...And Then They Came For the Americans

A few months ago I mentioned that green card holders aka legal resident aliens, have been actively applying for US citizenship, fearing even the mildest infraction could be grounds for revoking their permanent resident status and even deportation. And it's been happening so the fears are not unfounded. So, I asked myself, 'How long before they revoke the citizenship of naturalized immigrants (foreign born US citizens) or US-born, first generation citizens like myself?' 'That wouldn't happen', you say? Sure you wanna bet on that, with these sewer dwellers in charge? Especially, if the Orange Turd is re-elected and has 4 more years to finish destroying this country? Well, I guess we now have an answer.

The conceit of naturalization is that it makes an immigrant not only equal to natural-born citizens but indistinguishable from them. 

[In early June], it emerged that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (U.S.C.I.S.) had formed a task force in order to identify people who lied on their citizenship applications and to denaturalize them. Amid the overwhelming flow of reports of families being separated at the border and children being warehoused, this bit of bureaucratic news went largely unnoticed. But it adds an important piece to our understanding of how American politics and culture are changing. 

L. Francis Cissna, the director of U.S.C.I.S., told the Associated Press that his agency is looking for people who “should not have been naturalized in the first place”—for example, those who had been ordered to be deported earlier and obtained citizenship under a different name—and this sounds reasonable enough. It’s the apparent underlying premise that makes this new effort so troublesome: the idea that America is under attack by malevolent immigrants who cause dangerous harm by finding ways to live here. 

Historically, denaturalization has been an exceedingly rare occurrence, for good reason: by the time a person is naturalized, she has lived in this country for a number of years and has passed the hurdles of obtaining entry, legal permanent residency, and, finally, citizenship. The conceit of naturalization is that it makes an immigrant not only equal to natural-born citizens but indistinguishable from them. So denaturalization, much like the process of stripping a natural-born American of citizenship, has been an extraordinary procedure reserved for very serious cases, mostly those of war criminals. 

This was intended to weed out those who may have fraudulently made a case for US citizenship, which is fair. But would you honestly entrust someone's eligibility to remain here on the hope of this administration's Grifter-in-Chief and his henchmen doing the right thing, let alone granting due process?

[New Yorker: In America, Naturalized Citizens No Longer Have an Assumption of Permanence]

This One’s on Obama

Not only did the SCOTUS deliver a decisive blow to pro-choice advocates and uphold this POTUS’ odious Muslim travel ban but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took the opportunity to gloat over obstructing Merrick Garland’s nomination to the court. So, let me ask the Clinton haters a question: Do ya think Slick Willie would’ve rolled over and played dead, like Obama did, and let Yertle the Turtle best him over a Supreme Court justice nominee of his choosing?

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Meanwhile, as the scumbag at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave holds rallies where he keeps insulting those who question and/or displease him and lies about everything else, Democrats like Congresswoman Maxine Waters are are being chastised for being uncivil.

Good grief!

This is politics, not charm school. Politics is supposed to be a bloodsport; in your face, take no prisoners; 2x4 'em into submission. I want to see more fire-breathing Democrats like the aforementioned Waters and Alan Grayson not milquetoasts like DNC chairman Tom Perez (Dude, where the fuck are you?!) or appeasers/apologists like Nancy Pelosi.

Democrats, you are a disgrace. And so is any liberal/progressive clamoring for civility in the face of hostility. So keep debating etiquette while the Orange Turd burns the place down. Grow the fuck up, all of you.

The Snooze Button Will Kill You

Enough already.

The ‘they go low, we go high’ approach has done enough damage. Bringing flowers to a gun fight is absurd, ridiculous and ultimately dangerous, if not life-threatening.

Pay attention to Rin Chupeco. Every liberal who is an apologist/appeaser of Chumpbots and other sycophants needs to read every word of the Filipino author's tweets.

"Speaking as someone born in the last years of a dictatorship, you Americans are already several steps in one. Ferdinand Marcos' greatest trick was convincing people all protesters were communist animals, so when they went missing, few cared. Even after bodies were discovered." 

Oh, but they're hurting.

