Category Archives: immigration

George 

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I’ve written about George Will before in these entries, a conservative columnist I admired for his thinking in a time when many on both sides don’t, for his eloquence at a time when many merely shout and curse, his insight when many prefer not looking below an ugly surface. Earlier this week, he used something odd from FOX News as the springboard for a powerful essay about an obviously deteriorating, clearly fearful, increasingly worried about how he will be remembered and his efforts to erase history, particularly history of black people. George Will turns 85 on May 4 and unlike our President, he is very much still all there.

If you are a dyed in the wool Trump fan, you won’t make it to the end. If you are a Republican who still believes in service to the country rather than a country serving a President, you might find yourself surprised by how much you agree. If you are a Democrat, you’ll think George nailed it.

From our hilltop, we will not argue with him.  Even when we have disagreed with him, we would not want to debate him. Here’s George with our Friday bonus: (1800) 1 Minute Ago: Trump Falls Apart Staff Handling Him Legacy Panic & Black History Erasure |George Will – YouTube

(We just checked a few minutes ago and saw that the video has been taken down. However, Cockatoo has provided a transcript.  The video ran about 23 minutes.  We’ve adjusted some of the time cues in the interest of complete sentences.)

Something very unusual happened this week. Donald Trump held a cabinet meeting, the kind of organized event where he sits at a very long table, surrounded by people who just agree with everything he says. But this time, things went differently. In the middle of his unclear remarks about trade deals and made up economic wins, Fox News did something they almost never do. They stopped showing it. They just cut away, went to a commercial break, and came back talking about something else entirely.

0:38

When your own supportive news channel, the one that spent years defending everything you said, explaining away every mistake and cleaning up every power grab, decides they can no longer show you to their viewers. That tells you everything you need to know. This wasn’t Fox News protecting Trump. This was Fox News protecting their audience from Trump.

1:02

Because what they saw in that cabinet room was a man clearly falling apart mentally and physically. Even they knew there was no way to put a positive spin on what everyone could plainly see. Let’s look at what actually happened in that meeting, because the clips that got out are truly disturbing. Trump tried to explain recent economic numbers, and I say tried very generously. What he really did was throw out random figures, confuse countries with companies, and at one point completely forgot what he was saying in the middle of a sentence. He said, and these are his exact words, we’re bringing back $400 billion, maybe $500 billion, some say $600 billion from China, from Canada, from the European Union, which is basically Germany if you think about it. And nobody has ever seen numbers like this, the biggest numbers in history.

1:59

None of that means anything. Those aren’t policy ideas. That’s not even a twisted version of the truth. That’s a man reaching for numbers he thinks sound impressive while having no clue what he’s actually talking about. But it’s not just what he said. Look at how he looked physically. The way he gripped the table. The way he leaned forward like he needed the furniture to hold himself up, the way his staff, Carolyn Levitt, Stephen Miller, whoever was there, watched him, the way nurses watch a patient ready to jump in if something went wrong. And afterward, he didn’t take any questions. He didn’t walk over to the reporters. His team rushed him out of there as fast as his weakening body could go. Because they know. Every single one of them knows. Here’s what has become completely obvious.

2:58

Donald Trump’s staff isn’t serving him anymore. They’re handling him. There’s a big difference. Compare how much he appears in public now to his first term. Back then, whether you liked him or not, the man was everywhere. Daily press briefings, hour-long unplanned rants. He would stand in front of his helicopter and just talk.

3:22

It was stream of consciousness, sure, but he was alert and present. Now he barely shows up. When he does, everything is carefully planned. He uses a teleprompter for remarks that he would have made off the top of his head in 2017. Only pre-approved questions are allowed. Media access is limited. And the moment anything goes off script, they pull him away.

3:50

Why? Because the people around him, Stephen Miller, Elon Musk, JD Vance, are no longer working to advance Donald Trump’s goals. They’re pushing their own. While he falls apart in front of everyone.

4:06

There were recent reports that Miller runs a separate private communication line with Trump, feeding him information all day long, basically creating an unofficial power structure that goes around the official White House chain of command. That’s not loyal staff work. That’s a power grab. That’s someone making themselves the real decision-maker, while the president, in name only, gets worse and worse. Elon Musk has openly disagreed with Trump’s own policy statements.

4:44

J.D. Vance is already doing his own interviews, presenting himself as the calm, reliable leader of the administration. These people aren’t serving Trump. They’re using him. They’re getting rich, pushing their own plans, playing the stock market with inside information, and just waiting for the unavoidable moment when he’s too far gone to stop them. Donald Trump has become a figurehead in his own White House, and everyone around him knows it. But here’s where it gets really telling. Here’s where Trump’s mental state becomes impossible to look away from.

5:20 You may have heard about this already. Donald Trump is currently holding up federal infrastructure money, specifically funding for the Gateway Project, which is vital transportation infrastructure for the Northeast, unless he gets his name put on Dallas Airport and Penn Station in New York. Read that one more time. The President of the United States is using blackmail against a sitting senator, Chuck Schumer, to get public buildings renamed after himself. On the surface, this is just sad. It’s the behavior of a deeply insecure narcissist who never got enough attention growing up.

5:43

But it goes deeper than that. Because when you look at the pattern of what Trump has been doing over the past few months, a clear picture forms. And that picture is of a man in total panic about how he’ll be remembered. He renamed the Kennedy Center to include his own name, making it the John F. Kennedy and Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts. He couldn’t even let JFK have that one thing to himself. He’s ordered the construction of a huge arch in Washington DC, a literal monument to himself that historians have compared to the kind of ego-driven projects built by Saddam Hussein and Stalin in their final years. He’s trying to rename military bases, government buildings, any structure that has federal money attached to it. Why?

Why this sudden obsession with monuments? Because history shows us that when dictators sense the end is near, whether that’s political, physical, or both, they speed up their monument building. Saddam Hussein’s palace construction went into overdrive in the late 1990s when international sanctions had him isolated. Stalin’s worship of his own image grew stronger as his paranoia and health got worse in his last years. It’s a pattern. When authoritarian leaders know their time is running out, they try to lock themselves into stone because they understand something basic.

They’ve lost control of their own story. And Trump knows he’s lost control. You can see it in his social media posts. You can hear it in the way he’s been talking lately. He started this week, and I’m not making this up, talking about whether he’s going to get into heaven. He just posted it out of nowhere. He wrote something like, the nasty fake news keeps reporting that I said I’m not going to heaven. It was a joke, but they reported seriously because they’re terrible people who want to make me look bad. First of all, nobody was reporting that. He brought it up on his own. He’s the one who can’t stop thinking about it.

8:13

Second, Donald Trump, a man who never talked about God except to win over religious voters, who couldn’t name a single Bible verse when asked, who famously said he’s never asked God for forgiveness, is now fixated on whether God will judge him. That’s not politics. That’s psychology. That’s a man facing the reality of his own death and realizing that no amount of spin can change what’s coming. There are reports from inside Mar-a-Lago that he’s been having conversations about his funeral, about how people will remember him, about what will be said about him after he’s gone. He’s trying to negotiate with history in real time, and he’s losing that negotiation.

You want to know the most perfect symbol of Trump’s panic about his legacy? The Kennedy Center situation. After Trump forced his name onto the building, after he held a big renaming ceremony, after he stood there smiling like he’d done something meaningful, the Kennedy Center shut down. Just closed, with no set date to reopen.

