POKING AROUND WHILE THE SHITSTORM CONTINUES

Good morning, it’s Day 142 of the now-failing attempted fascist coup against America. There are 510 days until the midterm elections.

Yes, the United State military is supposed to be non-political, swearing allegiance to the Constitution, not to an individual. But it must be understood where the majority of the military comes from, at least those members who are White. They come from the rural red states. If they haven’t voted themselves before joining up, their parents and relatives have. And in the past three elections, those people voted for Donald Trump. And so did the active duty military: 56-60% of enlisted troops voted for him in 2016, 2020 and 2024. The American military IS political, like it or not, whether they are supposed to be or not.

This was clearly shown yesterday, when Trump journeyed to Fort Bragg - the biggest military base in America, now renamed for the loser Confederate traitor general. When Trump mentioned the names of President Joe Biden, Governor Gavin Newsom, and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, the crowd of military families booed them loudly. One can be certain that all those troops were vetted beforehand to insure they were Trump supporters.

Trump opened with a dig, noting the Biden administration had renamed Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty under a 2023 congressionally mandated rule to rename installations honoring Confederate generals. When he later bragged that he didn’t think former President Biden would be able to draw a similar crowd, saying “Do you think this crowd would have showed up for Biden? I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I don’t think so, maybe I’m wrong,” to jeers from the crowd. He went on: “Do you think this crowd would have showed up for Biden? I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I don’t think so, maybe I’m wrong,” he said to more jeers from the crowd. He went on to invoke the unrest in Los Angeles, referring to the “governor of California” and “the mayor of Los Angeles,” which triggered boos. He identified journalists in attendance as “the fake news,” a comment that prompted jeers from some uniformed service members behind him, who seemed to be acting on cue.

This is your non-political military America. It’s now the embodiment of every criticism made 50 years ago when the decision was made to end the draft and “professionalize” the military. If that crowd had been composed of draftees from all over America, and their families, there would have been a much different response.

In case you had any doubt that Trump is doubling down on reinstituting a white supremacist government, he also announced at Fort Bragg yesterday that the Pentagon will restore the names of the seven remaining military installations formerly named after Confederate generals, saying

“For a little breaking news, we are also going to be restoring the names to Fort Picket, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rutger, Fort Poke (Polk) and Fort AP Hill and Fort Robert E. Lee.”

The bases are currently known as Fort Barfoot in Virginia, Fort Cazavos in Texas, Fort Eisenhower in Georgia, Fort Novosel in Alabama, Fort Johnson in Louisiana, Fort Walker in Virginia, and Fort Gregg-Adams, also in Virginia, respectively. All of the personnel honored with these names, like my friend the late Mike Novosel - winner of the Medal of Honor for rescuing troops under fire in Vietnam - served honorably in the military and were not traitors. Trump the draft dodging scum dams himself every time he opens that anusmouth.

Trump called protesters in Los Angeles “animals” and “a foreign enemy” in the Fort Bragg speech as he defended deploying the military on demonstrators opposed to his immigration enforcement raids and as he vowed to “liberate” the West Coast city, saying “We will not allow an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy. That’s what they are.” In his most aggressive language yet regarding the protests, using a speech ostensibly supposed to be used to recognize the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, he also repeated his false statements about the 2020 election being rigge. He called Los Angeles “a trash heap” with “entire neighborhoods under control” of criminals and said the federal government would “use every asset at our disposal to quell the violence and restore law and order.” “We will liberate Los Angeles and make it free, clean and safe again,” (FACT CHECK: Sorry Fatso Fatass, but Los Angeles has for the past several years had the lowest crime rate it’s ever had.)

Active-duty military members are not allowed to attend political rallies in uniform, which this was. They are not allowed to express partisan views while on duty, or to show disrespect for American elected officials, which they did at Trump’s bidding. He may not know these rules and regulations, but the officers know them well. It is part of their oath, their credo, and their identity as officers to remain apart from such displays. If senior officers remain silent, what lesson will those young men and women take from what happened today?

This morning, a federal judge rejected Gavin Newsom’s request for an immediate order limiting TACO’s Los Angeles troop deployment, agreeing to first give Maladministration II a chance to defend itself at a hearing tomorrow before issuing the emergency ruling.

The national furor over the situation in Los Angeles is bleeding into the debate over the massive military parade scheduled for Washington this weekend. Referring to the No Kings Day protests now set for 1,800 locations across the country that will detract from his birthday celebration as he destroys the streets of Washington by running 80-ton tanks over them, Trump upped the ante about any potential confrontation this coming Saturday. “If there’s any protester wants to come out, they will be met with very big force,” he warned.

