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What the ever-loving fuck. With the man-child's megalomania spiraling - rampant troops, despot banners, Ugandan exile, his "Consultational" right to hire and fire (especially black women) and the unctuous gifting of a big boy badge to rule them all - "a lot of people are saying" we've reached the "Mad Cow Dictator" phase. What to do. JB Pritzker on the "arrogant little man": "We are watching, and we are taking names." And humbly, on the curve toward justice of MLK's moral universe: "It doesn't bend on its own."Having arrived at what Paul Krugman calls "another break-glass moment" - "We are all Lisa Cook" in the regime's weaponizing of government - the shards are everywhere. In brief, "The man is a raving lunatic." His massive, menacing mug now hangs from the Department of Labor, giving off "Strong Chairman Mao vibes"; Gavin Newsom: "THANK YOU, GLORIOUS LEADER!" He declares he has "the Consultational right" to appoint or fire judges, U.S. attorneys, anyone, and Democrats should "go to HELL!" He has turned the FBI and DOJ into "the largest domestic terrorist organizations in the nation," with the alleged power to disappear "animal" Abrego Garcia, convicted of no crime, to Uganda - a judge had to warn they were "absolutely forbidden" to do so - or detain a racially-profiled victim a week after what another judge called "without a doubt the most illegal search I've ever seen in my life." He went on to argue, at this point likely in vain, "Lawlessness cannot come from the government.”Still, along with delusion and stupidity, it does. James Comer, the House Oversight Committee's own Elmer Fudd, is launching an investigation into "manipulated" crime data based on its "lack of faith in city leadership" to combat D.C.'s non-existent "crime crisis." Similarly, Maryland's Dem Gov. Wes Moore has publicly disputed as "an imaginary conversation" the Mad King's claim he "heaped praise" on him last year as "the greatest president"; in response, the White House sniped "lightweight" Moore is "desperate for attention" and should clean up Baltimore's (also imaginary) "massive crime mess." Having cancelled cancer research, they're also busy spending their obscene new billions on toys for the brownshirts; two shiny rigs, matching Trump's jet, proclaim, "Defend the Homeland." From house painters and landscapers, that is, not disease: Trump and his brainworm-infested death-cult buddy reportedly plan to pull the COVID vaccine off the U.S. market "within months."Meanwhile, he raves. Windmills kill, so he's halting construction on an almost-completed $4 billion windfarm off the coast of Rhode Island that could light and run hundreds of thousands of homes. Instead, like China, "We're heavily into the world of magnets now." He's going to reduce drug prices "by 1,400, 1,500%." He doesn't like the Department of Defense name: "Department of War sounded better...We won everything." He likes teaching White House history: "McKinley. He was a president. He was the tariff, the most, I guess, since me..." The Alaska fiasco exposed his "idiotic, incoherent, incompetent foreign policy...The man playing at being president has no idea what he is doing"; still, he boasted, the seven European leaders who then visited the White House to support Zelensky actually came from 38 countries - "We've never had a case where 7, plus really 28, essentially 35, well, 38 countries were represented here" - and, "They call me the president of Europe."On Monday, as usual, he sat behind the Resolute Desk - bruised hand, swollen ankles - as he babbled, lied, signed kingly executive orders to continue his reign of terror. Defying SCOTUS precedent, without any authority to do so, he made it a crime to burn the American flag. Adding to the already-beefy ranks of unfit, ill-educated, 18-year-old, there-for-the-signing-bonus-and-gratuitous-cruelty ICE thugs, he charged Pete Kegseth with creating “specialized units” in the National Guard, aka "random fascist vigilantes," trained to deal with "public order issues," aka help crack down on dissent and free speech. He called them "a quick reaction force" - weirdly, the same name proposed by Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, who "seemed particularly pleased by the government's exciting career opportunity." "I'm not a dictator," said the Retribution President, who's mad some people criticize his sending in troops to peaceful cities. "A lot of people are saying, 'Maybe we’d like a dictator.'" (Maybe, "Defend freedom, or learn to goose step.")And D.C. is great now, he argues. After years of such rampant crime "no one dared to wear jewelry or carry purses or go to restaurants," he brags, "People are free for the first time ever." And lookit those bulked-up, trash-bag-toting National Guard troops picking up admittedly meager garbage while looking dazed and confused, or walking through a virtually deserted National Mall. They look so great! Which is why he now needs to inflict them on more non-existent, crime-ridden blue cities. Maybe start with Chicago, where the GOP cut more than $800 million in public safety and crime prevention, so no wonder it's "a disaster" and "a killing field" run by that loudmouth, non-complicit "slob" J.B. Pritzker, who had the nerve to point out that 13 of the nation's top 20 cities in homicide rates have GOP governors - and, "None of these cities is Chicago" - and 8 of the top ten states with the highest homicide rates are led by Republicans, and, "None of those states is Illinois."Pritzker wasn't done. He said he had to "speak plainly about the moment that we are in and the actual crisis, not the manufactured one, that we are facing." "Ringing an alarm," he called Trump's actions unprecedented, unwarranted, illegal, noting the White House didn't even inform him, the mayor or the police of his plans. "This is not about fighting crime," he said. "This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city in a blue state to try and intimidate his political rivals. There is no emergency in Chicago that calls for armed military intervention...In any other country, we would have no trouble calling it what it is: a dangerous power grab...Mr. President, do not come to Chicago. You are neither wanted here nor needed here." Blasting Trump's use of the National Guard as "political props (at) odds with the local communities they seek to serve," he warned, “If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law."Pritzker's righteous defiance stood in tragic contrast to the groveling farce ending that surreal Oval Office session, wherein U.S. Marshals Service head Gady Serralta gifted America's most easily bought and paid for president with a shiny, big-boy, Cracker Jack, honorary marshal's badge, aka Keystone Cops Memorial Idiocy Badge, for turning D.C. into a fascist police state, aka Make America Gaddafi Again. The handcuff key to the grinning buffoon was for his efforts to "un-handcuff law enforcement agents all over this nation." (Pilot's wings and hobby horse are next.) Not The Onion. One sage: "I'm pretty over living in interesting times." Beyond the dark comedy, Rachel Maddow warns, watch what they do - repurposing and degrading police, military, intelligence, all federal law enforcement to turn them against American people on American soil - not what they say, which is gibberish. Tom Sullivan likewise counsels, "The tide has turned." On the hard history of fascism: "You are here. Let's maybe not vote for it again." — (@) U.S. Declaration of Independence:• He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.• For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments• He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.• He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.• He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.• He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.• For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world• For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent• For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

