Well, this DOES seem like the other shoe, doesn’t it? Cast your mind back all the way back to, um, yesterday. I wrote that The Felon had invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and then a court issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) a few hours later. Well, guess what? The maladministration ignored the court’s order! They moved forward with the deportations, claiming the plane had left US airspace before the judge issued his TRO.

Oh, but that’s not all. They also ignored a different court’s order requiring 24 hours notice before any deportations and proceeded to deport Dr Rasha Alawieh, a 34-year-old, Rhode Island-based, kidney specialist. She is/was a professor at Brown University. She was a legal resident and had not committed any crimes.

My guess is, MAGA media isn’t going to give the Alawieh story much ink. She’s a surgeon. She’s smart, well educated, and skillful. She’s EXACTLY the kind of “good immigrant” the trumpster claims to want instead of gang members. She was in the country legally. The US suffers a very clear loss because of her deportation. MAGA media will have to focus on her one and only “offense.” She’s Lebanese, with all of that… (shivers) brown skin.

Instead, MAGA media will focus on the first of those mentioned because those being deported were said to be gang members. Who knows? Maybe they were. 47 lies about everything so maybe SOME were. Maybe ONE GUY was suspected of once passing a gang member on the street somewhere so, suddenly, they were ALL gang members.

The ‘gang members’ angle plays into MAGA paranoia and fear. They’ll be a-okay with “deporting vicious gang members” – even if a court told the government to wait. They’ll roll over for it because… “vicious gang members.” MAGA will accept the government ignoring court orders because MAGA will be told the court is wrong so the government HAD to.

The part they SHOULD focus on, but won’t, is that the government is now openly ignoring court orders. The idea that one might even agree with their excuse in this case, doesn’t change the fact that open defiance of the courts STARTS with an “agreeable” case but then quickly moves to any area they choose – because precedent will have been established with the “gangs” case.

It’s an old trick, by now. Our government did something like it a long time ago, when they established so-called “Drunk Driving Checkpoints.” They were sold to the public as a way to stop drunk drivers, and who isn’t down with that? They’re still called ‘Drunk Driving Checkpoints,’ of course, but they’re really just “checkpoints.” They’re hardly looking only for drunk drivers.

They’ll stop you for no valid reason. They’ll search your car. They’ll run a legal check on you. EVERY time there’s a “Drunk Driving Checkpoint,” we get stories about them taking people into custody for all kinds of things that are NOT drunk driving or things they couldn’t/shouldn’t know about if they’re only checking for glassy eyes.

But now? Checkpoints are just part of the process, right? Even if we grumble about them – and they ARE unconstitutional – they keep happening. The same will be the case with ignoring court orders the government doesn’t like.

MAGA used to bitch and bitch about the heavy-handed government engaging in illegal things. But, of course, that was when it wasn’t really happening. Now that it is? They’ll cheer. But it was the “other shoe” of an authoritarian takeover. With them openly defying courts, we’ve passed the point of no return. This is going to get ugly…

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Our current national nightmare began so many years ago when “poorly educated” conservatives were conditioned to believe that there was such a thing as “Supply-side Economics.” There isn’t. It’s a nonsense term but it SOUNDED like it meant something and stupid people, fearing they might LOOK stupid, embraced the name and the concept as presented in the hopes that they looked, for once, like they might understand something complex and confusing.

The concept of Supply-side or “trickle down” economics is simple enough: give all the money to rich people, then sit back and enjoy all the wondrous benefits the benevolent billionaires bestow on the working class. Well, at this point, a fair argument could be made that we’ve done the first part – we gave all the money to the richest people. If you want to split hairs and say, “I’ve still got some money,” I’ll agree, but you don’t have much and you won’t have what you have for long. Worse, there are thousands of people out there who don’t have any. For all intents and purposes, they have “all the money.” Certainly, they have all of the control.

They sold the idea that laws, rules, and regulations were “impediments to innovation” and that they made it more difficult to make money – and that was said to be a BAD thing. The MAGA mind lapped it up. Here’s the thing: yes. Regulations DID make it more difficult to “innovate.” Like that time PG&E wanted to “innovate” disposing of poisonous chemicals in a small town’s drinking water supply, saving PG&E lots of money, but poisoning the people of the town.

It DID cost PG&E more money to dispose of their waste properly. And all because people wanted to drink clean water and not be poisoned. How selfish is that? They should have been shareholders. Sure, they’d still be poisoned but they’d get back a few pennies on their investment so it would be okay, right? Oh, wait. The major shareholders weren’t poisoning the water the major shareholders drank. That was a special “innovation” for Joe Six-pack, alone. The One Percent didn’t even send a card when children died from the poison.

Oh, but they’re going to get to “innovate” now, aren’t they? Pay attention. ALL of their great, coming “innovations” are going to cost the work-a-day Joes more and more money. Our world is about to become a nightmare of desperation while the One Percent enjoy their privileged and easy lives. But knowing they were now free to trample over the masses wasn’t enough for them. As long as our old Constitutional Republic existed, there was a chance (a minuscule chance, admittedly) someone might do the right thing and try to rein them in.

So, they used our money to buy – and then destroy – our government. The richest man in the world is telling the same people who were supposed to – expecting to – reap the rewards of billionaire largess that they want too much and they’re taking far too much based on the idea that the working class thinks it should STILL get the Social Security we were promised.

This all has historical precedent. It’s all happened before. I’ve long said that when FDR introduced the New Deal, he saved the country, or at the very least, he bought the country some time. But in point of fact, if history is to be our guide (and what else do we have?) FDR introducing the New Deal saved the One Percent. They didn’t know it then, and they understand it even less now, but it happens over and over and over again, throughout history.

The One Percent gains all the advantage in society. Legally, economically, socially, they can’t lose. EVERYONE else suffers. EVERYONE else pays the highest of high prices for the comfort of the very few. Our billionaire class numbers around 748. The population of the US is right around 343.6 million. 343.6 million people get to suffer so that 748 people never have to touch the ground. That’s just wrong. It’s exactly what the founders were trying to escape, not create.

We are probably the most heavily armed population on the planet and in the history of the planet. We don’t have to take their crap. Cons have been shouting all along that they MUST keep an armory in their homes in case the government falls to tyranny. Well the tyranny is here now and the armories are intact. So, no, we don’t have to take their crap, though we will – for a while. But history demonstrates that authoritarian regimes ALWAYS push too far, ALWAYS take too much. They ALWAYS abuse the population one time too many.

Our billionaire class numbers around 748. The population of the US is right around 343.6 million. When they make peaceful revolution impossible, they make violent revolution inevitable. At this point, the only remaining question is, when does it start?