Officially, they said it was for renovations and reorganization. But let’s be honest about what really happened. Donald Trump couldn’t stand the idea that his name would be next to the legacy of a real president. A president remembered for his vision, his way with words, and his sacrifice. So rather than let that comparison exist, rather than risk the building not getting the worship he demanded, he just closed it. He took his ball and went home. And here’s my prediction. Write it down and come back to it.

In 10 years, every monument Trump is building right now will be a source of embarrassment. Hotels will remove the Trump name to avoid being boycotted and some already have. Buildings will be given new names. The arch will be torn down or turned into something else. His own children will try to distance themselves from the brand and some already are. The monuments he’s so desperately trying to build won’t protect his legacy.

10:27

They’ll become places people visit to laugh. People will go see Trump’s folly, the way they visit Confederate monuments, not to honor them, but to remember what we got past. Donald Trump senses this. He knows this, and it’s destroying him inside.

10:46

But here’s the thing. This isn’t just about one aging man’s vanity. This obsession with monuments, this panic about his legacy, it’s connected to something much more dangerous. It’s connected to what his administration is trying to cover up. Because at the exact same time Trump is trying to build monuments to himself, his administration is systematically wiping out other people’s history, specifically black history.

11:17

It started right away, from day one of this administration. The rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. The removal of materials from the Smithsonian. The changes to school curriculum, forcing schools to take out discussions of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and the civil rights movement from American history classes. Remember the Enola Gay situation? They ran a computer search for the word gay in federal museum records and just started deleting things. They removed an entire exhibit about the plane that dropped the atomic bomb because the word gay appeared in its name. That’s the level of foolishness we’re dealing with. But it’s foolishness in service of a very specific goal, which is erasing history.

12:11

Now a lot of people rightly said, of course Trump wants to erase black history. He’s a racist. His administration is full of white supremacists. They don’t want those stories to be told. That’s true. But it’s not the whole truth. Because the reason they’re erasing black history isn’t just hatred.

12:32

It’s a deliberate strategy. Fascism needs people to forget history. Authoritarian rule cannot survive if people remember how it works, what it looks like, who it targets, and how it has been fought before. There was a podcast conversation recently between Andrew Schultz and Charlemagne the God that captured this perfectly. Schultz, who, let’s remember, defended Trump, made excuses for Trump, told people they were overreacting about Trump, was now expressing shock at what he was seeing. I never thought I’d see this in America, he said. People being shot in the streets by federal agents, families being ripped apart, armed thugs with badges hunting people down for no reason. And Charlemagne said something so simple, so obvious, and so powerful in response. He said, you never thought it would happen to white people. Because here’s the reality. This is American history. This has always been American history. Where do you think policing in America came from? Slave patrols. That’s it.

13:46

That’s the origin. Armed men given power by the government to hunt down black people, return them to slavery, and terrorize communities into obedience. That’s where American policing started.

14:01

The ICE raids happening right now—agents breaking into homes without warrants, tearing families apart, making people disappear into detention centers. That’s not new. That’s a copy of the Fugitive Slave Laws, where federal agents were given the power to hunt human beings across state lines and drag them back into bondage. The heavily armed police beating protesters in the streets, the government surveillance tracking activists, The criminalization of people helping each other. Black Americans have been living through this for 400 years. Indigenous Americans wrote the book on it with their own blood. What’s happening now isn’t Trump inventing American authoritarianism.

14:48

It’s American authoritarianism finally reaching everyone. And that’s exactly why they need to erase black history. Because if Americans knew that history, if they truly understood it, they would immediately recognize what’s happening right now. If we knew Frederick Douglass, we would know how to speak truth to power. If we knew Harriet Tubman, we would know how to build secret networks of resistance. If we knew Ida B. Wells, we would know how to document terrible acts and force the country to face them. If we knew Fannie Lou Hamer, we would know how to document terrible acts and force the country to face them. If we knew Fannie Lou Hamer, we would know how to organize at the local level and fight corrupt systems. If we knew about the Black Panther Party’s free breakfast program, we would know how to build community support networks that make us less dependent on a government that wants us helpless.

15:44

If we knew about the labor movements led by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, we would know how to shut down the economy when those in power refuse to listen. They’re not erasing history because they hate the past. They’re erasing it because they’re afraid of a well-informed future. They’re terrified that if you knew how black Americans resisted slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration, you would know exactly how to resist them. That’s why Trump’s monument-building and history-erasing are two sides of the same authoritarian coin. Build monuments to the regime. Erase monuments to resistance. Control the past. Control the future. Except it’s not going to work. Because here’s what Donald Trump can’t seem to grasp. His legacy is already written. It’s done. It’s finished. No amount of marble or fancy stone or renamed airports is going to change it.

16:56

January 6th will be studies for centuries, not as a patriotic uprising, not as a protest that got out of hand, but as a fascist attempt to overthrow the government by a president who refused to accept that he lost an election. His face will be next to the word insurrection in history textbooks forever. His COVID response, telling people to inject bleach, holding packed rallies while hundreds of thousands of people died, tearing apart pandemic preparedness systems because Obama built them. That’s his legacy. His family separation policy, children locked in cages, toddlers forced to represent themselves in immigration court, thousands of families permanently broken apart. That’s his legacy.

17:46

His two impeachments, his 34 felony convictions, his being found liable for sexual assault, his fraud convictions, his theft of classified documents. That’s his legacy. Future generations aren’t going to ask, was Trump a great president? They’re going to ask, how on earth did Americans fall for this twice? His name isn’t going to stand for greatness.

18:14

It’s going to stand for American decline, the weakening of democracy, and the conman who nearly destroyed the republic. Every monument he builds is one more thing to tear down. Every name he puts on a building is one more name to scrub off. Every arch he orders is one more structure future generations will demolish. That’s his real legacy, and he can’t change it. But you wanna know what the real monument to this era will be? It’s not going to be his arch. It’s not going to be his renamed airport. It’s going to be the resistance. The millions of women who marched the day after his inauguration and kept marching. The sanctuary cities that refused to become part of his deportation machine, the election workers who protected democracy while he sent a mob after them, the journalists he called enemies of the people who kept reporting the truth anyway, the lawyers who filed lawsuit after lawsuit to block his worst actions, the mutual aid networks that fed people when his government shut down. The young people organizing climate protests while he gutted environmental protections.

19:35

The families torn apart by ice who are fighting to be brought back together. The trans kids he tried to erase who refused to disappear. That’s the monument. That’s what will be taught. Not his buildings, not his speeches, but the fact that millions of Americans looked at his authoritarianism and said, no, not here, not us, not ever. The monument to this era is every person who resisted.

20:06

And that monument is being built right now, in real time, by all of us. Which brings me back to Chuck Schumer and that airport naming deal. Senator Schumer, you have one job right now, one very simple job. Do not negotiate with someone using threats. Do not build monuments to tyrants. Do not give this man one more piece of legacy preservation while he’s actively tearing apart American democracy. The answer to Trump’s blackmail should be simple. No. Build the Gateway Project because it’s critical infrastructure and name it after the workers who built it, not the would-be dictator who held it hostage.

