg as he investigates whether your Department committed contempt of court and requires your team to answer questions under oath versus on X,”Whitehouse wrote to the Attorney General in the new letter.

“It is my understanding that the resolution of a disciplinary complaint such as yours is not released publicly until any reconsideration request is final, but it is released to the complainant after an initial decision is made. I would therefore request that you disclose the results of your disciplinary complaint as soon as those results are disclosed to you,” continued Whitehouse.

“Should the result of your complaint be its dismissal, or a finding of no misconduct, then continued use of your complaint as a rhetorical weapon to bring pressure against a federal judge would be both improper and unfounded,” added the Senator.

In July 2025, the Justice Department filed a complaint against Chief Judge Boasberg alleging that, at the Judicial Conference’s March 2025 meeting, Chief Judge Boasberg privately conveyed to the Judicial Conference his colleagues’ concerns that the Trump Administration might defy court orders. In April 2025, Chief Judge Boasberg initiated contempt proceedings into the Justice Department’s potential defiance of court orders in J.G.G. v. Trump. Chief Judge Boasberg found probable cause that the Trump Administration had committed criminal contempt of court by willfully disobeying his court order to immediately halt unlawful deportations. Several credible whistleblower complaints have since alleged that Emil Bove, the then-Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, instructed Justice Department attorneys to be prepared to tell courts—including in the J.G.G. case—“f*** you” if they ruled against the government.

Shortly after Chief Judge Boasberg initiated contempt proceedings, Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, both of whom were appointed by President Donald Trump, suspended the contempt proceedings over a dissent by a third judge on the panel. The two Trump-appointed judges stalled the contempt proceeding for over three months, just enough time for Senate Republicans to confirm Emil Bove to serve as a United States Circuit Judge for the Third Circuit on a 50-49 vote, without any judicial record of his possible contempt of court. After the full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision, Judge Rao and Judge Justin Walker, another Trump appointee, further stalled the contempt proceeding in a ruling last month.

Whitehouse has repeatedly spotlighted this bizarre series of events involving the MAGA Department of Justice, Trump-appointed judges, and Republicans in Congress targeting Chief Judge Boasberg. In July, Whitehouse and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) wrote a letter to Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, urging him to look into the extraordinarily long administrative stay issued by the two Trump-appointed judges blocking the investigation of Emil Bove and other Department of Justice lawyers’ potential contempt of court. Whitehouse sent a similar letter to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts alerting him to the troubling series of events.

Whitehouse, Blumenthal, and Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) also filed a FOIA request to the Department of Justice demanding records and communications between the Department of Justice, the Trump-appointed judges, and their staff related to the delay of Chief Judge Boasberg’s contempt of court proceedings.

The text of the letter is below and a PDF is available here.

January 12, 2026

The Honorable Pam Bondi
Attorney General of the United States

U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20530

Dear Attorney General Bondi:

Your Department of Justice filed a disciplinary complaint against Chief Judge James Boasberg on July 28, 2025. As you know, I believe that complaint was unfounded and without merit. It appears to be part of a campaign to harass and threaten Chief Judge Boasberg as he investigates whether your Department committed contempt of court and requires your team to answer questions under oath versus on X.

Last week, at a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing that I contend was another part of that pressure campaign, a member of the Subcommittee read long portions of your complaint into the record, as if it were true or meritorious.

It is my understanding that the resolution of a disciplinary complaint such as yours is not released publicly until any reconsideration request is final, but it is released to the complainant after an initial decision is made. I would therefore request that you disclose the results of your disciplinary complaint as soon as those results are disclosed to you.

Should the result of your complaint be its dismissal, or a finding of no misconduct, then continued use of your complaint as a rhetorical weapon to bring pressure against a federal judge would be both improper and unfounded. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that. Therefore, since clarification of the results of your complaint once you know them would be in the public interest, I request that you disclose them as soon as you know.

Sincerely,

Press Contact

Meaghan McCabe, (202) 224-2921

The following sites updated:

Saturday, January 17, 2026

Forget the 50,000 dollar bribe Holman took, he's got a new title

I knew Tom Holman was corrupt and was recorded taking a $50,000 bribe from FBI agents and I knew he had a semi-title of "border security advisor"; however, I didn't know he held a second title.