Yeah, keep sleeping on that side of the bed. But when you wake up in a dictatorship don't blame the alarm clock 'cause you chose to leave it on snooze.

Here's just a taste of Chupeco's tweets:

Lapdogs for President 'Grab 'Em By The Pussy' In a Tizzy Over Dinner Disses

Yeah, so last week DHS head Kirstjen Nielsen got heckled at dinner in NYC, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders was politely asked to leave a restaurant in Virginia. And so, sycophants for the racist, foul-mouthed PoS in the White House are clutching their pearls over the so-called lack of civility. (In fact, the handling of the Sanders incident by the restaurant's owner was so civil it was an object lesson.) Give me a motherfucking break. None of these people said a damn word when Obama and family were being depicted as monkeys and worse. And I don't hear them complain about the crowds at Trump rallies chanting "Jew York Times!" at the press or the tiki torch-carrying "Jews will not replace us!" crowd. So fuck 'em all.

But the mind-blower was Stephen Miller called "a fascist" at a MEXICAN restaurant. Yes, you read right: a MEXICAN restaurant. This racist sewer rat had the gall to go eat at a MEXICAN restaurant??!!

Good grief!

Schmidt Quits "Indecent and Immoral" GOP

The Daily Beast: 

Top Republican strategist Steve Schmidt—the senior adviser for John McCain’s presidential run in 2008 and senior staffer for George W. Bush—has announced that he’s quit the GOP because it’s become “fully the party of Trump.” In a string of searing tweets Wednesday morning, Schmidt—who was also the campaign manager for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s re-election in California—attacked the “corrupt, indecent, and immoral” party that he said was “filled with feckless cowards who disgrace and dishonor the legacies of the party’s greatest leaders.” The Republican strategist went on: “The first step to a season of renewal in our land is the absolute and utter repudiation of Trump and his vile enablers in the 2018 election by electing Democratic majorities.” He said the GOP has become “a danger to our democracy and values” and will from now on he will be “aligned” with the Democratic Party.

Looks like family deportations did the trick for Schmidt. I wonder what his former boss' daughter and GOP apologist, Meghan McCain, thinks of Schmidt's defection.

Follow The (Russian) Money

Aleksandr Burman, a Ukrainian who engaged in a health care scheme that cost the federal government $26 million and was sentenced to a decade in prison, paid $725,000 cash for a condo at a Trump Tower I in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla. in 2009.

Leonid Zeldovich, who has reportedly done extensive business in the Russian-annexed area of Crimea, bought four Trump units outright at a cost of more than $4.35 million, three of them in New York City between 2007 and 2010.

And Igor Romashov, who served as chairman of the board of Transoil, a Russian oil transport company subject to U.S. sanctions, paid $620,000 upfront for a unit at a building adorned with the future U.S. president's name in Sunny Isles Beach in 2010.

Buyers connected to Russia or former Soviet republics made 86 all-cash sales — totaling nearly $109 million — at 10 Trump-branded properties in South Florida and New York City, according to a new analysis shared with McClatchy. Many of them made purchases using shell companies designed to obscure their identities.

“The size and scope of these cash purchases are deeply troubling as they can often signal money laundering activity," said Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and a former federal prosecutor. "There have long been credible allegations of money laundering by the Trump Organization which, if true, would pose a real threat to the United States in the event that Russia were able to leverage evidence of illicit financial transactions against the president."

[McClatchy: Buyers tied to Russia, Former Soviet Republics Paid $109m for Trump Properties]

Happy Juneteenth!

Crowdfunding For Separated Immigrant Families Raising $2K per Minute

The fundraiser started Saturday morning amid reports that nearly 2,000 kids had been taken from their parents under the Trump administration in six weeks...The goal was initially to get $1,500, enough to cover the bond fee for one jailed parent so they could get their child back from government custody while waiting for court. But then it took off. Private donors contacted [Charlotte] Willner, whose LinkedIn says she works at Pinterest, to offer to match the money raised. By Sunday night they’d passed the $1 million mark. 

