jpedmd2026-01-25T14:28:14-05:00January 25th, 2026|

From Matt Yglesias’ January 20 Slow Boring, Blame Trump for Trump-era immigration excesses:

All of this is terrible. And all of it is Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s doing (with help from the Supreme Court).

And now ICE has committed yet another brutal, inexcusable murder. R.I.P. Alex Pretti, ICU nurse and model American citizen.  None of this would be happening if we had decent, moral leadership and if ICE was operating in a lawful manner (and perhaps operating in states where there are many more illegal immigrants, rather than ones the petulant president likes to goad).  And the reprehensible lying about what is transpiring – sickening. As the New York Times Editorial Board said today, “The administration is urging Americans to reject the evidence of their eyes and ears. Ms. Noem and Mr. Bovino are lying in defiance of obvious truths. They are lying in the manner of authoritarian regimes that require people to accept lies as a demonstration of power.” I am sad and fear for my country.

jpedmd2026-01-08T14:32:48-05:00January 8th, 2026|

After watching what actually transpired in the horrific shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an as-yet unnamed ICE agent versus the responses from the current administration, I thought that Steve Vladeck, writing in his One First Substack, had a wonderfully fitting quote from Hannah Arendt, who wrote in her 1967 New Yorker essay “Truth and Politics”:

“The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end—is being destroyed.”

And so it is.

• Another Jamelle Bouie essay I enjoyed from the NYT – This Is Not How a Normal President Speaks.  I especially agree with his notion that John Roberts shares some blame for his role in Trump v. United States, which not only stopped ongoing prosecutions that might have derailed DJT’s election, but has fully empowered  his dictatorial presidency. Excerpts:

“Trump is, in his mind, an elected monarch — although not an enlightened one — whose whims are law and whose power extends to every inch of the United States and every corner of the Western Hemisphere…Trump’s assertion of unlimited authority — subject only to his moral judgment and his mind (whatever that means) — is a total rejection of popular sovereignty and the logic of the Constitution…

In Trump v. United States, Roberts and his Republican colleagues anointed the office of the presidency with immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts,” defined — somewhat vaguely — as anything extending from the president’s “core constitutional powers.” Never mind that this language had no basis in the constitutional text or its drafting and ratification. Never mind that the framers, in fact, seemed to accept the possibility that a president might be criminally prosecuted for actions in office after impeachment and removal…

If the only things Trump thinks can stop him are his own morality and his own mind, our task — at least for those of us who view the state of things with outrage and anger — is to show him the folly of his words.”

• From the always excellent Joy of Tech:

(Click the thumbnail to see the whole thing.)

• What a tangled web that family weaves – read more about the vast enrichment schemes organized by the Trump crime family here in the NYT.

After that, read about Jack Smith’s testimony in the Times, indicting Tr***.  No surprise here:

““Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power,” Mr. Smith said, according to the transcript.”