Matthew Chapman (RAW STORY) reports:

President Donald Trump's border security adviser Tom Homan told Fox News's Laura Ingraham on Thursday evening that he wants the administration to build a "database" of any protesters who get arrested for obstructing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, so he can broadcast their names and faces to employers, schools, and everyone else he hopes might punish them for it.

"These people who want to say, follow ICE and film ICE, you know what, you can protest, you have that right," said Homan, who has previously threatened to arrest Democratic officials and has been accused of taking a $50,000 bribe from undercover federal agents. "But when you cross that line and we've proven it, if you interfere, impede, or assault an ICE officer, you will be prosecuted."

"One thing I'm pushing for right now, Laura, we're going to create a database," said Homan. "The people who are arrested for interference, impeding, and assault, we're going to make them famous. We're going to put their face on TV. We're going to let their employers and their neighborhoods and their schools know who these people are. Because as you say, these people, a lot of them say they're taking time off work to protest. I bet you a lot of them are calling in sick. I bet you a lot of those employers don't know what they're doing. We're going to make sure everybody knows who they are."

So Homan's second title is Snitch Bitch?

"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Friday, January 16, 2026. The corrupt administration of Donald Chump has many, problems but it all boils down to: They forgot who they war working for.

"They Were Ordinary Germans. We Are Ordinary Americans." is the title of a powerful guest essay by Shalom Auslander which addresses historical importance and recognition and the signs that led up to the Holocaust and the signs we see around us now in the United States:

But that’s the Trump administration, I reassured myself, not the American people.

Americans aren’t so easily fooled.

Americans are different.

Alas, my comfort was short-lived, as I made the mistake, then, of sinking into social media. There I encountered ordinary Americans who believed the Trump administration without question. Ordinary Americans who blamed Ms. Good, who repeated the things they learned from the government, like that she was a paid agitator, a far-left radical who got what she deserved. Ordinary Americans who said the armed agent who killed an apparently unarmed woman was a hero, defending his nation from undesirables. Ordinary Americans who, soon enough, lay the blame for the whole thing on Democrats, antifa, Gov. Tim Walz, Jews, women and gays.

Past or present, it’s not the leaders who disappoint me. It’s the led.

Which brings me back to that flea market find, to that old diary I didn’t buy. I was a young, broke writer at the time. I opted to spend what money I had on the old typewriter.

But I miss those days.

I miss the comfort of believing Germans were different.

I miss believing that we Americans could never be led by a fearmonger to commit atrocities he claimed were necessary and good.

I miss believing we are not like them.

Shalom is exactly right.

We, people in any country, have a problem with honesty when it comes to us. Not all of us, but enough of us and, yes, it tends to men more than women who delude themselves.

Women will note a wrong more often than a man. And movies capture that.

AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN and PRIVATE BENJAMIN are two examples. Both are movies about individuals in the military who triumph. But in AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, the harassment from above is treated as something other than harm. It's a learning lesson. No, it's harassment. Richard Gere's is targeted because he's suspected of being weak. Goldie Hawn and the women of PRIVATE BENJAMIN have on illusions about Captain Doreen Lewis.

For everyone, regardless of gender, it is hard to step back and look at what's going around us with a level of objectivity. I'm not just referring to the uneducated but they are part of the problem. They're unable to question their government, they're unable to grasp the importance of analysis and criticism and they just follow along down the marked trail to whatever trap awaits them. Along the way, they sometimes make a really stupid statement -- say something like "I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that" that gets logged for life via a Michael Moore film.

The signs are obvious and have been obvious throughout 2025. Some people refuse to see because honestly they're stupid. Some people refuse to see because they can't admit that they're being wronged (again, more men than women seems to have that problem). (And, yes, that can be backed up with studies and various illustrations and it's from a standard talk I gave back before the Iraq War when friends would ask me to speak to their colleges -- if the topic interests you, please refer to the work of Stephanie Coontz but we're not going to get lost in parentheticals today -- the text equivalent of lost in the weeds.) And there are people who miss the signs because they don't want to see them because it's a horrible thing to see. They're not saying, "I don't want to know because I don't care." They don't want to believe that something so horrible and vile could take place in their country. This group is hoping for the better and they awaken as things fail to improve.