[Money: This Couple Is Raising $2,000 Per Minute to Help Reunite Immigrant Families Separated at the Border]

Newspapers Fear Industry Collapse from Trump Tariffs

Cox is hardly the only publisher bracing for an industry collapse as a result of the Trump administration’s tariffs. Across the country, newspapers are frantically warning about a wholesale gutting of outlets. That problem has been especially pronounced for more rural areas that lack broadband access and rely almost exclusively on print. The threat has become so dire that it’s produced a dramatic role reversal. Usually in the practice of covering influence-peddling campaigns, newspapers are now engaging in a lobbying effort of their own, dispatching top officials to offices across the Capital to try and stem the bleeding.

[Daily Beast: Newspapers Become Lobbyists as They Try to Save Their Industry From Trump’s Tariffs]

Had a Bad Day? Was It Elizabeth Holmes Bad?

Vox:

Elizabeth Holmes, once a darling of Silicon Valley, vowed to disrupt health care with inexpensive, accessible finger-prick blood tests. Now the 34-year-old founder of the biotech startup Theranos is facing federal criminal charges. On Friday, the US attorney’s office in San Francisco wrapped up a two-and-a-half-year investigation of Theranos by indicting Holmes and her ex-boyfriend Sunny Balwani, Theranos’s former president and CEO, for alleged fraud. The federal prosecutors allege Holmes and Balwani defrauded doctors, patients, and investors of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Yeah, sucks to be her, huh?

Duh: Stephen Miller Behind Border Family Separations

If you're surprised senior White House advisor and all-around magnificent PoS Stephen Miller is the key figure behind the administrations's push for separating undocumented families at border crossings, you haven't been paying attention. Frankly, I'd be more surprised if the Chumpbots reacted negatively to the border disgrace.

Trump himself is backpedaling publicly even though he has vehemently defended the practice in private, his implementation of the draconian measure being much to the chagrin of supporters like Pastor Franklin Graham and cabinet members like head of Homeland Security Kristjen Nielsen.

Miller, however, is an evil, shitty motherfucker who doesn't care. (Just like the little Confederate elf.) And I hate to take it there but this is the handiwork of a man whose ancestors fled Russian anti-Semitism. I pity the parents of this sad, sorry excuse of a human being who must frequently wonder where they went wrong.

[NYT: How Trump Came to Enforce a Practice of Separating Migrant Families]

Of Rats and Men or Thanks, Comey

In the end, Trump’s ill treatment of James Comey, despite it now being confirmed via the recent investigation and report by the DoJ’s Inspector General, that the former FBI director actually helped Trump win the presidency with his “insubordinate” actions, is both karmic and ironic. But that’s feeble consolation when the end result is Mango Mussolini in power.

Charles P. Pierce touches upon the report in Esquire:

“But, by and large, the report’s most basic implicit conclusion—that Comey’s blundering at least played a role in installing the current administration*—is so clear and irrefutable that it seems that the president*’s defenders are caught between giving the report a good leaving alone and clumsily attempting to use its findings to discredit Robert Mueller’s investigation, a lie so stupendous that the president* couldn’t wait to use it Friday morning.” 

But there's also the repercussions brought about by the actions of the corrupt slush fund otherwise known as the Trump Foundation:

"[The Trump Foundation malfeasance] was reported at the time by David Fahrenthold of The Washington Post, who eventually won a Pulitzer Prize for his work. Yet, in the campaign coverage, the sense of unreality was virtually unshakable. A political campaign, functioning as an allegedly genuinely corrupt criminal enterprise, and aided and abetted by a seedy network of ratfckers and bagmen from across the pond, was forcing the American political establishment, and especially its elite political press, to cover it according to the rules that the criminal enterprise established for itself." 

To compare these people to sewer rats is to malign the actual rodents.

[Esquire: This Nation Is Politically Deranged]

Manafort Goes To Jail

Paul Manafort, the former chairman for Trump's presidential campaign chairman, is going to jail while he awaits his trial for foreign lobbying charges.

One down, many, many more to go.

(Meanwhile, Michael Cohen has let it be known he will cooperate with the feds.)