Do not think for one minute I am advocating you stay away from the protests. I plan to be in downtown LA holding a nonviolent rebuke of the decision to put those troops around the Roybal Federal Building, and I’m telling you here that you have to be at whatever demonstration is near you. We are now talking about whether or not we are going to keep democracy in the face of assaults by a man who now believes he can take these actions against us right out in public.

The mainstream media has already run up the white flag of surrender. Yesterday, ABC News cut ties with senior national correspondent Terry Moran after he blasted Premanent Prepubescdent Annoying High School Putz Stephen Miller as a “world-class hater.” ABC’s statement said” “We are at the end of our agreement with Terry Moran and based on his recent post—which was a clear violation of ABC News policies—we have made the decision to not renew. At ABC News, we hold all of our reporters to the highest standards of objectivity, fairness and professionalism, and we remain committed to delivering straightforward, trusted journalism.” Hey you corporate scum, it was completely objective, fair, and professional to call out the reincarnation of Reinhard Heydrich, who is now the guy pouring gasoline and throwing matches at the situation here in Los Angeles.

The assault on elected officials who oppose Trump’s move toward fascism is also well underway. Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) was indicted yesterday on federal charges claiming she forcibly impeded and interfered with law enforcement officers after a clash outside an immigration detention facility in Newark on May 9. Former Professional Parking Lot Lawyer now Trump Fluffer Alina Habba no brains said: “As I have stated in the past, it is my Constitutional obligation as the Chief Federal Law Enforcement Officer for New Jersey to ensure that our federal partners are protected when executing their duties.”

Speaker Mike Johnson said that Gov Gavin Newsom should be tarred and feathered. Asked yesterday if he agreed with Trump and Tom Homan that Newsom should be arrested: “Um, that's not my lane. I'm not going give you legal analysis on whether Gavin Newsom should be arrested. But he ought to be tar and feathered, I'll say that.” Newsom responded: “Good to know we’re skipping the arrest and going straight for the 1700’s style forms of punishment. A fitting threat given the GOP wants to bring our country back to the 18th Century.” Asked on Tuesday when he last spoke to Newsom Trump said: “A day ago. Called him up to tell him - you got to do a better job. He's doing a bad job. Causing a lot of death and potential death.” (FACT CHECK: There is no death. And he didn’t call.) Newsom responded: “There was no call. Not even a voicemail. Americans should be alarmed that a President deploying Marines onto our streets doesn’t even know who he’s talking to.”

Bimbo bumfuck ICE Barbie violated the Hatch Act yesterday in the Oval Office while standing next to Trump when she said: “Gov Newsom has been an incompetent governor of CA for many years. The people there should never elect him into a leadership position ever again.” She was politicking in the Oval. The president and VP are allowed to do so under the law. Nobody else. She has also said that Los Angeles is a “city of criminals,” which shows how pathetic she is.

Trump claims that the military parade in DC is not really about his birthday: “We’re celebrating the Army on Flag Day - not my birthday. It is my birthday, but I’m not celebrating my birthday, I’m celebrating Flag Day. It happens to be the same day so I take a little heat, but Flag Day is the appropriate day.” (And the sun now rises in the west, did you know that?) The parade is set to begin at 6:30 pm, and will start at 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue NW and end at 15th and Constitution Avenue NW. The parade will include 28 M1A1 Abrams tanks, 28 M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and 4 Paladin Howitzers. There will be 8 CH-47 Chinook helicopters, 16 AH-64 Apache helicopters, and 16 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. The streets of DC are built to take a maximum weight of 50 tons; the Abrams tank weighs 80 tons. Can’t you just see the ultimate Trump fuckup, when the tanks break through the street paving and get stuck there?

Noted konztitooshinul skolar Sen Josh Hawley said: “These LA rioters love waving their foreign flags while they burn ours. If you burn the American flag in furtherance of a crime, you ought to get your prison sentence doubled.” Gee, why didn’t you ask for similar punishments for the trraitor scum you raised a fist to - before you were spotted running for your life down a Capitol hallway to get away from the people you saluted - on January 6? Rep. Anna Paulina Luna - who didn’t know w hat “conservative” was before running for Congress (and doesn’t know now): “On June 7-9 and June 14 there will be protests across the country. Some of these are being backed by a communist group tied to the CCP. These groups are using ICE protests as a ruse. MAGA: DO NOT SHOW UP IN GEAR. IF YOU DO ATTEND AND WITNESS ILLEGAL ACTIVITY, RECORD FACES AND LICENSE PLATES. We will ask you to submit footage and information to the FBI. THIS IS ORCHESTRATED.” Yes, boyz ‘n girlz, they are indeed worried about us. This morning, Hawley announced he is launching a probe into whether the Los Angeles protests are funded by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) to address allegations that they are fueling chaos in California. (FACT CHECK: this is another GOP lie. CHIRLA doesn’t do things like that. They have received funds from various sources including DHS to facilitate local citizenship education training.)

