We have now been in isolation for 129 days while the president and the morons in Austin spin gossamer tales and fantastical fantasies ignoring the simplicity of science.  As Neil deGrass Tyson famously said, “The good thing about science is that it is true whether or not you believe in it.”  Cases of Coronavirus have exploded in not only Texas, but other red states like Florida, Georgia, Arizona, and Oklahoma.  Even California continues to be threatened due to the idiocy of some of its populace.

Those of us at most risk try to protect ourselves while our leaders do nothing to actually do anything to help.  I’ve never felt so exposed to risk since my draft lottery in 1971 during the horror of the war Viet Nam.  I have no confidence in our state government, and certainly not in the federal government that has devolved into a fascist regime run by criminals and screwballs.  And while all this is crashing down around our ears, what is Trump doing?  Besides firebombing by tweet, he’s sending out federal agents in unidentified combat uniforms carrying weapons of war and driving in unmarked vehicles to attack peaceful protestors against the very violence these stormtroopers are committing.  Against the orders of state and local authorities, Trump has sent these goons in for his own political purposes, trying to appear powerful in the face of his own abject ignorance and weakness.  The result?  Peaceful protests have become violent, turned so by the very agents Trump has declared are there to enforce the peace.  Last night, the mayor of Portland was actually gassed by federal goons in unmarked uniforms while he was speaking to his own people.

This. Is. Enough.  We all know the mental and moral state of the most corrupt president in US history.  He doesn’t care if you live or die, and has actually become the leading cause of death in the US after his unimaginable recklessness and gross negligence as the pandemic exploded in our country during the last six months.  Trump’s most recent assault on American’s constitutional rights and common decency by his unidentified goons has been exposed by Reuters and the Lawfare blog, showing documents that articulate a strategy of “protecting” monuments and federal property from “violent criminals” in America’s cities.  Of course, that’s not at all what they’re actually doing.  What they’re actually doing is starting violence where no violence existed in order to justify Trump expanding this to other cities to cause more violence to give Trump the excuse to expand…you get the drill.

All of this effort was organized in secret by Trumpists in the WH and “acting” officials in the DHS.  It’s designed in such a way that its secrecy makes it almost impossible to exercise oversight by the Congress.  This operation certainly requires funding by illegally using money appropriated for other purposes.  And all this is happening with McConnell laying down and allowing Trump to do what he wants, when he wants as he destroys what’s left of our democracy.

To summarize – Trump is violating the Constitution, federal laws, and two centuries of practice in not using federal forces on its own people.  DHS was founded as a knee-jerk reaction to the 911 attacks.  The problem is that having DHS consolidates too much authority in too few officials with not enough oversight by the legislative and judicial branches.  The DHS must be broken up post haste.  I know that won’t happen any time soon, but this is just one more righting of a wrong on the list of thousands of wrongs that must be fixed after we fumigate the WH and the Senate.

Much to Trump Brown Noser Greg Abbott’s consternation, a federal judge just blocked Trump’s cruel, idiotic and illegal executive order to keep immigrants from resettling in states or communities without prior approval of those jurisdictions.  In his order, the Maryland judge said that the order “does not appear to serve the overall public interest.”  He went further, saying,

…the order gives states and local governments “the power to veto where refugees may be resettled — in the face of clear statutory text and structure, purpose Congressional intent, executive practice, judicial holdings and Congressional doctrine to the contrary.”

The argument placed before the judge was about the Refuge Act of 1980, and argued that Trump was trying to circumvent the federal law by implementing a state by state ban.  The judge agreed:

“The objectives of this Act are to provide a permanent and systematic procedure for the admission to this country of refugees of special humanitarian concern to the United States, and to provide comprehensive and uniform provisions for the effective resettlement and absorption of those refugees who are admitted.”

One more for the good guys.

In a blockbuster challenge, Americans Take Action have presented members of Congress with a 1,000 page legal brief that asserts that at least 50 Cheeto Jesus electors were illegally seated, and therefore voted illegally.  After reviewing all of the states’ electors these 50 were determined to be illegal because 1) they didn’t live in the district which they represented, and 2) they already held elective office in states that don’t allow electors to hold 2 offices.  For example, Florida’s constitution doesn’t allow electors to hold two offices, yet Pam Bondi, the state’s attorney general, also held the office of Elector, which is illegal.

Activists are trying to get Dems to mount a challenge today against congressional ratification of the vote, but I’m not holding my breath.  Dems don’t do anything courageous and won’t with its calcified leadership.