But it is happening here.

A hateful and vile man is destroying our country and that's all there is to it. He's at risk of harming the world. And that's why it's really stupid -- you'll know who I mean -- and I address in this morning's gina & krista round-robin -- for someone on TV this week to have stupidly said not to pay attention to Greenland, it's not worth our times, it's not a real issue.

It is a real issue and it does have impact in the world and in this country. And, as Ben notes this morning on MEIDASTOUCH NEWS, it has one Republican in Congress saying he'll vote to impeach Chump if Chump invades Greenland.

So maybe stop trying to police our discussions? Ben's not the one, by the way, who said ignore Greenland -- that happened on MS NOW.

Chris Hippensteel (NEW YORK TIMES) reports on a couple in a car with their six kids who were unable to turn around and even explained that to ICE:

One agent told the couple that they needed to get out of the area. Ms. Jackson said she and her husband responded that they were trying to do exactly that, but their path was blocked by agents coming up the street.

Then, agents let loose on the crowd, the couple said.

The crowd-control grenades went off around them and one tear gas canister rolled beneath the car, Ms. Jackson said. A concussive blast — from the tear gas canister or another device, she wasn’t sure — rocked the vehicle, she said, setting off the airbags and trapping the family as acrid smoke billowed around.

“It felt like our lungs was burning,” Mr. Jackson said, noting that two of his children had severe asthma. “Water didn’t help. Nothing helped at that moment.”

The couple said they were able to get their children, ages 6 months through 11 years, out of the car only after Mr. Jackson kicked open a door. Ms. Jackson, blinded and unable to breathe, circled the vehicle pulling out as many of her children as she could, she said.

Bystanders arrived to usher the family into a nearby house, she said, while others set about removing the 6-month-old, who was briefly trapped in his car seat.

How does this happen? How does any of this happen?

I think all of our current problems, the cause of them, can be summed up in one sentence.

They forget who they work for.

You notice that about this trash heap administration?

Sarah Ewall-Wice (DAILY BEAST) notes;

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem defended ICE agents who are demanding that Americans prove they are U.S. citizens in Minneapolis amid escalating tensions.

The DHS secretary spoke with reporters outside the White House on Thursday as protests intensified in Minnesota after an officer shot a man in the leg after he allegedly assaulted an agent.

Noem was asked why Americans were being asked to prove citizenship and whether she was advising Americans to carry proof of citizenship.

“In every situation, we are doing targeted enforcement. If we are on a target and doing an operation, there may be individuals surrounding that criminal that we may be asking who they are and why they’re there and validate their identity,” Noem claimed. “That’s what we’ve always done in asking people who they are so that we know who’s in those surroundings.”

Wasn't aware that being Secretary of Homeland Security came with the power to rewrite the CONSTITUTION.

As THE DAILY BEAST reminds, "The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable search and seizures and requires probable cause."

The Fourth Amendment trumps any bimbo with bad plastic surgery, somebody let Noem know.

We are their bosses. We are the ones who pay them. We are the ones they work for. This idea that they're going to be corrupt and steal our money and close our schools and terrorize our cities? That's not their job.

They don't know their job, they don't even know the law that they're supposed to be upholding.

Let's drop back to the May 21st snapshot:

The fat and impotent Donald Chump is clearly unbalanced but long before all that, he was just stupid. He remains ignorant to this day. And that explains the losers and liars he's used to assemble a Cabinet. Never has a team of less qualified people been put together and allowed to do so much destruction.

The worst of the worst -- that's the best description for Chump's Cabinet and, goodness, has it been on display.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's 'experience' was pretty much limited to killing her dog and publicly humiliating her husband.

Needless to say, that did not prepare her for the office she currently holds.

Senator Maggie Hassan: Secretary Noem, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff recently said that the Trump administration is actively looking at suspending habeas corpus. Last week, you were asked about this and I want to clarify your position because it's obviously really important to get this right. So, Secretary Noem, what is habeas corpus?

Secretary Kristi Noem: Well, habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country and --

Senator Maggie Hassan: No. No. Let me -- let me stop you, ma'am. Habeas corpus, excuse me, that's incorrect.

