National Park Service acting director P. Daniel Smith faces plenty of looming priorities this summer, from an $11 billion backlog in maintenance needs to natural disasters like the recent wildfire damage to Big Bend Park.
But in recent days, another issue has competed for Smith’s attention: how to satisfy President Donald Trump’s request to station tanks or other armored military vehicles on the Mall for his planned July Fourth address to the nation.
I can’t think of a better use for heavy armor than to sit by as the vultures pick the bones of the dead capital. Thank goodness there isn’t some sort of massive invasion in progress down at the Southern border.
Another federal judge halts Trump’s beautiful, beautiful, very impressive plan to stem the tide of invasion.
A California federal judge issued a ruling blocking President Trump from using $2.5 billion in military funds to build a wall along the southern border.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Haywood Gilliam, who is an appointee of former President Barack Obama, ruled to permanently block the $2.5 billion after issuing a temporary injunction in May to stop the administration’s use of the funds. The ruling stymies several construction projects in California, Arizona, and New Mexico.
There’s a simple workaround for this problem that does not involve a physical wall nor locking Gilliam in a cage, both of which are still defensible. But, hell, we’re just not into solutions anymore. Hey, look! Here comes more “tasty ethnic food,” now!
Groups of hundreds of Africans, Haitians and others from Central and South America continue to trudge across the U.S.- Mexico border in record numbers, despite promises from Mexico to help stop the massive migration.
Footage from the Del Rio Sector of the border in Texas shows scores are making their way in mini-caravans, with many arriving well-dressed in designer clothes, toting luggage and backpacks with their children in tow.
Well-dressed, designer ethnic food! The best kind.
Friends, I really, really tire of this shit. As many of you know, I’m moving deeper into fiction, with which I apparently do a good, popular job and which I also enjoy tremendously. Moving into the second half of 2019, that’s where my focus will be directed. I’ll still do “reality” columns for TPC (maybe elsewhere) and I’ll still link short bits, with commentary, here. But the focus is going to be on issues and stories I directly control, and which both generate better profits and serve to better express theory and polemical messages, if any. Unlike the situation at the border, it’s going to be great. You’re invited.
Millennials are doing their part to ensure a saaaaaafe existence in the failing police state.
The neon green fanny pack strapped around Annabel Hess’ skinny jeans carried all the essentials for a music festival: credit card, driver’s license, phone, Chapstick.
And her passport.
The 25-year-old concert-goer wasn’t headed out of the country after Miranda Lambert closed the first night of the annual Country LakeShake festival. She brought it to sign up for TSA PreCheck, the government’s expedited airport security program.
Hess, a regular traveler, had been meaning to sign up so she no longer has to beg other passengers to cut the security line when she’s running late for her flight. Her roommate has had PreCheck since college and saw the festival’s pitch about enrolling on-site and getting a fast pass through festival security as a bonus.
“This was an easy opportunity,” Hess said. “So here I am.”
She signed up inside the green and purple Identogo RV outside the festival gates in about 10 minutes and headed for the fast-pass line to get into the festival.
Nevermind that this is, has always has been, about showing identification during internal travels. Tabs, they keep them. The fascists have long talked about spreading the misery of TSA-isms to concerts, sporting events, bus stations, highway travel, and elsewhere. It’s good that shit stupid mushheads are cheering them on with enthusiasm. That’s the spirit of Lexington and Concord.
Folks, all of the hatemongering and fearmongering against Iran aside, the Persian nation has not invaded any country in an act of unprovoked aggression in over 200 years. Iran was not even involved in Israel’s Six Day War in 1967. And not only has Iran not attacked the United States (or Israel either, for that matter), Iran poses absolutely NO threat to the United States. And the only threat Iran poses to Israel is a defensive threat as Israel constantly attacks Iranian assets across the region. If Israel was not such a fanatical militaristic apartheid state, the PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah would not even exist.
Israel has launched hundreds (maybe thousands) of missile attacks against Iranian assets in Syria and Lebanon. And please remember that Iran’s forces are in those countries lawfully, having been invited by the respective governments of those countries to help defend their people against the constant attacks by Israel.
Do you not find it more than interesting that Iran is home to more Jews than any other Middle Eastern country outside of Israel? And do you not find it even more interesting that those thousands of Jews in Iran believe themselves to be freer and safer in Iran than they would be in Israel, the United States or Europe?
