It’s not Trump derangement, it’s Trump deranged…

The over-the-top federal police and military terror campaign of Donald Trump disguised as immigration enforcement is not making our streets safer as far as I can tell.

Or, conversely, if it is somehow by scaring off the bad guys, any success in that regard is countered by the loss of the rights of normal folks to walk the streets without fear of being unfairly accosted by immigration agents, who have actually demanded to see identity papers – would that be birth certificates? — of American citizens.

There is little question that the Trump administration is intent on spreading fear among all who might oppose its policies.

An unarmed female American citizen was shot to death by immigration agents in Minneapolis earlier this month, and a man, said to be armed but there being no way of knowing yet whether he actually brandished his weapon toward agents, was shot to death Saturday there as well. Agents have also shot others.

The female victim it seems to me was confused. She was apparently or reportedly a protester but confronted by aggressive agents yelling obscenities (I know bystanders did too, at the agents), she seemed not to know what to do – she likely panicked. Even though agents alleged she attempted to run an agent or agents over with her car, we’ll never know. She’s dead. Videos seem inconclusive. I keep feeling it was something like murder or manslaughter on the part of the agent who shot her – but I don’t know. And I don’t envy law enforcement agents who have to make instant life and death decisions. But the Trump administration seems to be needlessly putting them into such situations by its mismanagement of the situation.

Yes, past administrations and congresses, Democrat and Republican, have failed to properly deal with immigration (albeit Obama was once called the “deporter in chief”), but the unwise shoot first, ask questions later or never method, now being employed, is not right.

Local authorities may or may not be cooperating, but it seems plain federal authorities are not really interested in their cooperation, but instead complete subordination.

So far, the Trump administration seems not to be interested in investigating the shootings but instead vilifying the victims.

We should not presuppose guilt until the evidence is in, but we should also not presuppose the innocence of the shooters.

Federal agents have also harassed people who may actually or technically be here illegally, but who are holding down jobs and being a part of productive society and part of the fabric of our communities.

We want the authorities to go after the murderers and rapists and thieves they talk about but do so in a way that does not disrupt the tranquility and security of regular law-abiding society.

(You do your investigations, secure warrants from a judge, and make your arrests. You do not need to harass everyday folks – of course those everyday folks would do well not to harass the federal agents.)

It is clear that the president is purposely sending agents and troops to Democratic Party strongholds. He is also directing his justice department to go after political opponents.

Just as bad, or even worse, he is making enemies of our friends and buddies with the enemies of democracy on the world stage. He’s even gone after Canada, threatening to annex it.

He has also threatened to send troops into Mexico. I’m not sure he knows what to think of the female Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, who has managed to stand up to him without bluster, but instead, dignity. She has not refused reasonable cooperation in the fight against the drug trade. She has refused to give up her nation’s sovereignty.

I could not believe my ears when I heard a report that Trump claimed British soldiers did not carry their weight in helping the United States in Afghanistan. Per capita, the United Kingdom lost more soldiers than the United States, according to reports.

Trump’s cruel obsession with taking over Greenland, the tranquil autonomous territory of Demark, when both the few thousand Greenlanders and Denmark itself have bent over backwards to cooperate with the United States, is heartbreakingly embarrassing and shameful.

The Venezuela so-called take over and drug boat bombing thing and the fact that he captures a leader he does not like over alleged drug trade activity but lets other drug runners he likes get out of jail, just goes to show how corrupt and without morals our president is.

And, he claims his power is only restricted by his own sense of morality, not the congress and not the constitution, and not our own principles of American democracy.

There are few options here. There is impeachment – been there, done that, two times (unsuccessful), the 25^th Amendment (the vice president has to sign off, so that seems out).

A message from voters in next fall’s mid terms might give backbone or create panic among Trump’s Republican enablers.

Even the fact that Trump by law is term-limited out by 2028 is no guarantee. He is not above setting off an insurrection to remain in the White House – remember Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump and his enablers often say anyone who talks against him has “Trump derangement syndrome”. That’s just a nonsensical little child way of fending off criticism in the vein of “I know you are, what am I?” (I never got that one either).

I should stop here. But I want to add: I can recall when Nixon was president and being heavily criticized over Vietnam and was facing the corruption charges against him in the Watergate investigation. There were stories that he was moodily wandering the halls of the White House, sometimes in a drunken state. There was fear he would do anything to hold onto power, that he might launch a nuclear missile or in some other way I suppose create a crisis to force all to rally around him. It was scary. I think it is more so now. I’m not at all sure Trump is sane.