Secretary Kristi Noem: President Lincoln used it.

Senator Maggie Hassan: Excuse me. Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people. If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people -- including American citizens -- and hold them indefinitely for no reason. Habeas corpus is the foundational right that separates free societies like America from police states like North Korea. As a Senator from the Live Free or Die state, this matters a lot to me and my constituents and to all Americans.

We're all aware that Kristi didn't graduate college, not really. In real time, she dropped out. Years and years later, after she was in Congress, she went back and they gave her course credit for serving in Congress at the time. Without those extra breaks and extra credits, Kristi could not have graduated So the point here is, Kristi's not a lawyer. She's taken no classes in the law. She doesn't know the law. If you want a dog shot, Kristi's your killer but if you want someone who understands the law and the Constitution, you'd be better off looking for a fifth grader who even half-assed applies themselves to their studies.

Erin Doherty (CNBC) notes:

Kristi Noem was grilled on the concept of habeas corpus during a Senate hearing, weeks after White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller floated suspending the due process for migrants.

Noem falsely claimed that "habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country."

Instead habeas corpus guarantees a person's constitutional right to challenge, in a court of law, their detention by the government.

Grasp that this idiot doesn't know what habeas corpus is and, worse, she's so stupid, she's convinced herself that the US Constitution says it is a right granted to the president.

Do we all get how stupid she is? She wasn't qualified for the office and she's been in it for months acting under the mistaken belief that habeaus corpus is a right of the US president and that this is via the Constitution. If she were an attorney, that kind of 'error' and the way she has applied it could get her disbarred.

They forgot who they work for. AG Pam da Bimbo Bondi is pissing in her Frosted Flakes but still getting it down her throat. As people like to joke of Pam, stealing from CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC, "Anyone who could swallow two Snowballs and a Ding Dong shouldn't have any trouble with pride." And Pam never does have any trouble with pride. Pocharapon Neammanee (HUFFINGTON POST) notes:

Attorney General Pam Bondi lashed out at six federal prosecutors who reportedly resigned after refusing to prosecute the widow of Renee Nicole Good, the Minnesota woman killed last week by an ICE officer.

“We had six prosecutors who suddenly decided they didn’t want to support the men and women in ICE,” said Bondi, as she visibly fumed Thursday on Fox News’ “Hannity.” “One of them was busy doing a photo shoot with The New York Times while ICE was out there risking their lives.”

I think SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE's Angie Tempura (played by Michela Watkins) said it best.

Exactly. Let's all stare blankly at Pam and say, "Bitch please."

I'm really offended by this crap. She's not a private citizen. She is paid to be professional and yet the whore can't be. We pay her to be professional. Instead, she's forever attacking judges, mayors, governors, members of the federal government, private citizens. Pam, you're a cheap whore and a ugly one. You don't deserve respect because you've never shown anyone respect. Did you give Epstein a pass in Florida because he supplied you with women? I don't know, you Republican women in Florida tend to be in one three-way after another -- especially if you're one of those Moms For Bigotry.

But I do know your behavior is outrageous.

How dare you attack any attorney in the federal government who didn't want to do your WHORE BIDDING.

If I'm not mistaken even you drew a line at going after Comey. Not because you cared about the law but because you knew it could get your license pulled. That's the whole reason Chump sent you the message -- sent it to everyone by accident -- about how you needed to bring in Lindsey Halligan.

So when you refused his orders to save your own lazy ass, who were you not supporting?

You're a damn liar and you're a cheap who whores out any ethics you might still clutch -- even loosely. So how about you trying earning the tax dollars we pay you and start acting profession. Or do you just want to be known as a whore?

She's pathetic. Wanting to prosecute the widow because the government murdered Renee Nicole Good.

They forgot who they work for.

Aurora DeStefano (2 PARAGRAPHS) notes:

David Corn, Washington, D.C. bureau chief at Mother Jones, reported on Wednesday: “The Bureau of Prisons won’t explain why Ghislaine Maxwell was transferred to a cushy facility after she met with Deputy AG Todd Blanche. So we filed a FOIA request for documents on this-and now we’re suing.”