20:55

This is a test not just for Schumer, but for every Democrat who claims to be part of the opposition. Are you actually going to push back? Or are you going to make deals with fascism because it’s the easier path?

21:11

But more than that, this is a test for all of us, because Trump’s team is counting on us being worn out. They’re counting on us forgetting. They’re counting on us not remembering how we got here and who showed us the way out. So here’s what we do.

21:27

We write down everything. Every abuse, every lie, every crime. We create the record they’re trying to destroy. We learn the history they’re trying to hide. Read Frederick Douglass, read James Baldwin, read Ida B. Wells, read the scholars they’re removing from universities.

21:48

Learn the strategies of resistance they don’t want you to know about. And we build the other side of the story right now while they’re still in power, so that when this era ends, and it will end, the history that gets taught is the true one. Not Trump’s fantasy, not his monuments, but the real story of what happened and how we made it through. They want us to forget. Our job is to remember everything. If you’ve read this far, you’re part of the resistance. You’re part of that counter-monument we’re building, and I hope you’ll keep building it with me.

Chuck Schumer, do the right thing. No airports, no monuments, no deals with autocrats. And to everyone else, keep fighting. Keep writing things down. Keep learning the history they’re trying to erase. Keep learning the history they’re trying to erase. They’re counting on your silence. Don’t give it to them.

 

Waiting For Names

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It is early on a Friday morning.  No longer dark and not quite light and I have been driven to my keyboard by a brief conversation with an unidentified friend that came to my mind in that strange time between sleep and wakefulness.

The cats have been fed to keep them at bay while I sit here in pajamas and robe to write this before it fades away into the day’s life.

I have told Nancy from time to time that writers sometimes must write when the muse demands no matter when it is.

A friend (I’m sure it was a friend although I recall no face, just a voice) in that in-between time this morning asked me a question and I am motivated to answer it here.

“I want to name my son Jesus,” he said. “What do you think?”

He pronounced it with the “J.”

I answered,  “Sure, go ahead.  But think about pronouncing it “Hay-soos.”

And a few seconds later, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be interesting to give him the middle name of Nguyen?”

I am fascinated by names and what they say about our national culture.  As I was talking to myself, or maybe with my dream friend, I began to wonder how many babies might be born to White families like mine (where the children have good white names such as Robert and Elizabeth) in Minneapolis this year with first names such as Abdi, Bashir, Dahir, or Wasame—-popular Somali surnames meaning, in order, servant or worshiper, bringer of good news, light or sun, and glad tidings.

It is not uncommon for names to be tied to events or to challenging times that highlight parts of our cultural stew.

(I prefer “stew” to a reference to our cultural soup that suggests we all blend together into a single entity.  Stews are made of different elements that retrain their identities —carrots, potatoes, meat, and sometimes little bitty onions and peas—to provide a tasty flavor.)

Jesus Nguyen Jones.   Lara Solis Smith (Mexican surnames for a place of laurel trees and sunny).

Names of African-Americans such as James Washington that stem from the slave era, are giving way to some wonderful and fascinating new names—-just look at the wide variety of names on the back of some sports uniforms for examples.

I am waiting for the first white athlete named Jamar.

What is happening seems to this observer to be a quiet but growing form of new cultural recognition  that in time will create a nutritious national stew.  The elements are becoming more self-identified. But with time, we will see the Jesus Nguyens and the Lara Solises, and the Robert Jamals and Elizabeth Githinjis (Kenyan for “one who is blessed or fortunate”).

A century from now, the face and faces of America are most likely to be much different from today’s American culture and, we hope, the irrational fears of “others” will be relegated to history. We do not fear that time for it speaks of a recognition that all are children of a creator known by different names in different places within a single world.

(Picture Credit: The Golden Rule, Norman Rockwell Museum)

A New Phase Has Begun

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We haven’t heard anything like this since the Vietnam era protest songs.  Bruce Springsteen wrote a powerful protest song last weekend, recorded it at the start of this week, and it might be taking the Minnesota experience into a new socio-political realm.  It is hard for provocateurs to regain control when the public mood becomes part of a nation’s popular music culture, for music can be one of the greatest indicators of a generational shift in national attitude.

The song has the feel of the 60s because the momentum of the public mood in an increasing number of places is starting to be reminiscent of the early days of the Vietnam protests and the Civil Rights movement, a volatile combination that rewrote our country’s self-image. Will this song be the first of many protests songs of this generation?

Those who lived through those days can recognize that possibility. Today’s demonstrators are the children and the grandchildren of those who in the 1960s opposed military interventionism and advocated civil rights.

April will be the 61st anniversary of the first major antiwar rally, in Washington. It was there that Judy Collins sang a Bob Dylan song, “The Times They are A-Changin,’” followed by Joan Baez’s rendition of “We Shall Overcome,” the song considered the civil rights movement’s anthem.

English poet William Congreve wrote in 1697 that “Music can soothe the soul of the savage beast.”  It can. it also can motivate those standing against a savage beast.

For those who think Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” no longer fits the times, listen to Bruce Springsteen and “Streets of Minneapolis” the first major protest song or our times.

Bruce Springsteen – Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)

If you want to sing along, here are the lyrics. We apologize if they do not translate from our edit page to the post in proper verse order; our computer does odd things we don’t understand.  But you will be able to follow the lyrics as you sing along

[Verse 1]
Through the winter’s ice and cold  Down Nicolett Avenue A city aflame fought fire and ice ‘Neath an occupier’s boots  King Trump’s private army from the DHS Guns belted to their coats  Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law Or so their story goes

[Verse 2]
Against smoke and rubber bullets  In the dawn’s early light  Citizens stood for Justice Their voices ringing through the night
And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead, left to die on snow-filled streets  Alex Pretti and Renee Good

[Chorus]
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land  And the stranger in our midst  Here in our home, they killed and roamed In the winter of ’26    We’ll remember the names of those who died  On the Streets of Minneapolis

[Verse 3]
Trump’s federal thugs beat up on
His face and his chest Then we heard the gunshots   And Alex Pretti lay in the snow dead. Their claim was self-defense, sir
Just don’t believe your eyes  It’s our blood and bones   And these whistles and phones  Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies

[Chorus]
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

[Bridge]
Now they say they’re here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights
If your skin is black or brown, my friend
You can be questioned or deported on sight
In our chants of “ICE out now”    Our city’s heart and soul persists  Through broken glass and bloody tears On the Streets of Minneapolis.

[Chorus]
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
Here in our home, they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26    We’ll take our stand for this land   And the stranger in our midst
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

[Outro]
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out

(llyrics from genius.com)

From the Front Lines in Minneapolis—III

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Our friends in Minneapolis who are among the thousands who are not on the streets, but who are deeply involved in resisting Trump’s war on the city, have shared a letter being circulated in their neighborhood from David McNally, an internationally known motivational speaker and author of six books. He’s Australian although he was bornin east end London.

This is the life we don’t see on television:

Dear Friends,

I am compelled to write to you after listening to the president of Risen Christ School, Michael Rogers, speak at the 9am mass this morning at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in South Minneapolis. The purpose of Michael being invited was to bring parishioners up to date with the impact of the unrest in Minneapolis specifically related to the behavior of federal agents. I bring this information to you fully aware that our politics may differ, but what we do have in common for many on this list, is our support over the years of Risen Christ both financially and through volunteering. On that note, if you ever attended a Risen Christ fundraiser you will never forget people paying thousands of dollars to have the inimitable Father Forliti host them for one of his famous Italian dinners.