Jordan Wood and Jake Lipsett have spent their careers in the Mothership vortex

In 2022, this magazine warned that the latest “cool” Democrat was showing worrying signs of being unprincipled and disappointing. Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman, who had once positioned himself as a Bernie Sanders style progressive, was running a campaign that heavily featured zingy social media content. Fetterman relentlessly trolled his opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, for being a carpetbagger without roots in the state. The rude, crude social media strategy attracted a lot of attention, with the New York Times commenting that Fetterman had a “towel-snapping virtual campaign of sassy online memes,” and the Daily Beast asking “Could John Fetterman shitpost his way to the Senate?”

Daniel Bessner, Derek Davison On this episode of American Prestige. The post Columbia, Trump, and the Palestine Exception appeared first on The Nation.

Daniel Bessner, Derek Davison On this episode of American Prestige. The post Columbia, Trump, and the Palestine Exception appeared first on The Nation.

A new litmus test for U.S. politicians—plus famine declared in Gaza, Israel’s Population Relocation Unit, and enemy olive trees in the West Bank

A new litmus test for U.S. politicians—plus famine declared in Gaza, Israel’s Population Relocation Unit, and enemy olive trees in the West Bank

Daniel Bessner, Derek Davison The news, on American Prestige. The post Trump-Putin Summit, India’s Turn From the US to China, and Olivia Arigho-Stiles on the Bolivia Election appeared first on The Nation.

Israel’s razing of Gaza is not only about ethnic cleansing. It is about the erasure of a people, a culture and a history that expose the lies used to justify the Israeli state.