Some might just be in awe over his power and even support him for no other reason.

I don’t follow that, though. He does not represent what I would want my own nation to be.

He never did. But he’s gotten worse.

If we are as ruthless and self-serving as the bad guys, who are we?

As a baby boomer I grew up under the narrative that we, the United States of America, were the good guys. The Soviet Union was the main aggressor, attempting to control the whole world, dominating it with its totalitarian form of government. And that narrative survived, even though I learned that sometimes we were not so good, in that we at times behind the scenes supported brutal dictators because they served our own economic interests. Still, with a little rationalization one could still be assured that we were the good guys. When we did pursue our military adventures, those actions were described as good against evil, and in support of freedom.

But now. We have a leader who simply says, we have the power, we will take what we want, or is it, what he wants?

Anyway, I never would have foreseen that a president of the United States would threaten to invade an ally, Greenland, one who has always cooperated with us, for no other imaginable reason than he must be mad with power. Yes, he claims that Greenland, a large island in the North Atlantic and autonomous region under the protection of the Kingdom of Denmark, with its tiny population (under 60,000) could not withstand an invasion from Russia or China, and neither could Denmark help. He seems to overlook that all the countries involved are part of the military defense establishment known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, one that the United States instituted.

And then of course there is the Venezuela adventure. It kind of reminds me of the era in which the United States toyed with the notion of invading Cuba because it had been taken over by a dictator who had gone communist (I say, had gone because some accounts claim that Fidel Castro was not communist until the resistance from the United States turned him that way). As I understand it, the Eisenhower administration set up the convert operation that eventually resulted in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion that humiliated President Kennedy. Both the Republican Eisenhower, and the Democrat Kennedy subscribed to the domino theory that we must fight communism where we can lest it take over the world, with nation by nation falling like a row of dominoes. But they thought we had to sometimes, such as in Cuba, do it on the sly, lest we look like aggressors who want to decide for others what kind of government they would have in their own countries. We did the sly thing in Iran in 1953 and paid for it in 1981 with the taking of American hostages there. Now along comes our present leader and he says: why be sneaky about it? We want another country’s oil and mineral deposits, so we’ll just take control.

I do admire the openness, if not the actions themselves.

But I also lament that it has come to this.

I want us to be the good guys again.

It’s hard to know whether there is a tipping point in which The Republican Party decides its own guy must go and decides to go the impeachment route or do like it did to Nixon and suggest he step down before he is removed via the impeachment process. Greenland could be it. I mean invading Greenland is nonsensical and would surely dismantle NATO. Some European NATO members have already sent troops to Greenland in that Island’s support against the United States –however, last report I read indicates a token force if you could even call it that — I mean like 50, yeah, 5 zero, so far.

At any rate, our president is threatening tariff hikes to any nation opposing his proposed takeover of Greenland.

If we are as ruthless and uncaring or self-serving as our enemies, what have we left to believe in?

Trump could use a check on his power, or at least our democracy could…

If ever there were grounds to impeach a president this has to be the time, but of course that will not happen. That was tried during Trump 1, two times.

What I would like to see just as much or even more than impeachment would be for some Republican senators or not just some but many or all stand up to him from time to time. There is some movement that way, but so far not enough. A few voted with Democrats to try to curb Trump’s war making ability (that is stop him conducting war without congressional authorization), but that failed in a senate vote Wednesday.

He had also received some criticism or pushback in his bombing of so-called drug boats when there was no evidence presented to indicate that they were drug smugglers, not to mention such action was in international waters and performed in an extrajudicial way – I mean we could try to stop all smuggling by simply bombing anyone and everyone even slightly suspected. That heretofore has not fit into our legal system.

After grabbing the dictator of Venezuela and his wife in a precision military strike, Trump claims he will run Venezuela. And now he is threatening to pull some type of military strike on Iran over its murder of protesters there. I hope he doesn’t think he could run Iran.

(He seems fine with what sure looked like a murder of an American citizen protester by an ICE agent on the streets of Minneapolis the other day. I realize it is up to debate whether an officer acted reasonably, but Trump and his underlings have decided to investigate the victim instead of the shooter.)