Corn thanked the Reporters Committee (RCFP), which also reported: “The lawsuit, filed by @rcfp attorneys on behalf of the Center for Investigative Reporting, alleges that the Federal Bureau of Prisons violated FOIA by unlawfully withholding records related to Ghislaine Maxwell’s prison transfer.”

They won't explain it. Because when they take Chump's fiend Ghislaine Maxwell out of the prison she was sentenced to and ignore her convictions to place her in Club Fed, they're not working for the American people. They're working to protect Chump's friends.

What did former US House Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene tell us? Chump yelled at her over the phone to stop supporting the release of The Epstein Files because releasing those files would embarrass his friends.

Probably him to. But it would embarrass his friends, he said.

They forgot who they work for.

Garrett Downs (CNBC) notes:

President Donald Trump and Republicans are down in the polls with less than 10 months until the midterm elections. Now, Trump is giving the economic populism of the left a try.

Last week, Trump called for a one-year cap on credit card interest at 10%, unveiled plans to bar large private-equity funds from buying up housing and said he would bar defense companies from issuing dividends or stock buybacks. These moves check off many policy wishes of the populist progressive left and borrow from political opponents like former Vice President Kamala Harris.

It comes as Trump, who strode into a second term on a pledge to lower costs, finds himself underwater on the economy. A recent CBS News poll found that only 39% of voters approved of his performance on the issue, while 61% disapproved, one of his worst polls since retaking the presidency.

He's not working for the American people and the polls demonstrate that the American people are grasping for it.

Last week, the US government murdered Renee Nicole Good on January 7th in Minneapolis, Minnesota. ICE agent Jonathan Ross, a man with years of training in using a firearm and who provided training to others ("a firearms instructor, an active shooter instructor"), shot and killed the mother of three who was unarmed. Ross, apparently needing to make social content while on the clock, filmed her and when the video was released, the world saw that her last words to him were, "I'm not mad at you." By contrast, he or one of his fellow agents immediately called Renee a "f**king bitch" after plugged her with three bullets. The federal government immediately began attacking Good -- even though they should be stating "I can't comment on an ongoing federal investigation."

Instead, as NPR's Martin Kaste observed on January 9th, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, "And I think what's not normal here is the way the federal officials have been publicly passing judgment on a case that's still being investigated. For instance, just today, the vice president posted a video that appears to have come from a device being held by the agent who shot Renee Good on Wednesday. It shows Good smiling and saying she's not mad at the officer. But Vance called the video evidence that the officer was in danger. So there seems to be a real disconnect right now on the basic level of what the evidence means." Fat and little Vice president JD Vance is a professional troll but his efforts this time are especially outrageous. John Grosso (NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER) observed:

Yesterday (Jan. 7), 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed in a residential Minneapolis neighborhood by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. Good was a mother of three and an U.S. citizen.

Today, JD Vance has taken to social media to justify the shooting and blame Good for her own death.

Though the full circumstances of the situation are still coming to light, widely available video evidence shows the horrific moments before, during and after shots were fired into Good's car. Videos of the shooting and the ensuing aftermath are graphic and disturbing. After Good was shot, her car accelerates, slamming into another car and a pole. In one video, a person can be heard identifying themselves as a physician and offering to help only to be angrily denied by an unidentified ICE agent saying: "I don't care."

The Trump administration was quick to demonize Good. Within hours of the event and before a formal investigation could even be launched, Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem labeled Good's actions as an "act of domestic terrorism." President Donald Trump on Jan. 7 labeled her as "disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer." Trump went on to say that the ICE officer was lucky to be alive and "is now recovering in the hospital."

[. . .]

As a Catholic, Vance knows better than to peddle this brand of gaslighting and agitation. Vance knows that, by virtue of her humanity, Good was endowed with inherent dignity, made in the image and likeness of God. Vance knows that only God can take life. Vance knows that protesting, fleeing or even interfering in an ICE investigation (which there is no evidence that Good did) does not carry a death sentence. Vance knows that lying and killing are sins.

Vance knows. He doesn't care. Vance’s twisted and wrongheaded view of Christianity has been repudiated by two popes. His Catholicism seems to be little more than a political prop, a tool only for his career ambitions and desire for power.

The vice president's comments justifying the death of Renee Good are a moral stain on the collective witness of our Catholic faith. His repeated attempts to blame Good for her own death are fundamentally incompatible with the Gospel. Our only recourse is to pray for his conversion of heart.