As you know, and for those who don’t know, the school caters mostly to the poorer members of the Latino community.  96% of the student tuition is subsidized. Yet Risen Christ is an amazing success story. Historically, the school has 92% daily attendance, a100% high school graduation rate, 100% of the students speak both English and Spanish, and 81% enroll in college.

Here then are the current “conditions on the ground” if I may use that term.

  1. The approximately 300 students now live in fear. This is not an exaggeration. Let us be clear-we are talking about innocent children who are afraid.
  2. For this reason, an average of 50 students a day are now not turning up for class. This has never happened before in the history of Risen Christ.
  3. Several students have had a parent disappear with no knowledge of where they are and no resource to find out.
  4. Families are not leaving their homes even to buy food. The fear is real.
  5. Risen Christ teachers who come from Spanish speaking countries are living in fear even though their documents are in order. They do not trust the federal agents because of what they have witnessed.  They are being picked up at their homes and taken to work by their white colleagues. The statement that if you are in the United States legally you have nothing to fear is being proven wrong every day.
  6. St Joan of Arc parishioners are picking up children and taking them to Risen Christ so that they can continue their studies. They are then picked up and taken home.
  7. St Joan of Arc parishioners are also delivering food to those families who are afraid to leave their homes. This ministry is one for which I have now volunteered.

When I became an American citizen in 2019, it was with significant pride. I gave a brief speech following the ceremony in which I stated that the United States was the most amazing human experiment in history. That so many people from so many cultures could live in relative harmony was incredible. I proudly pled my allegiance. I still believe what I said. The situation at Risen Christ, however, clearly demonstrates that something is radically wrong. A child or adult who is doing no harm should not live in fear. Dignity for all is a value with which we should all be aligned.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
— Matthew 25:40 (NIV)

David McNally

E-mail: david@davidmcnally.com
http://www.davidmcnally.com

In sending me this letter from David, our friend Denny added: Most of our friends are ferrying food and supplies to our brown friends and neighbors. My cleaning team, a Mexican family of 5 (I have degenerative spinal disease), who help me once/month, will be here Wed. I’ve asked for a list of needs, especially feminine products, of which is a seriously underrated international need in times of crisis. That was first on her list…3 of her workers are teen girls…all are women. Last month when she was here she informed them they are not allowed to leave their apartments except for work.

Jeff stayed late at his church yesterday to take training guided by the Handbook for Constitutional Observers produced by the Immigrant Defense Network (www.copalm.org). His church sponsors a Latino school across their street and sits in the eye of this storm.

This is how we now roll…please tell your world.

0-0-0

To conclude, and in response to those who think these entries represent Trump Derangement Syndrome, we wonder—-as we ponder David’s Bible verse—which side do you think the Disciple Matthew would be on in Minneapolis today—the followers, or tools, of Trump or those serving and protecting his potential victims?

To which we add one our favorite verses and one that a dear friend lived by until his last day a few months ago, from the Old Testament book of Micah:

And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly[a] with your God.

If being on the side of Matthew and Micah, and the Dennys and Davids and Jeffs of Minneapolis is Trump Derangement Syndrome, I joyously plead guilty.

(We’ll have a bonus entry Friday)

Who’s the S—hole Country Now? 

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It’s good to see ourselves through other eyes sometimes.

Newsweek reported a few days ago about a Norwegian’s response to President Trump’s plea for more immigrants from Scandinavia instead of so many from “s—hole countries” such as Somalia, his country of choice for his latest profanity-laced bowl of white supremacist sludge.

The response from Chris Lund, a Norwegian vocalist, has gone viral. We think he has some interesting points, namely that the Scandinavian countries are far superior to ours, especially Trump’s version of ours that Lund finds crude, cruel, and lacking civilized values.

One of the many puzzling things about Trump’s plea for more Scandinavians is that they come from a system he loves to pummel as socialism. But to hear Lund describe it, there are many things there more attractive there than here.

—once you get beyond the cold, dark winters.

Trump spoke last month (December 9) at Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania where he brought out his tired whine that the best people are not coming to the United States (the best people have NEVER flocked to the United States; they had and have good lives in the Old County). He appears to think his musings are humorous: “Why it is we only take people from s***hole countries…Why can’t we have some people form Norway, Sweden, just a few? Let’s have a few from Denmark…Do you mind sending us a few people? Send us some nice people. Do you mind? But we always take people from Somalia, places that are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting,”

Lund told Newsweek he spoke out because of the “recurring irony of being told America is the ‘land of opportunity’ by someone who doesn’t seem to realize that, for Norwegians, moving there is a massive downgrade….When you compare five weeks of vacation and a year of maternity leave to the American system, the offer is a joke. I’m not trying to be mean. I’m just looking at the benefits package.”

On December 12, Lund took to his Threads account, @chrislundartist, where he wrote in a now-viral post: “Trump said he wants more immigrants from Norway. I have reviewed the offer, and I have to decline. The benefits package is terrible. You offer two weeks of vacation if we are lucky; we get five. Your maternity leave is ‘good luck,’ while we get a year. Your healthcare plan is GoFundMe, while ours is free. And your safety plan is just ‘thoughts and prayers.’ Moving to the US right now feels like leaving a spa to go work in a burning hot dog stand. Thanks, but we will stay in the snow.”

The Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority says all employees are entitled to at least 25 working days of holiday each year, and employers are duty-bound to make sure each employee uses all of their holiday allowance. The maternal leave policy there entitles new parents to a total of twelve months—or as much as three years if the parents go back part-time. The Commonwealth Fund says the country offers universal health coverage that is paid for by automatic taxes and payroll contributions.

Lund told Newsweek he has visited the States, and once thought of moving here. here. But now?

“The U.S. looks less like a dream destination and more like a cautionary tale. I’ve realized I much prefer free healthcare and a life that doesn’t revolve entirely around surviving the latest political crisis.”

Some accuse him of being “obsessed” with the United States. Not obsessed, he says, just observant. “The truth is, what happens in America affects everyone. A lot of Americans don’t seem to understand the impact their country has on the rest of the world. Your economy and your politics vibrate across the globe, so we have to pay attention.”

He suggests President Trump should be worried about what would happen if people from Norway moved here in big numbers. “If we actually moved to the U.S. and started voting, we most certainly wouldn’t be voting for him. We’d be voting for the very things he calls ‘socialism.’”

Photo Credit: Lund–//www.viberate.com/

Notes from the Minnesota War Zone II

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A warning—do not rise to the bait. Unfortunately, a lot of people didn’t get the memo.  They sent their own message.

This memo was sent to at least some state employees and people at the University of Minnesota last Thursday.

The Cedar Riverside area of Minneapolis is described as a historic “point of entry for immigrants since Swedes, Germans, and Bohemians began arriving in large numbers during the late 19th century.” Today it is sometimes called “Little Mogadishu” because it has become the largest concentration of Somali-born residents in the twin cities.

A key figure in the anti-Muslim protest was Jake Lang, a January 6th participant who served four years in prison before President Trump pardoned him. Some of his rally colleagues dragged him away from the scene at Minneapolis City Hall, bleeding from the back of his head.