Noted Editorial Cartoonist Axed for Being Critical of POTUS

Rob Rogers, a Pulitzer finalist editorial cartoonist who was a 25-year veteran of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, was fired over disagreements with management regarding anti-Trump cartoons. Basically, the paper’s publisher John Block and its editorial director Keith Burris, who are Trump supporters—Block was even photographed posing with Trump on the candidate’s campaign plane in 2016—nixed the publication of a series of Rogers' editorial cartoons, and fired him on Thursday.
Below are some of the editorial cartoons the paper refused to print.

Detainee Facility Has Mural Of Trump Quote About Evicting Tenants

HuffPo:

At a Texas facility holding nearly 1,500 migrant children, a mural of President Donald Trump with a quote about his past attempt to evict New York tenants greets the children detained there.  

“Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war,” the quote, printed in both English and Spanish, reads. 

The quote from his [1987 book The Art of the Deal] references Trump’s failed attempt to evict tenants from their homes in 1985. “This is a story about a group of tenants who fought very hard to keep me from tearing down the building they lived in and constructing a new one in its place,” Trump continued in his book.

Three Little Words

The Dangers Facing Journalists Covering The New Far Right

Last year, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recorded 44 physical attacks on journalists in North America. Alexandra Ellerbeck, the CPJ’s North America Program Coordinator, says that “the vast majority” of these attacks occurred during protests. Ellerbeck sees it as part of a sea change in the relationship between political activists and the press in the digital media era. 

“You used to be seen as neutral. You used to be seen as useful, because protesters were trying to get their message out. You used to be given some protection,” Ellerbeck says. “Now people can get their own message out through their own platforms. There’s less of an incentive to befriend the media. Journalists can be seen as a threat to protesters’ ability to control narratives,” she says. 

Ellerbeck also cites the “trickle-down effect” of rhetorical attacks on the media by politicians including Trump. She says that when CPJ counted Trump’s Twitter attacks on the media, they found more than 1,000 between his campaign announcement and January 2018. “There’s been a constant barrage of conspiracy-mongering and hate-mongering towards the press” by the president, Ellerbeck says. She says that harassment of journalists stepped up during Trump’s campaign, peaking just before the election, and has returned in waves ever since.

[The Guardian: Doxxing, Assault, Death threats: The New Dangers Facing US Journalists Covering Extremism]

63 Million Reasons Why

This week, Republican hypocrisy and double standards sank so low it only failed to sink any further due to Trump’s praise for a murderous despot and his regime clogging up the bottom.

After childishly and pointlessly insulting, arguably, our closest ally over a subject that could've been addressed without bullshit chest-thumping, he then goes to Singapore and praises a murderous thug, while weakening the security of another ally in exchange for...zilch. Forget about how Republicans mocked candidate Obama as a naïve appeaser of tyrants and thugs when he admitted he would seek out and meet with our enemies if it was in the service of peace, the White House’s current resident clown got played. He needlessly antagonized Canada, compromised South Korean security, saluted a general from a totalitarian regime, and gave Kim Jong Un a spot on the world stage. I believe the t-shirt should read “My President Went To Meet With A Murderous Dictator And All We Got Was a Photo Op.” But, honestly, did anyone expect a better outcome?

And yes, we can go into the repeated instances of Trump praising dictators and thugs while belittling longstanding, tried and true allies but that’s a waste of time: it’s a given that Trump is a wannabe Mango Mussolini who wishes he could run this country like one of his bullshit real estate properties, where his word is law and minions worriedly scramble to be in his favor. Unfortunately, it seems as if with each passing day we come closer to the above scenario.

Trump is but one man, of course. However his cult is strong. While two thirds of the country disapprove of the man, almost 90% of Republicans are on his side. These are the people who don’t bat an eyelash when it comes to supporting a bigoted, corrupt, inept, lying, morally corrupt, shell of a man and his horrible acts and policies. And it’s pretty cut and dried: they’re either too stupid to get it (that $800m in Medicare cuts is not only going to affect liberal senior citizens, you know?) or they do get it ("I got mine. Fuck everybody else!") and approve.