This war against Iran is not about the safety and security of the United States, and it’s not about protecting the world against a “terrorist” state. It’s all about war for Israel and the Federal Reserve. Iran is the last major Middle Eastern country that has refused to submit to the Federal Reserve international banking cartel.
I haven’t watched any of the Democratic circuses on television and I don’t plan to start. In fact, I so unconcerned, that I haven’t even looked at any transcripts. What’s the point? But, I do understand, maybe Tulsi Gabbard aside, every one of the Donkey candidates wants to give away heaping truckloads of “free” stuff to just about anyone they can find. Surfer Girl was right to stay out of that idiocy last night.
The Parkland school shooting and the aftermath are back in the news. Instead of more gun control, maybe we need more police control?
TPC is back from the annual summer getaway and a SUPER POST is heralded for Sunday. I said I might participate in that. And, I might. Maybe. That, or I’ll just concentrate on next week’s column – for which I have several ideas. One is of the political variety and something I’ve been holding back. “Independence” Day week might be a good time to unleash. Or, there’s a new short historical fiction piece I just totally made up out thin air. No idea where it came from, but I think it hits some buttons. It’s completely unrelated to any other fiction I’ve done, so I did add in Tom Ironsides, before and after, as a bookend set. The story is in no way related (directly) to his work, nor mine with him.
The U.S. Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a significant defeat on Thursday, ruling that his administration did not give an adequate explanation for its plan to include a contentious citizenship question on the 2020 census and preventing its addition to the decennial survey for now.
The justices – in a 5-4 decision with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the court’s four liberals in the majority and writing the ruling – upheld part of a federal judge’s ruling barring the question in a victory for a group of states including New York and immigrant rights organizations that had challenged the plan.
Opponents of the question have called it a Republican ploy to scare immigrants into not taking part in the population count.
As part of the ruling issued on the last day of the court’s current term, the justices sent the issue back to the Commerce Department for it to decide how to proceed. But the clock is ticking, as census forms have to be printed in the coming months.
On the issue of the Census: as if it still matters, and the Supremes did pay it some lip service, the Old Parchment authorizes a headcount ONLY. No other questions beyond, “How many of y’all live here?’ And, as to Trump, what difference does it make? He’s not building a wall, deporting anyone, or even defending the border. Moot.
While the rest of the candidates at the first Democratic debate tonight have been doing their best to out-socialist each other, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has been trying to keep the country out of war.
When asked whether she would rejoin the 2015 Iran nuclear deal—first negotiated by the Obama administration and withdrawn from by President Donald Trump—Gabbard gave an unequivocal yes, while warning about the dire consequences of war.
“War with Iran would be worse than war with Iraq,” said Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran. “Donald Trump and his chickenhawk cabinet—Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and others—are creating a situation where a spark would light a war with Iran. Trump needs to get back into the Iran deal, swallow his pride, and put America first.”
And, according to a poll, she won the debate handily. I wonder if the DNC and the Deep State are going to deep-six her candidacy now, or if they’re going to have a little fun with it and then rob her later.
This week, the gang at TPC is on vacation – a summer tradition and well earned. However, National Affairs never stop, relent, nor sleep. Ergo, this week the C.F. Floyd National Affairs Column slums here at my little old blog. Welcome! Getting right down to it,
Last week, on “Juneteenth” – a holy day among the tribes of the central Congo, I believe – a very special committee hearing convened in Mordor. Specifically, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution (yeah, one wonders if they have another subcommittee on powdered wigs or dinosaurs…) held forth on H.R. 40 (2019), the brainchild (if that’s even possible) of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-La-La land).
This is the first Bill addressed in Congress proposing formal … well, let’s let Mrs. Jackson Lee’s work speak for itself:
A BILL
To address the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to study and consider a national apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery, its subsequent de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.
…
This Act may be cited as the “Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act”.
Knowing that it does not get any better than the above, feel free to waste time reading THE WHOLE BILL.
Before we discuss the … merits… of H.R. 40 … okay, there are no merits, but uh, let’s have a little history anyway. I’ll spin it in a way to support the reparations racket (which I do in fact support). Did you know that,
Black Africans used to build spaceship pyramids? They did before they were enslaved in America in 1619. All true.
Black Africans are (were) the “real” Egyptians, real Hebrews, real Muslims, and even the real Black Africans.
There was no slavery in Africa, prior to the arrival of those wicked men from “Roots.” Africans, Arabs, and other Semitic peoples had absolutely nothing to do with slavery. Just whites. Time to pay!