Reports indicate he was leading the Americans Against Islamification’s “Crusader March on ‘Little Somalia.’” One report says he intended to burn a copy of the Quran during the rally. Lang was dragged away to safety by one of his group after about ninety minutes of yelling back and forth and when the chaos that he sought to stoke went after him.

Another report says a member of the group was chased into a parking garage and struck with a flagpole. During the chaos, one of those protesting the presence of Lang’s group noticed the man was bleeding from a head wound and was heard shouting into a megaphone, “This guy needs medical help. He needs mental help. The bleeding is natural for Nazis, but he needs mental help.” When another woman, a protestor, asked the man if he needed help, he replied, “No, I’m good. Thank you, though. I appreciate you.”

It’s not clear if the two reports are referring to Lang or if there was a second man. Later, Lang texted on X from a hospital that he “was just literally LYNCHED by anti-white mob of liberal and illegal immigrants…PRESIDENT TRUMP SEND IN THE NATIONAL GUARD They are lynching White Christian Americans!!!!!”

Some will say he asked for what he got. Some who have studied contemporary accounts of lynchings will say that what happened to him is nowhere near a lynching.  And some will question whether there is anything at all Christian in his words and actions and President Trump’s roundup up of Somalis there.   .

On one hand, the worst thing that can happen is for people to give the Langs of our country the attention and reaction they provoke. On the other hand, what happened at that rally is a clear statement that good people will not stand for Trump’s ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign.

We aren’t in Minneapolis but we all should wonder how we would react if it was OUR city and OUR state being put through these experiences because they didn’t vote for Trump and don’t kiss his political ring.

Sometime the best protest is a silent, glowering presence, bristling with danger for the provocateurs but not giving them the violence they want.

But it’s easy to say that when it’s not your city and it’s not your people, your neighbors, who are endangered by someone who is really, just a petty, pitiful vengeful little man who misguidedly believes he is more than just a President of the United States.

—when he is, in fact, so much less a President and a man, and a disgrace to the office.

On the Minneapolis Front Lines

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Minnesota—a state of Lutherans, loons, lutefisk, and Lake Wobegon—is suddenly a war zone.  To hear the Trump administration describe it, it is filled with dangerous Somali fraudsters, and as HHS Secretary Kristi Noem put it, a “domestic terrorist” got what she deserved, a woman that Vice-President Vance claimed was influenced by a vaporous “left wing network,” and that President Trump accused of “violently, willfully, and viciously” running over ICE agent Jonathan Ross—characterizations all quickly issued with absolutely no knowledge of what happened to Renee Nicole Good, a recent Kansas City resident who had moved to Minneapolis about a year ago. Her wife, Rebecca, said in a statement, “We were raising our son to believe that no matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness.”

A recent editorial by the Wall Street Journal disputed the fulminations from Trump, Noem, Nance and their associates: “Minnesota’s Fraud Problem Isn’t Immigrants: It’s the vast size of the welfare state that corrupts them,” suggesting that generous benefits and numerous programs so large that comprehensive oversight is rendered impossible create opportunities for fraudsters. The Journal blamed both political parties for the situation.

When we were organizing the Missourinet in 1974, the first person I wanted on the my news staff was Jeff Smith who had worked with me at the now defunct KLIK radio station in Jefferson City right after he left Indiana University. Jeff was a terrific reporter whose career path took him into marketing and management. He and his wife Denny remain among our most cherished friends.

Jeff retired as a VP with Northwest Airlines and now is heavily engaged in non-profit work in Minneapolis. Among his colleagues are Somalis. Last week, just as the significance of the killing of Renee Good was starting to sink in, I asked Jeff and Denny to share some of their thoughts. Denny in particular has an interesting perspective on the immigrant situation, which became the focus of their comments.

Here is what they sent:

ICE Storm in Minnesota –

from Jeff and Denise (Denny) Smith

Four days ago, as we write this, Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Depending on which account you believe, she was either a hero or a domestic terrorist. There’s no doubt that the event sparked a storm of outrage on our cold, wet streets.

Unfortunately, we may never get a neutral account of what happened. The Federal government is acting as the sole investigator following its role as executioner. It’s the latest trauma our community has endured in the last seven months, including a fatal school shooting and the assassination of a State Representative.

Renee Good’s death is an outcome of the Trump administration’s decision to send more than 2,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents to Minnesota. Trump is clearly ratcheting up his determination to punish Minnesota for being blue.

As a white woman, born in the U.S., Renee Good wasn’t the chief target of these agents’ attention. Those would be people who are brown or black.

Minnesota has been home to us for forty years, since we migrated from Missouri for a career opportunity. Thank God we didn’t move from Mogadishu. If we had migrated from Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, we now would be labeled “garbage” by President Trump. If we wore a hijab or had brown skin, we would likely be afraid to leave our home, fearing an ICE agent’s impulsive imprisonment.

Somalis in Minnesota are neighbors and co-workers. They comprise the largest population outside of Mogadishu and our communities depend on them every day. Somali Americans have become integral parts of all aspects of a diverse Minnesota that ranks in the top ten states for health, education, our business environment and other measures.

Quoting the Sahan Journal, a local newspaper serving Somalis, “The vast majority of Somalis here and across the United States are U.S. citizens, and most who are not have legal permanent residency.” Among many professions, they provide needed services for people at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. They care for older adults living in our communities for seniors. They work in our food processing plants. But, according to Trump, they’re not “legitimate” Americans.

By that definition, most likely, neither are you.

Only indigenous Americans have non-immigrant roots. The Twin Cities are home to more than 8,000 tribal members. But that population also does not feel safe. Last week, ICE detained four members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe because they could not provide proof of citizenship. They were unhoused and living under a bridge.

And they are not white.

Unless you are a Native American, you too are connected to an immigrant. Did your forebearers come from Poland, or Ireland, or Italy or, involuntarily, from Africa? If so, your ancestors knew what it’s like to be labeled “garbage,” or worse.

As a second-generation Sicilian, Denny’s grandparents and their families were vilified by white Americans as the new “Niggers” and were recruited to replace black cotton field workers during the great migration north by southern former slaves.

There’s always the “other” and they usually have dark skin.

We acknowledge that a few Somali Americans are at the center of the documented fraud in some Minnesota social service agencies. However, we trust that the fraudsters will receive swift justice and that the bureaucrats who allowed it will be held responsible.

We are alarmed by the Trump administration’s broad-brush judgements, especially of non-white Americans. We should not be so quick to judge entire populations. We should not be so quick to judge, period.

Our move introduced us to a region shaped by both harsh winters and remarkable cultural diversity.  Over the decades, we’ve witnessed how new waves of immigrants, from all corners of the globe, have been welcomed to the fabric of Minnesota, bringing fresh perspectives, food, traditions, and resilience. This blend of backgrounds has enriched our state and broadened our understanding of the world.

We’re glad we migrated to Minnesota and we pray for our city.

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For the record: Native Americans were not recognized as general citizens of this country, not even by the Fourteenth Amendment,  until June 2, 1924 but were not guaranteed the right to vote in every state until 1948.

It’s important to hear from people such as you and me in America’s occupied areas—-because ICE is among us, too. And so are immigrants.