Mike's response to Vance's outrageous lies, "As a Catholic, I'm sick of this little bitch distorting my religion. He needs to be excommunicated. I'm not joking. He is presenting as a Catholic -- he's been a Catholic for about five minutes -- and he is distorting our beliefs and our teaching. Two popes have repudiated him -- Pope Francis and now Pope Leo. Excommunicate Vance, don't let him speak for the Church or pose as a Catholic. Whatever crap he was raised before distorted his damn mind. We cannot allow him to pervert the Catholic faith."

At AMERICA: THE JESUIT REVIEW, James T. Keane writes:

After Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed in her minivan by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, Vice President JD Vance called her murder “a tragedy of her own making” and claimed that Ms. Good, a community activist and a mother of three, was “part of a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job.”

Mr. Vance claimed further that Ms. Good “viciously ran over the ICE officer” who shot and killed her, an assertion contradicted by video evidence taken from multiple angles.

Why the obvious lie? Because, similar to Ms. Kirkpatrick and Mr. Haig, Mr. Vance recognizes the potential for this atrocity to turn American public opinion against President Trump’s brutal campaign against undocumented immigrants, particularly because Ms. Good is an American citizen, was apparently denied medical assistance by ICE agents after the shooting and, according to the video evidence, posed no real threat to the shooter. Not even the most fervent supporter of the arrest and deportation of undocumented migrants, one assumes, would defend such Gestapo-like tactics.

The answer? Blame Ms. Good for her own murder.

Mr. Vance’s boss, President Trump, has engaged in further deceit and hyperbole in support of that same goal, claiming that Ms. Good “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer, who seems to have shot her in self-defense.” She made for an easy culprit for a man desperate to justify ICE’s actions. After all, she was already dead.

The murder of the churchwomen in El Salvador in 1980 was not an isolated incident; they shared the fate of tens of thousands of other Salvadorans, including Rutilio Grande, S.J., St. Oscar Romero, and the six Jesuits and two laywomen who were murdered by the Salvadoran military in 1989 in San Salvador. Eventually, the overwhelming evidence of these murders became too much for American politicians to justify, and U.S. funding for the Salvadoran military government dried up. It just became impossible to believe the lie anymore.

On the 40th anniversary of the martyrdom of the churchwomen of El Salvador, Cardinal Michael Czerny, S.J., preached at a memorial Mass in Rome on the impact of their witness. “Theirs, mysteriously but without doubt, is the triumph because vigorous, courageous acts of solidarity and compassion persist in dreadful, risky conditions,” he said. “Brutal claims failed and fail to stop the evangelizing.”

Let us hope the same will happen in Minneapolis. Nothing can bring Renee Good back; her 6-year-old son is without his mother now, her partner a widow. The masked man who killed her simply drove away. Nor is her death an isolated incident: All over the country, we hear and see more and more examples of violent attacks by masked ICE agents who seem to face no accountability for their crimes. And we hear the brutal claims used after the fact to justify them.

How long before it simply becomes impossible to believe the lie anymore?

And they keep lying. And they keep smearing Renee Nicole Good. Over and over, multiple times a day. The government just lies. And how's that going?

They forgot who they were working for.

Earlier this week, ICE attcked another woman, pulling her from her car. Dan Gooding (NEWSWEEK) notes:

Bystanders at Tuesday’s confrontation shouted at agents to stop, with some questioning their actions.

“Masked agents dragged me from my car and bound me like an animal, even after I told them that I was disabled,” Rahman said. “This happened just two blocks from where Renee Good was murdered, so I am very aware that this confrontation could have ended differently for me.”

Rahman told Newsweek that she repeatedly asked for a doctor while she was in ICE custody, only being taken to the hospital once she lost consciousness.

“I want to thank the medical staff at the Hennepin County Medical Center Emergency Department for taking care of me. They gave me hope when I thought I was going to die,” she said. “I may have more to say in the coming days but for now, I am relieved to be safe and ask for privacy as I heal from my injuries and navigate how to move forward from this traumatic experience.”

They forgot who they work for.

And that's apparent in Chump's administration's latest food recommendations.