And currently Trump is pressuring Greenland and its parent country Demark to let him take over there. Greenland is a member of NATO and has always cooperated with the United States and let it have its military installations there and continues to offer its help. No one, except Trump, seems to know why he has his heart set on owning Greenland. He’s even threatened several times to take it by military force. That would of course dissolve NATO (Trump has long said he does not like NATO).

Now this is interesting. Trump claims there is a security threat because enemy ships (Chinese, Russian) can slip through the North Pole route and into the Atlantic by Greenland because of melting ice on the pole. I thought Trump said global warming is a hoax.

In press interviews Trump has made the bold claim that his powers as president are only constrained by he himself. This should be news to anyone who has studied civics and read about the separation of powers between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. I did hear Trump acknowledge that the courts have some say, but his attitude is that they won’t stop him because there is no reason to (did you follow that reasoning?).

But the separation of powers means little if the other two branches fail to do their jobs.

On the plus side, if there is one, we have an executive who does act, rather than just talk.

He has reportedly stopped or all but stopped illegal immigration (well strongly curtailed it, to use his favorite adverb). But, I personally think that could have been done without storm-trooper/gestapo tactics, without terrorizing the populace, without turning some cities into a police state.

Immigration officers could calmly investigate and make arrests where warranted. The problem had been that in the past there was no coordinated and sustained effort to prevent illegal immigration and to find those not supposed to be here. This enticed more to skip the legal procedures and come here.

Trump’s daring raid on Venezuela did send a message worldwide that the United States is not to trifled with – are you listening China, Russia, Iran?

Of course, it gives China cover to invade Taiwan and Russia to take over Ukraine while Trump threatens our allies (keeping in mind his threat on two NATO members).

As a superpower, the United States does carry a heavy burden, but better to be the superpower than something inferior.

But in the past, we have tried to be the good guys with the power, except when we were not, but even then, we tried to make it look right (mostly).

Under Trump we’ve taken a dark turn.

Trump would do just as well or even better under some constraint from congress and the high court. With his determination he might look or even be more powerful and his decisions seem more legitimate if he could stand up to scrutiny.

I would prefer to see America as the good guy who speaks softly but carries the big stick – Teddy Roosevelt style — to use when necessary.

Troops and militarized police in the streets as a show of force from the central government and as a tool to punish political rivals is not something that bodes well for the survival of our democracy.

One wonders when the old-school Republicans will grow back their spines. They seem afraid of getting primaried by Trump. If I were one of them, I’d rather lose an election than my dignity. But I’ve never lived like a senator. Must be nice and addictive.

Mad about ICE tactics? vent your anger at politicians (in non-violent fashion)…

The ICE protests might in the end be more effective if the anger or complaints were vented more directly at our elected representatives, primarily congressmen (by non-violent, peaceful means of course). They all want to get re-elected. The Republicans are scared to do anything to counter Trump because he seems to have the political power to oust them out of their own districts by running primary opponents against them or just badmouthing them and calling them traitors.

Protesters probably would have an easier time with Democrats. Whatever, it’s the politicians who need to get the message.

Taunting or interfering with ICE (immigration and customs enforcement) agents and other law enforcement personnel is dangerous, as one woman found out in Minneapolis. Or, I guess she may have never realized the consequence (not sure how long she lived after being shot by an ICE agent). She should not have been shot, from what I have read and seen in videos. In fact, it almost seems like outright murder or manslaughter. But she also engaged in a knowingly dangerous confrontation. The agents use bully tactics that are unseemly in our free society – but they carry guns, so one is wise to back off and fight in a different way, perhaps.

A little clarification here: from what I have read and seen I am not sure if the victim shot by the ICE officer actually did outright taunting, but it seems her female partner did, and both women appeared to be purposely interfering with an immigration operation – in the name of what they considered legal protest rights.

The public indeed should be enraged at our nation being turned into a police state. Innocent citizens and immigrants, who did nothing wrong, have been victimized.

In my mind immigration control should be at our borders as well an unarmed bureaucracy within our borders that keeps track of guest worker permits and visas and such.

There is no reason that rules against hiring undocumented workers cannot be enforced. I have written previously that as a young man (this would be in the 1970s) I recall having to provide proof of citizenship for a job. I’m born and raised in the United States, Yankee doodle dandy. I cannot attest at this time to what I actually had to do or present to prove citizenship.