The death of Renee Good is a case filled with complications and Minnesota authorities are not ceding the investigation and prosecution of the case to Trump’s FBI or any other federal agency whose trustworthiness is as limited as our President’s honesty.

But the basic point to remember is this:  The “domestic terrorists” in Minneapolis are the ones sent there by President Trump to punish a state that is not in his political column. His justification that people from those places he calls a “sh—hole countries” are committing massive fraud is a blatant slander of thousands of good people and a craven excuse for his abuse of power.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board disputes Trump’s singling out of Minnesota and its Somali immigrants: “Minnesota’s Fraud Problem Isn’t Immigrants: It’s the vast size of the welfare state that corrupts them—not immigrants or a particular culture.” Others have noted the billions of dollars poured into Pandemic relief programs have led to massive systemic nationwide fraud, suggesting that Trump’s singling out Minnesota and its Somali residents for military intervention is far beyond the limits of reality.

None of us deserves what is happening in Minneapolis and in too many other places in our country today. As Renee Good put it, “No matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness.”

Compassion and kindness are two of the many things grievously missing in our national dialogue and particularly from our national leadership.

Maybe we’ll ask Jeff and Denny to report from the front lines of our president’s war on his own country again as the ICE campaign and the killing of a 37-year old poet simmer in this frigid time.

Traditional?

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Donald Trump, who often has accused his accusers of engaging in witch hunts, appears to be off on a witch hunt of his own, a witch being anyone who does not advocate “traditional views.”  HIS “traditional views.”

We hope somebody asks him for a comprehensive definition of “traditional views” so that I know whether I am involved in “domestic terrorism,” another subject that it would be entertaining to hear him define.

During the weekend a memo written by loyalist Pam Bondi, whom Trump has designated to supervise the Justice (rather loosely defined these day) Department, was leaked. It tells the DOJ to put together a list of “domestic terrorism” groups.

What constitutes such a group?

It is what the Trump/Bondi DOJ chooses to consider “extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment.”

In other words, it’s those who disagree with President Trump who, in our observation, is never going to rival Noah Webster in defining words and terms.

Reporter Ken Klippenstein revealed the memo.  And who is he?

An interesting character. Young, used to work for The Intercept, a nonprofit news organization considered to be well into the political west wing, a former correspondent for The Nation, a  liberal magazine, and a part of the growing online news world. His father is a theoretical chemist at the Argonne National Laboratory. He says his mother’s family was undocumented immigrants from El Salvador.  College grad with a degree in English literature. He has broken other stories using leaked material, too.

We wonder how quickly his name is in a Pamagram sent to the list.

Trump is not the first ruler to impose his “traditional views” on the people.

Tomás de Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition from 1483 to 1498 under appointment of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, the patrons of Christopher Columbus who ventured forth during a period of extreme persecution of Jews and Muslims to spread those traditional (Christian) views to whatever heathens he found when he arrived someplace that he did not know he was going to.

Going back even earlier, we can talk about Pope Stephen VI, who in a remarkable fifteen months pulled all kinds of stunts including the calling of the infamous Cadaver Synod in which he put his dead predecessor on trial for perjury and the illegal assumption of the papacy.  He dug up the corpse of Pope Formosus, put papal vestments on it, propped it up on a throne and had a mock trial.

The corpse did not mount much of a defense and after being found guilty was stripped of his vestments and ceremonially maimed (three of his fingers were cut off) before the remains of his remains were thrown into the Tiber River. There was widespread disapproval of Pope Steve’s definition of “traditional views” and he wound up in prison where he was strangled to death, apparently by non-traditionalists.

Long before Russia had Stalin and his “traditional views,” it had Ivan the Terrible—Ivan IV—who reigned for more than fifty years. He, too, started by promising reforms but quickly was consumed by paranoia and formed his own secret police that terrorized and murdered his subjects by the thousands, one of who was his own son.

Romania in 15th century had Vlad III who once ordered 20,000 enemy soldiers impaled, their bodies remaining on display as a warning against disloyalty. Vlad the Impaler, he is still called.

His cruelty wasn’t just reserved for outsiders; he targeted his own people as well. Vlad would punish dishonesty and laziness with extreme torture, sometimes impaling entire villages. Laziness and dishonesty also were abhorred by our Puritan ancestors, but they just stuck people in the stocks for a few hours—

—Unless they were witches.  Hanging, pressing, and drowning seemed to have been the Puritan Christian cures for those tendencies.

As far as I know, nobody has accused President Trump of being a Puritan. So we’d appreciate it if he’d offer a clear explanation of his terms sometime when he’s awake and not playing the Game of Invective all night on his social media account.

We don’t want to spend any more time—although we could—listing other rulers who sought to protect “traditional values” as they defined them. And we certainly don’t want to suggest that President Trump fits the mold of those we have cited and others on various lists of vengeful rulers. But punishment for differing with any ruler who considers himself the only one to define “traditional values” has a past that must raise questions about a person of questionable personal ethics setting a national agenda for you and me.

The Trump memo also demands creation of “a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”

The President’s definition of “domestic terrorism threat” as being any organization that uses “violence or the threat of violence” to oppose “law and immigration enforcement, extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders, adherence to radical gender theology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government” and the aforementioned “hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality.”

Except for MAGA and January 6, 2021 celebrants.

You will excuse me, I hope, if I cannot consider Donald J. Trump in any way fit to determine nation’s views “on family, religion, and morality.”

The Constitution aside, this is a pretty broad mission for our national ruler. Just about everybody falls into one of these categories in one way or another, including me. And you.

Apparently, however, there is a way that we can become immune to prosecution under this policy. We just have to cough up a nine or ten-figure amount to pay for decoration of the monstrosity of a Trump Worship Center that will stand for decades as a tribute to his bad tase and his desire to have more monuments to himself than anybody since the ancient Egyptian pharaohs.

I’m going to put an orange jumpsuit on my Christmas gift list to make sure I’m properly dressed when the traditional values Pamgoons come for me.

 

 

The Bunny, the Bully, And A Sing-Along 

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It has been more than 46 years since a bunny has made headlines such as this—when President Jimmy Carter saw a swamp rabbit swimming his way and either splashed water on it or hit it with his canoe paddle to keep it away.

It was a minor thing, really, but you know how the press is. The Associated Press broke the story and the commentators and comedians started having a field day with Carter fending off a “killer rabbit.”

Now we have Bad Bunny lined up to do the halftime show at the Super Bowl, the first male Latin performer to do that show, and the MAGA crowd is having a cow.  Especially Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

When President Trump was asked for his reaction he offered his usual, “I never heard of him. I don’t know who he is” response, which he has used too often for us to count to deny knowing people he knows. “I don’t know why they’re doing it, it’s like crazy. … Then they blame it on some promoter that they hired to pick up entertainment. I think it’s absolutely ridiculous,” he continued.

Interesting, isn’t it, that it’s ridiculous to hire somebody he never heard of?

So, for him as well as for those of us of his well-advanced generation, here’s some information about BB and why the MAGA crowd has its undies in such a knot:

He’s 31 years old, a performer from Puerto Rico (real name: Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) who has made Spanish rap music popular worldwide. He’s been a star for almost a decade. From 2020-2023 he was the world’s most-streamed artist on Spotify. His sixth studio album, described as “a love letter to Puerto Rico and his heritage, was number one on the Billboard Top 100 albums earlier this year.