In a Tuesday news conference LA Mayor Karen Bass announced she was enacting a curfew for a small part of downtown L.A. as a way “to stop the vandalism, to stop the looting” after five days of protests in response to immigration raids. Proving how wrong Trump and the Trumpscum have been about what’s really going on, the curfew covers one square mile and is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. and end at 6 a.m. Bass said the police would arrest anyone who defies the order, except residents, people traveling to and from work and credentialed media. The curfew is expected to last for several days. As I keep saying, nobody goes to downtown - the closest most LA residents get to the place is driving past on the 110 and 10 freeways on their way to more important destinations. The rest of the city is entirely peaceful.

The Republican attempt to portray the No Kings Day protests as “radical” and “insurrectionist” is already in play. ABGC News reported this morning that Governor “Wheels” Abbott has activated the Texas National Guard, reporting, “Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to deploy National Guard across the state in response to protest.” They followed up with the more informative point that he did this AHEAD of the protests, “The move comes ahead of a planned protest in San Antonio and follows days of protest in L.A. and across the nation.” (Just remember that the only video of an “insurrection” in Los Angeles is the same 5 minutes from Sunday that Faux Snooze has on permanent rewind.) Abbott said the move was to “ensure peace and order.” The National Guard cannot do anything about that - nowhere do they have the power to arrest anyone when they are called under “section 10" as Abbott has done.

Elmo has now done a good demonstration of the way Maladministration II works just like the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union at the time of the Moscow Show Trials. This morning, Elmo announced that he “regrets” some of the posts he wrote about TACO last week during the Big Breakup. “I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far,” Musk said on Xitter.

This morning, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit took up TACO’s bid to fight his hush money criminal conviction in federal court Wednesday, acknowledging the extraordinary prosecution coupled with the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision breaks new ground. They must decide whether to open a path for him to attempt to throw out his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records by letting him advance his case in a federal forum, instead of New York state courts. TACO argues he is entitled to a federal forum to make his case that the jury’s guilty verdict must be tossed in light of the Supreme Court’s subsequent ruling granting broad criminal immunity to former presidents. This was shot down before. He must show the hush money prosecution relates to an act “under color” of his presidency, a potential complication given that his 34 charges stem from reimbursements for a hush money payment made before his presidency.

This surprised me: Walmart heiress Christy Walton is funding full page ads in the NYT this week for “No Kings Day.” This didn’t: Breitbart editor Matthew Boyle: “Given that Walmart fortune heiress Christy Walton is funding them, and the fact that Walmart CEO Doug McMillon is now outright refusing to condemn violence against law enforcement per spokeswoman Lauren Willis, it’s time to start calling them the Mexican Flag Walmart Riots.”

Here’s good news for today:

Surprise surprise - TACO’s chosen Chairman of the Joint Chiefs isn’t a complete toady as some had expected. Once again, he’s mistaken a military nickname “Razin’ Caine” for reality. This morning, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine told senators he did not believe Putin would stop at Ukraine if he succeeds in overtaking the country, a marked contrast to TACO’s typical ambiguity on the question. Sen. Lindsey Graham asked Caine and SECDRUNK Pete Hegseth whether Putin would “stop at Ukraine” in a series of rapid-fire questions on foreign conflicts. “I don’t believe he is,” Caine told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on armed services. Graham turned to Hegseth with the same question.“Remains to be seen,” Hegseth said.

Graham then said the answer was obvious. “It doesn’t remain to be seen. Putin tells everybody around what he wants to do,” the South Carolina Republican said, noting Russia’s buildup of ordnance is well beyond what it might need to take Ukraine.

As a final note, it’s interesting that Trump lauded Confederate traitor Robert E. Lee, since the rest of his family - including his son - remained loyal to the Union and served in the Union Army, along with 40% of the Virginia graduates of West Point. Lee’sfamily was opposed to his continual sale of slaves “down the river” and to his ways of disciplining the slaves. His father had included in his will the hope that his son would free the slaves and included that as a condition of his will, but Robert E. Lee contested that part and it was dropped from the will. Robert E. Lee was no hero. He was a vicious enslaver, dedicated to the maintenance of the Slave Power. It’s no surprise the Hitler-admirer Trump would say all the nice things about Lee that he did yesterday.

Jay Kuo gets the last word: “The Trump regime’s war on our democracy began with a war on truth, and that fight is continuing apace. They currently have a clear goal: turn public opinion against migrants and anti-ICE protesters to justify a police state in Democratic cities.”

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