These people were tired of everyone else having a voice and them not being able to further impose theirs. In their minds, it was time these uppity negroes and spics and queers and man-hating feminazis were put in their place. A black president was the last straw—someone needed to rescue America from this calamitous pursuit of equality and the choking grip of social justice and show those warriors to be the terrorists they actually are, among other thoughts swamping the pool of bitter resentment these Chumpbots’ hearts (or lack thereof) swim.

And so, along came a modern day snake oil salesman—what more could reality TV unleash on us?—defender of dictators and Nazis; with a legal and public history of corrupt and racist acts; an avowed misogynist and fake Christian who shared their ignorance and hate. Their Orange Messiah had arrived. By God, he’s finally come and they’re not letting go.

So, let’s stop putting all of this on Trump. 63 million voters freely and openly sided with this PoS. And the vast majority of those still have his back. Again, Trump is but one; but they are legion. The blood is on their hands. The enemy is us.

Is Michael Cohen About To Renounce His Orange Messiah?

Has he finally figured out that Chump can't pardon him for crimes committed under New York State jurisdiction?

[ABC News: Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen Likely to Cooperate As His Attorneys Leave Case]

[CNBC: Michael Cohen Expected To Lose Current Defense Lawyers and Likely To Cooperate With Prosecutors]

[CNN: Trump's Personal Attorney Splits With His Own Legal Team]

[NBC News: Trump Lawyer Michael Cohen Expected To Split With His Attorneys]

[USA Today: Michael Cohen Is Expected To Split With Legal Team. Will He Cooperate With Prosecutors?]

[Vox: Reports Suggest Michael Cohen Is Thinking Of Flipping]

Two Buildings

John Heilemann, a journalist and national-affairs analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, as well as co-author of Game Change, the best-selling book about the 2008 presidential campaign, breaks down why he believes the nefarious dealings behind 666 5th Ave and the never-built Trump Tower Moscow could be what ultimately brings down the Trump cartel.

"These buildings and the compromises entailed in them are going to be a big part of the story of wherever we land at the end of this."

Check it out at the 6:00 mark:

Esquire Nails US-North Korea Summit

[T]his was a singularly absurd spectacle, as well as one of the strangest episodes in the history of cable news, a real-life anime exercise to rival all those shots of an empty podium that so enthralled the nation during the 2016 presidential campaign. Endless shots of an empty road in Singapore, “live coverage” of a closed-door meeting, of which there is no official record, between two of the most notorious bad-faith artists ever to lead sovereign nations. Meanwhile, pundits in Washington, D.C., practiced their remote viewing skills on camera.
Then, there was this press conference to remind us who we’re dealing with here as our president*. I slept through it, and I feel confident that I made the right choice.

[Esquire: Two Truthless Leaders Just Signed an Agreement That Commits No One to Anything]

Steve Schmidt Reacts Timidly to Trump G7 Performance

Nah. Just kidding.

The MSNBC political analyst and former campaign manager for John McCain's 2008 presidential run ripped POTUS45 a new one on Twitter this past weekend. Schmidt—who included fellow Republicans in his dis of the man-child Cheeto in chief—has pummeled Trump in the media on countless occasions but this was a doozy.

With Peter Navarro Remarks Trump Sycophancy Hits New Low

Newsweek:

Peter Navarro, the Director of the White House National Trade Council, scolded Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Sunday for comments he made during the G-7 summit this weekend.

“There’s a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door,” he said to Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace. “And that’s what bad faith Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press conference.”  

He added, “That’s what weak, dishonest Justin Trudeau did and that come right from Air Force One. And I’ll tell you this: to my friends in Canada, that was one of the worst political miscalculations of a Canadian leader in modern Canadian history.”

Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain [R-AZ] put Navarro's boot licking in perspective and spoke for those of us who gravely disagree with the dangerous clown show Trump puts on in lieu of proper diplomacy.

But her emails...

Putin's Trump Investment Keeps Paying Off

So the G7 Summit ends in acrimony as the United States' manchild-in-chief further alienates our closest allies with a ridiculous but not unexpected plea to reinstate Russia in the coalition (a decision made as a result of Putin's violation of the Ukraine's sovereignty, via the annexation of Crimea, a development Chump blames on Obama due to it occurring on POTUS44's watch), while picking tariff fights with Canada and France. All of this is meant as red meat for the ignoramuses of his base who, not unlike their Cheeto Messiah, view bluster without substance as a valid substitute for diplomacy.