He’s also a WWE pro wrestler and a former 24/7 champion, which—if he weren’t Puerto Rican—might entitle him to take part in the 80th Trump birthday celebration wrestling matches at the White House.

Earlier this year he wrapped up a 23-performance tour of Latin America, Europe, Japan, and Australia—but not the United States because of concerns that ICE would pounce on fans going to his shows.

And that is what has smoke coming out the ears of some MAGA people, including Noem who has proclaimed that her ICE agents will be out in force at the Super Bowl.

In an interview, it was clear that she has become a graduate of the Trump School of Nonsense: “I have the responsibility for making sure everybody who goes to the Super Bowl has the opportunity to enjoy it and to leave, and that’s what America’s about. So yeah, we’ll be all over that place. We’re going to enforce the law. So, I think people should not be coming to the Super Bowl unless they’re law-abiding Americans who love this country.”

As for the NFL, she spouted this head-scratcher: “Well, they suck and we’ll win, and God will bless us and we’ll stand and be proud of ourselves at the end of the day, and they won’t be able to sleep at night because they don’t know what they believe. And they’re so weak, we’ll fix it.”

Huh?

Her intelligence deficit was mirrored by MAGA influencer Tomi Lahren on her podcast interview with The Hill’s Krystal Ball (yes, Krystal Marie Ball is her real name), when Lahren asked Ball what she thought about whether BB was a good choice for the halftime show.  Ball admitted she didn’t know much about him but that he “seems like a great American artist, so sure.”

That’s when Lahren put her foot in it. “He’s not an American artist, but—”

Ball: “He’s Puerto Rican. That’s part of America, dear.”

Huff Post reported Lahren plunged ahead and criticized BB’s criticism of ICE only to have Ball remind her, “America agrees with him on that…A majority of Americans think ICE has gone too far. They’ve watched videos of, like, 79 year old business owners being slammed to the ground and their ribs broken by ICE. So I think the American people are probably on board with that message at this point.”

The best retort Lahren could offer was, “Whoever you’re talking to, I’m sure is. I’m not so sure the rest of the country is.”

Well, the fake news just reports fake polls, you know, and you shouldn’t pay attention to them.  It’s better, after all, to believe the First Golfer, who says he’s so popular that nobody has ever seen anything like it, to quote one of his favorite phrases.

Also chiming in is longtime Trumper Corey Lewandowski, now an adviser in the Homeland Security Department (If you can’t give a favorite ego-feeding supporter a specific job at the public trough, you can always make them an “advisor.”), who called the BB announcement “shameful” and charged Bunny “just seems to hate America so much.”

Lewandowski is lying. BB doesn’t hate America. But he doesn’t want his fans put in the sights of ICE agents emboldened by Lewandowski’s boss.  Bunny told i-D magazine, “There were many reasons why I didn’t show up in the U. S. and none of them were out of hate.” He recalled he had performed “successful” and “magnificent” concerts many times and has “enjoyed connecting with Latinos who have been living in the U.S.”

The whole incident has become great fodder for internet denizens.

Trump’s antagonism toward Puerto Rico is widely known. When he tried to fire three members of a board that oversees the territory’s financial management, a federal district judge ruled he had likely violate constitutional due process rights and federal law.

Last year, a comedian at a Trump fund raiser referred to Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage.” Trump’s reaction to Tony Hinchcliffe’s comment was the usual: “I don’t know him, someone put him up there. I don’t know who he is.” But he didn’t repudiate it.

He told a Puerto Rican native at a campaign roundtable in Pennsylvania, “We helped you through a lot of bad storms. I’ll tell you we really had some bad ones. You remember you were there when I brought the hospital ship against everyone’s advice and we got it there and took care of a lot of people. But I think no president’s done more for Puerto Rico than I have.”

Few viewed his visit to Puerto Rico some nine days after Hurricane Maria in 2017 as anything more than “insulting,” as San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz,  a “PR, 17-minute meeting.” They remember that he threw paper towels to a room crowded with victims hoping for something much more important, a “terrible and abominable” image that “does not embody the spirit of the American nation.”

“They had these beautiful, soft towels. Very good towels,” he recalled on a Trinity Broadcasting Network interview. There was a crowd of a lot people. And they were screaming and they were loving everything. I was having fun.”

He visited only one small part of the island for a short time—-and then piled insult on insult by minimizing what was facing those people who needed a whole lot more than paper towels. “Every death is a horror,” he said, “but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina and you look at the tremendous—hundred and hundreds and hundres of people that died, and you look at what happened here, with really a storm that was just totally overpowering, nobody’s ever seen anything like this.”  He belittled the storm by noting there had been only sixteen confirmed deaths. Mayor Cruz said Trump showed no interest in reaching out to suffering Puerto Ricans.

About that hospital ship: Reuters reported the Pentagon did not dispatch it until three days after defeated presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said on Twitter that Trump and his Secretary of Defense James Mattis “should send the Navy…to Puerto Rico now. These are American citizens.” Further, the Inspector General in the Housing and Urban Development saw calculated  that the administration had withheld about $20 billion in hurricane relief after the island was hit by Hurricane Maria in 2017.

MSNBC talked to the Executive Director of Deadline Hollywood, Dominic Patten, who says Noem’s comments and the MAGA World’s reaction to the Super Bowl choice is rooted in three things—a hatred of capitalism (“Bad Bunny’s a big star; he’s going to make a lot of money for the NFL”), ignorance (“They might want to remember that Puerto Rico IS part of America”), and “a bit of the loser syndrome” (BB’s criticism of ICE).

As far as Noem’s claim that the NFL sucks, is weak, and “won’t be able to sleep at night because they don’t know what they believe,” Patten responds, “The NFL don’t care. The NFL is the NFL. They’re the biggest game in town.” Digit elevated.

The Super Bowl halftime show is organized by Roc Nation, founded by rapper Jay-Z, considered the “live music entertainment strategist for the NFL.”  The show is sponsored by Apple Music.

“Let’s also not be naïve,” said Patten. The NFL and Jay-Z knew exactly what they were doing. They decided to poke the paper bear and they’ve done a very good job of it.”

Well, the paper bear has decided to let loose with a jingoistic growl (We’ll save you the effort of looking up “jingoism,” by citing Britannica’s definition: “an attitude of  belligerent nationalism, adherence to the rightness or virtue of one’s own nation, society, or group, simply because it is one’s own.”). Turning Point USA. Charlie Kirk’s creation, has announced it is going to host “The All -American Halftime Show” as an Bunny alterative. It is taking an online survey of what music its adherents want. The first choice is “Anything in English,” a cheap shot at BB, who performs in Spanish.

It is clear that Mr. Bunny, although a native of a United States territory, just isn’t American enough for the TPUSA/MAGA crowd.

What do you want to bet that the song getting the biggest crowd reaction at that alternate even will be Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA.

Tell you what—let’s look at the lyrics.

If tomorrow all the things were gone
I’d worked for all my life

(Such as the freedom to express an opinion without someone in an Army uniform pepper-spraying me or some goon in a mask and without a warrant yanking me into a white van and hauls me to a crowded lockup while my terrified family wonders where I am)

And if I had to start again
With just my children and my wife
I’d thank my lucky stars
To be livin’ here today

(unless my wife and our children who were born here are being deported to some secret and awful place.)

‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom

(unless I want to read a banned book, visit a museum that tells the truth about our history, or go to a national park that doesn’t have oil wells sticking up from the ground.)

And they can’t take that away

(Oh, yes they can. And they’re trying for more.)

And I’m proud to be an American
Where at least I know I’m free

(as long as I buy into the right kind of religion, don’t have a funny sounding name, think the 2020 election was stolen, and believe all I need to prove my Americanism is to wear a red baseball cap with the right letters on it)

And I won’t forget the men who died
Who gave that right to me

(Sixty-five thousand Puerto Ricans served our country in World War II including the seven Medina brothers known as “The Fighting Medinas,” and Agustin Ramos Calero, known as the “One Man Army,” who won the Silver Star and 21 other medals and decorations. About fifty were killed. About 48,000 Puerto Ricans served in Vietnam. About 350 were KIA and five earned the Medal of Honor.)

And I’d gladly stand up
Next to you and defend her still today

(Even if you think I should not be allowed to perform a Super Bowl halftime show.)

‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land
God bless the USA

(I agree.  I love this land as you do. But I think Abrham Lincoln had his priorities straight when he purportedly said, “I do not boast that God is on my side; I humbly pray that I am on his.”

One of the immediate reactions to the Turning Point announcement was to have Bad Bunny throw paper towels into the crowd to make a political point that would remind the audience of the Trump visit.

But that would be lowering himself to their level.

Here’s what would be incredibly classy and what would at the same time send a powerful message:

(Here, let’s sing the song together:

Si mañana todas las cosas se hubieran ido–If tomorrow all the things were gone
He trabajado toda mi vida—I’d worked for all my life
Y tuve que empezar de nuevo—And I had to start again
Sólo con mis hijos y mi esposa—With just my children and my wife

Agradeceré a mis estrellas de la suerte—I’d thank my lucky stars
Vivir aquí hoy—To be livin’ here today
Porque la bandera sigue en pie por la Libertad—Cause the flag still stands for freedom
Y no pueden quitarlo—And they cant take that away

Y estoy orgulloso de ser americano—And I’m proud to be an American
Donde al menos sé que soy libre—Where at least I know I’m free
Y no olvidaré a los hombres que murieron—And I won’t forget the men who died
¿Quién me dio ese derecho?—Who gave that right to me

Y con mucho gusto me levanto—And I gladly stand up
Junto a ti y defiéndala todavía hoy—Next to you and defend her still today
Porque no hay duda, amo esta tierra—Cause there ain’t no doubt, I love this land
Dios bendiga a los Estados Unidos—God bless the USA

Just between thee and me, I’d love to hear Bad Bunny sing this song in Spanish at the end of the halftime show, maybe while the words were on the big scoreboard screens so the audience could sing along. That would be delicious.

MAGA is too young to remember Jimmy Carter and how embarrassing and foolish a person can appear to be if they think a bunny is dangerous.

I Am An American Citizen 

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I am a citizen of the United States of America, not because of anything I have done to deserve it but because it is my birthright. I was born here and that is all I need.  I am not the child of former slaves but, instead, am a descendant of a long line of white Northern Europeans who came here for the same reason brown people from the central and southern American continent come here today—with hope and for opportunity.

I am an American Citizen, a hyphenated German-French-Scots-Irish-English-American, whose ancestors by their everyday lives helped this country achieve a greatness too easily given away. I am married to a Swedish-American Citizen whose ancestors came here for the same reasons mine did—with hope, seeking a better and safer life than they had and could have in their old countries.  We are proud of our hyphens.

I am an American Citizen because the first person with my name settled in Virginia on land granted him by Queen Elizabeth I because of his work as the captain of a privateer who fought pirates on the Spanish Main. The first name is a common one in the family and carries with it genetic linkages to a courageous forefather.

I am American Citizen proud of the good that our country has achieved regardless of how increasingly embarrassed I might be with what its contemporary leadership wants it to be.

I am an American Citizen who loves his country even when given manifold opportunities to dislike it.

I am an American Citizen free to practice my religion but not free to force others to adopt it, and free to object to those who by social or legal means try to force their religion on me.

I am an American Citizen who respects the National Guard but will oppose a National Police. I will not show an identity card to one of them who greets me at my polling place or anywhere else. Nor will I acknowledge them as I walk freely down any street where they have been directed to patrol.

I am an American Citizen who believes my voting records are between me and my county election authority and no one, not even a federal agency, has any right to them.

I am an American Citizen who believes I can call myself by any party name I wish at any time in my life, and—in fact—have spent my life loyal to no party, which also is my right as an American Citizen.

I am an American Citizen unafraid of my past, knowing that slavery WAS “that bad,” and acknowledging that some members of the southern branch of my family undoubtedly owned black people. I will not apologize for them; the historical records are unavoidable despite any efforts to obscure them. The “original sin” of America remains a sin only if we continue to avoid responsibilities all of us share with and for each other regardless of color, heritage, belief, or self-identity today.

I am an American Citizen who believes acknowledging the past and moving to correct its faults is a mark of national greatness, who believes it takes more courage to correct than to hide, that hiding is a sign of American Cowardice. Progress, not regression, makes greatness.

I am an American Citizen who cherishes my right to see, to hear, to read, to learn, and to therefore think and act, a library board president who will vigorously oppose all who profess to be the ones who can dictate truth or limit opportunities to find it, an information consumer who abhors the consolidation of media on the basis of financial self-interest above the public interest, particularly that segment overseen by a federal government agency with licensing power that wants to control the variety of voices we once had and must regain.                                                                                                                            I am an American Citizen who refuses to believe that all other rights in all other amendments are possible because of the Second Amendment.

I am an American Citizen who believes none of the other amendments would be possible without the FIRST Amendment. In particular, I believe all have a right to responsible speech, agreeable to me or not and the right to petition our government for redress of infringements on the rights granted to me by national documents and physical heritage.

I am an American Citizen who will not tolerate those who seek power or seek to maintain it through division, derision, and disrespect.

I am an American Citizen because I believe we can be better tomorrow than today, by building on the best of what we have been, not tearing down the good that we are.

I am an American citizen who does not believe in the melting-pot but instead believes we are a stew made tastier by the separate ingredients that meld, not melt, within the national bowl.

I am an American Citizen who hates hate except toward those who fuel hate, take advantage of hate, and themselves hate others.

I am an American Citizen who fears not the present because he remembers the past and therefore can hope for a better future. .

I am an American Citizen who needs not wrap himself in the flag to proclaim his patriotism but will display his love of country in his daily living and his daily defense of all who seek, as our founders put it, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I am an American Citizen because I will not give up on my country, be accused of giving up on my country, or being told I must leave behind the country where I have lived for all of my life.

I am American Citizen who will not live by bumper sticker mottos but lives by thought and deed, and the words of Thomas Wolfe:

…To every man his chance—to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity—to every man the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make him — this, seeker, is the promise of America.

I am an American Citizen who will never forsake that promise—

—because I have lived it.

I

Am

An

AMERICAN

CITIZEN!

(Advertisement is from the Columbia Daily Tribune, probably in the 70s; Cartoon by Wiley Miller, distributed by Andrews McMeel Publishing)