See the Ball
Hit the Ball
Donald John Trump made two campaign promises that are causing him problems right now.
Both are toxic. One is a silly scandal. The other is a vicious, tragically consequential, and badly bumbled attack on the human and constitutional rights of a minority ethnic group.
Ignore the Softball Outside the Strike Zone
The Tyrant Trump has a loose fly zipper. Connected to an immoral mind. And an unshakeable attitude of privilege.
This conduct and outlook are typical to men operating and advancing within a patriarchal society.
In several important respects, however, the Mad King ups the ante on the standard profile of an abuser enjoying an advantageous position.
He and shame are strangers.
He publicly has stated that he need not ask God for forgiveness. Because he never has sinned.
Facts, intimations, and accusations which belittle, mock, demean, and/or directly tarnish his brand enrage him. Like a scorpion gone mad, he will sting himself to death in his determination to escape from a context he does not prefer.
For reasons that persons outside his cult cannot understand, much less condone, his sexcapades are ignored, excused, or admired by enough people to allow him to access the Oval Office twice in nine years.
On all three campaign trails, he promised to unmask the sexual perversions of the high and mighty who conspired against every right-thinking American voter. He included himself among those betrayed by the bestial conduct of Those in Power.
The Access Hollywood tapes did not keep him from the Oval Office in 2016. The $5 million opinion of a jury of common citizens about his sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll (and 25 other women) did not bar him from a return to the White House in 2024. He defamed every accuser and lost an appeal to exonerate his misconduct.
So, it is understandable that the current brouhaha about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein can seem suspect to anyone with eyes to see, ears to hear, and a mind with decent judgement and memory.
Perhaps the sitting president has forced himself sexually on more children, adolescents, and/or adults--of any gender—before and beyond the 26 women already known and named as his unwilling victims.
Maybe he frolicked with prostitutes in Russia to despoil the bed previously occupied by Obama. Maybe not.
Civil courts can reach and punish verifiable instances of personal misconduct by the sitting president and his despicable acquaintances free of the federal protections granted The Man by a high court gone rogue. It is reasonable to leave justice where it can survive and thrive. And, focus on naming and stopping those instances and situations where it presently cannot.
The Trump-Epstein friendship scandal rings a frantically false note.
The facts of and the media frenzy regarding whatever list of clients Jeffrey Epstein may have kept risk becoming boring. The entire controversy seems designed and pursued in a manner that throws off more heat than light.
Look away.
Instead, inquire: What vulnerable Project 2025 playbook intents and (still pending) mandates do the shadows hold?
This is not a matter of wild and unsupported conspiracy theorizing. Or political paranoia.
This is a clear and pressing need to assess battleground conditions. And make immediate and judicious adjustments to position and strategy.
Focus on the Hard Ball Across the Plate
The administration is concerned about the “choke point” in its implementation of Stephen Miller’s 3000 per day resident apprehension program. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) can’t skin what it catches. Those held no longer can bond clear of detention.
The solution is worse than the problem.
New and addditional soft side holding facilities are proposed. These are not cost-effective. (See Alligator Alcatraz.) They institutionalize, normalize, and compound illegal aspects of inhumanity. They must be resisted as a notion and a practice.
Coming to Scale
There is no present public understanding of the current resident detention system. And how it relates to criminal incarceration facilities. The location, ownership, and operation of most of the places of confinement is not known. The essential nature of these facilities and their adequacy to purpose is unclear.
One thing seems certain. The available facilities are not adequate to receive and hold the flood of residents that Steven Miller directs agents of the federal government to locate and apprehend. It is possible that the whole program may be a horrible smoke screen intended to distract attention from other, ongoing serious and permanent adjustments to the structure and operation of our constitutional form of government.
See the ball.
Hit the ball.
Manifesto
What’s “hot” and what’s “Not” in the infosphere flip back and forth like a weather pennant trying to track an incoming hurricane.
What does not change is the immutable and enduring difference between what is right and what is wrong.
Rights and freedoms denied any resident of this country threaten and easily may apply to those of each and all.
We the People unhappy with Election 2024 results and consequences are compelled to admit enemies of our founding documents are pressing for control of our lives, liberties, rights, and privileges. Unless invited or allowed to do so, these consistently active corrosive forces cannot distort or diminish our interior landscape, moral compass, intentions, affections, allegiances, and/or aspirations. Our indomitable and indivisible Power of One has a duty to consider what to do with three compromised branches of government. They are complicit in institutionalized and normalized criminal federal conduct. Other than maintaining a clear mind and stout heart, some other activities are worthy of investment of time, energy, and consideration.
1. Identify and replace Quisling attitudes, actions, institutions, and personalities.
2. Innovate and deploy fresh and effective modes of peaceful resistance to Trump 2.0.
3. Require Congress to withdraw funding of illegal ICE operations.
Anthem
Unless and until denied, Donald John Trump will have all things at all times labor to his personal and commercial advantage.
He largely has coopted and conditioned the media and information complex into a reflexive response to his most immediate notion or routinely irrational (but always self-serving) action. Both his attention span and reporting on its results of it are very short-lived and diminishing in duration along a painfully consistent curve. Callous cruelty is the mode of Trump 2.0 operation. Frequency and volume of contradictory information is the hammer numbing all will to absorb, comprehend, and reorder chaos.
Accordingly, Resistance 2.0 must take sanity, truth, and aspiration as its primary battlelines.
Politicians dissemble and distract by calling these times a contest between democracy and more repressive forms of government.
The battle is more ancient, important, and inescapable than politics.
Call it what it is—a holy war for identity, agency, and decency. Human aspirations and rights always must resist the temptation to surrender themselves in whole or part to an urge to trade down or surrender vitality for security. Where and when faith is lost, redemption and renewal remain as true and recommended action options. Embrace them personally. Advocate for them to every faint heart, confused mind, and troubled soul.
The callous disregard of those in present power for the will of the governed is not acceptable or sustainable. We the People dissatisfied with the results and consequences of Election 2024 will not “get over” betrayals of trust. We may rightfully be a bit weary. We are not confused.
On the matter of immigration, Donald John Trump can claim, but cannot have, it both ways. His attitudes and actions either are or are not crimes against humanity. Those complicit in the fact or normalization of the criminality of his programs are as culpable and accountable as him.
As to the normalization of criminal conduct by Trump 2.0, as funded by the 118th Congress, the infamous misconduct of the Roberts Court is distressing to experience in fact and effect.
Its rogue conduct and partisan rulings will not stand in time or against the force of Elenor Roosevelt’s legacy in international law. Human rights will find effective voice and defense a little down the line in time. (Looking at you Nuremberg.)
Election 2026 is the event that history will note and consider.
Let us covenant with each other to make it the long-awaited moment of truth that turns the tide of oppression back upon itself.
Let conduct ourselves each day everywhere all the time in a manner and to a purpose that will allow us to remember ourselves well in these troubled times.
Let us champion life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, welfare, security, the rule of law and the sanctity of self.
Let us protest, persist, and prevail against Trump 2.0. Let us effectively resist the fact and effects of implementation of the Project 2025 playbook.
Go, team, go.
"It is possible that the whole program may be a horrible smoke screen intended to distract attention from other, ongoing serious and permanent adjustments to the structure and operation of our constitutional form of government." - IT IS CERTAIN!