We all know that certain industries depend upon undocumented workers, so we live this duplicitous existence where on the one hand we complain about job competition from illegal aliens and then hire them to work in factories, kitchens, gardens, drive trucks, build houses – you name it.

So maybe President Trump has the right idea to go after the illegals (if that was his real goal) but turning our nation into a police state is the wrong thing to do. No one needs or should be killed in the process – with the exception of actual criminals, and then only if they pose an immediate threat to police or citizens and the only option is to use deadly force to stop them.

Working in a garden or operating a food truck or cooking in a kitchen does not pose a threat to anyone. And being an illegal alien, in and of itself, does not make one a “criminal” in the normal sense of the word.

Yes, to get a handle on the immigration problem – that is the fact that millions of undocumented people live within our borders – something needs to be done. There ought to be a mechanism whereby undocumented persons can apply for citizenship or work permits with a requirement to pay a rather steep financial penalty for not going through the legal process. If they can’t or won’t, then deportation is the next step.

Businesses and even private individuals have a duty to not knowingly hire illegal workers. By doing so, they become part of the problem.

As far as the actual criminal element is concerned, there should be no leniency. But we don’t need armed patrols and secret or masked police, just normal law enforcement.

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My own congressman recently died unexpectedly. I think he basically was for strict immigration controls, with the possible exception for some farm workers (he was involved in farming). May he rest in peace.

Trump prefers his own brand of corruption for Venezuela…

Ms. Rodríguez is known as an economic troubleshooter who helped orchestrate the country’s shift from corrupt socialism to similarly corrupt laissez-faire capitalism.

(Delcy Rodriguez was the vice president, now acting president of Venezuela.)

I’m being selective and not thorough here, but the preceeding paragraph was lifted out of a New York Times story.

My point is that President Trump has no real concern for democracy; he would prefer to have corrupt actors who would side with or be answerable to him.

Notably, Trump has for now dismissed the idea of supporting Nobel Peace prize winner Maria Corina Machado as president, even though she reportedly garnered the majority of votes in a Venezuelan presidential election, reportedly stolen by Nicolás Maduro.

Maduro and his wife were captured by U.S. forces and have been brought to the United States to stand trial on narco-terrorism charges, among other counts.

Trump claimed that Machado lacks “power” and “respect”.

My take is that his problem with her is that she is female, and she would not be maleable to Trump’s interests.

Trump’s interests as far as I can see are power, Venezuelan oil, and distraction from United States domestic issues.

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Yes, I’ll add, the current Venezuelan leader is a woman, who Trump has indicated would follow his orders (even while she maintains Maduro is the rightful leader and criticizes Trump), that’s the key. He can put up with a subservient woman (his own marriage notwithstanding).

Capturing foreign dictator to change the subject?

There’s nothing like capturing the leader of another nation and his wife and bringing them to the United States to stand drug and narcoterrorism charges to change the subject away from economic, health care, civil liberty, and debauchery of the elite class (Epstein affair) issues to change the subject in regard to a president facing opposition and the prospect of being considered a lame duck.

Was the capture of Venezuela dictator Nicholás Maduro and his wife, just announced in the past few hours as I write this, an action ordered by the president, with apparently no knowledge or approval by congress, legal? Seems almost silly to ask. When does President Donald Trump worry about legality? And, to be fair, other presidents have done similar things.

Initial reports are that our forces met little resistance. Hopefully it stays that way and no further military action is needed.

But right now, I just have to feel that this was more about Trump trying to hold on to power as his presidency slips away and as he realizes (as all of us old folks do) that his own days are fewer and fewer.

When you have the U.S. military at your disposal, it’s a lot easier to resolve international issues than it is those pesky domestic ones. And when you are busy dispatching the military you can accuse your critics of being unpatriotic in not supporting your actions or supporting the troops. It’s rather warped reasoning – but it often seems to work.

It’s strange that we talk of dictators in other nations as a bad thing when we have our own right here at home. Theoretically, a dictator could have positive qualities, such as cutting through bureaucracy and the haggling of legislative bodies, to get needed things done for the populace as a whole. But what is to be done when the dictator does bad things? Representative democracy can be slow and agonizing at times, but it’s better at protecting the interests of all the people, who don’t always share the same interests – it’s complicated, but safer.