But her emails...

[CNN: Trump Plunges West Into Crisis Over Summit Spat]

The EU Strikes Back

The EU will impose tariffs on US imports ranging from Harley-Davidson motorbikes to jeans from next month in retaliation over Donald Trump’s decision to put duties on European aluminium and steel. 

Despite the apparent reluctance of the UK’s international trade secretary, Liam Fox, to publicly back the EU’s proposed “tit for tat” measures, the European commission said it had the full support of all 28 member states to act.

[Guardian: EU to impose tariffs on US imports from July]

Trump's Attacks on Black Athletes Is Quite Transparent

For the president, who may or may not even know the words to the song, the anthem is only a useful weapon in his broader campaign of silencing black athletes, black sports figures and black people who would dare challenge him. At bottom, it has nothing to do with who is and isn’t kneeling for the anthem. It’s about who is and isn’t kneeling to him.

[HuffPo: Donald Trump’s Fight With NFL Players Has Never Been About The National Anthem]

International News Roundup

According to a recent poll, about 40% of Brazilians have little to no faith in the country's democratic institutions and are looking to military intervention as an option. If you know anything about Brazil's recent history you know how shocking a development this is. [Americas Quarterly]

Faulty evacuation measures may have led to the rise of the death toll in Guatemala's volcanic eruption. [WBIW]

Italy's new populist government has hampered investor confidence in the Euro which could have devastating effects for the European economy. [Bloomberg]

King Abdullah II of Jordan has appointed a new prime minister in an effort to address the country's largest anti-government protest in recent memory. [AP]

As a retaliatory measure for Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum, Mexico will impose a 20 percent tariff on U.S. pork imports. [Reuters]

Wake The Fuck Up, People

It's official: The orange PoS and his greedy, criminal sycophants believe he is above the law.

The authoritarian movement that this president began during his campaign is approaching its natural conclusion, as Dear Leader runs up against limitations imposed on him by our democracy and declares they do not apply because there can be no limits on his authority. The signs are that his supporters will back him no matter what: He enjoys the support of 87 percent of Republicans, the highest of any president among members of his own party except George W. Bush following 9/11. That support is similarly reflected in the ethno-nationalist fervor of his rallies. 

If the president believes he can do as he wishes because he has unlimited authority, and a section of the nation backs him simply because he is the authority, you are dealing with an authoritarian movement that could support a tyrant. The alarm bells should be ringing.

So, what's the plan? Hope for the best and wait for the cheeseburgers give him a heart attack?

[Esquire: Trump's Authoritarian Movement Is Reaching an Inevitable Conclusion]

Duh! Quote of the Year

"I think if it were a Democratic president, and these facts were present, most people I know in Washington believe impeachment hearings would have begun already.” 

 - Bill Clinton

 If this had been Obama he'd be at Guantanamo wearing an orange jumpsuit.

US Ambassador to Germany Insults Merkel Government

Ambassadors are emissaries and official representatives of their country not political activists. But this is the Trump administration so if there's a fucked up way of doing things, that will be the path taken by these fuckwads.

The Hill:

Richard Grenell, President Trump’s new ambassador to Germany, said in an interview that he wants to “empower” conservative leaders in Europe. “I absolutely want to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders,” Grenell told Breitbart. “I think there is a groundswell of conservative policies that are taking hold because of the failed policies of the left. There are a lot of conservatives throughout Europe who have contacted me to say they are feeling there is a resurgence going on,” Grenell said. The ambassador said that Trump’s election empowered people to take on the “political class.” He also railed against the German media, which has often been critical of the president.

Yes, because this is how we best go about repairing the rocky relationship we have with Germany right now. Good-fucking-grief. Angela Merkel should boot this clown first chance she gets.

Tweet of the Week

[Stacey Wilson Hunt is the LA-based Hollywood Editor for New York Magazine/Vulture.]