The very first registered slave-owner in America was certainly NOT a black man… No.
No whites were ever held in slavery in America or anywhere else. Do not let the damned Irish and Slavs try to deceive you.
Blacks in America are almost all slaves today and have been since 1619 (maybe since 619!).
Blacks in America are almost entirely treated as chattel property, without autonomy or the right to own property, vote, or hold office. (This makes Sheila Jackson Lee’s existence as an elected official all the more remarkable).
No Civil War, Presidential Proclamation, law, or Constitutional Amendment was ever even considered to ameliorate this terrible injustice.
Blacks in America, if they are allowed schooling, are schooled in segregated institutions.
No-one named Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson, or Maynard Jackson ever lived.
There were no civil rights movement and attendant laws in the middle of the 20th Century.
Except for the extremely odd case of Sheila Jackson Lee (and a few very other strange cases), there are no Black elected officials in America.
Out of … a whole lot of white guys … no Black American has ever served as President. Ever. Certainly not as recently as three years ago.
And – I’ll just throw this in for fantasy measure – there are no other races or ethnic divisions in America. It’s just oppressive whites and oppressed blacks. We also have no demographic, societal, educational, economic, political, or other troubles to worry about.
So, one can plainly see that reparations for something no-one alive today ever had anything to do with, is the right thing to do. That’s not just the accelerationist in me talking. Okay, honestly it is…
Whatever you do, please pay no heed to right-wing, white supremacist, Nazi extremists like Coleman Hughes, who testified at the hearing on behalf of the Ku Klux Klan:
He and his “justice for the dead at the price of justice for the living” crap are just pure hate. Instead, all those of you still working and singing on the Political Plantation, listen to the great wisdom of the Chairman, Mas’ (((Cohen))). “Chill!” like the man ordered. Don’t be “presumptive,” as he condescended. Know your place and your rank on the totem pole. If scraps come your way, then be grateful.
Looking beyond certain failure in the current Senate or on Trump’s desk, the fact the hearing was held and taken with any degree of seriousness, tells you something about AmericaThe United States This Place Between Mexico and Canada. If this passes, and some form of it may in time, then it will be just another heap of dirt in the grave of civilization on these shores. Bluntly, anyone who supports this scheme, at face value and for the “reasons” listed in the Bill, proves himself not necessarily African, but most certainly not American. Take the loot and then go home?
Note: Other big doin’s around the Nation include Bernie Sanders’s surprisingly good idea to cancel ALL student loan debt. We have “strong” sanctions on Iran (again, still). And, we have no Southern border whatsoever. This, that, maybe more, maybe something else, when TPC resumes on Sunday, the 30th. I may participate in the looming SUPER POST! Stay tuned. Please remember to tip your server as you exit perrinlovett[dot]me…
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., will propose on Monday eliminating all $1.6 trillion of student debt held in the United States, a significant escalation of the policy fight in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary two days before the candidates’ first debate in Miami.
Sanders is proposing that the federal government pay to wipe clean the student debt held by 45 million Americans – including all private and graduate school debt – as part of a package that also would make public universities, community colleges and trade schools tuition-free.
Sanders is proposing to pay for these plans with a tax on Wall Street his campaign says will raise more than $2 trillion over 10 years, though some tax experts give lower revenue estimates.
A few things:
The tax isn’t even necessary.
This, however funded, would be substantially cheaper than the bankster bailout from Too Big To Fail. Unlike that scheme, Sanders’s proposal would benefit the American people.
Before libertardians and “CONservatives” wail about “a deal’s a deal,” kindly consider the original terms of the underlying deals.
And, this is a good start – on the way to repudiating all $74 Trillion in existing total US debt. There’s a very simple way to do it – and to “pay it all off” – within the scope of existing law. After that’s accomplished, new debt should be illegal, in the current mode of many jurisdictions’ misdemeanor drug possession laws: catch an individual with debt, seize the promissory note and any remaining funds – for destruction; catch someone manufacturing debt, felony and hard jail time.
Trump delays limited deportation enforcement in search of a “deal.” Like what? Are they going to agree to go home voluntarily? No. They are here to stay – for now.
From the Tweeter in Chief:
At the request of Democrats, I have delayed the Illegal Immigration Removal Process (Deportation) for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!
They, many of them, will go home – as soon as the coming hostilities begin in earnest. That’ll be just a little longer than a two-year delay. But, not by much.
Please make sure to vote in the VERY IMPORTANT election, whenever that is…
PERRIN LOVETT 