Free radicals

I've been having a pretty good week, which is unusual for post-January 20, 2025. I think the huge turnout at the protests last Saturday (I went to a small suburban one for a short while) and the apparent impact they're having in DC has helped a lot, and my general attitude has been more free and easy, as it were.

I'm also buoyed somewhat by the actual good-if-not-ideal news out of the Roberts Court today—the ruling that Secretary Noem, DHS, and ICE must "facilitate the release" of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from the El Salvadoran torture prison he was rendered to by ICE without even the patina of due process of law. It remains to be seen if President Convicted Felon's regime will obey that court order, which has to go back to the originating court for "clarification" of the term "effectuate," as that court's order called on the government to "facilitate and effectuate" Garcia's release and return to the United States. That seems like a stupid delay tactic on Roberts' part, but fine, OK.

This should have been a foregone conclusion, but then it also should have been so obvious a call that the Supreme Court should have opted to not even hear the argument and say the prior order stands well and good. It's also on the heels of Roberts and company declaring that class actions against ICE for their illegal and extrajudicial kidnappings of people off the street are not allowed and that each of the kidnappees can have their due process only if they each get a lawyer (from detention/foreign prison?!) and file a habeus petition within the local jurisdiction that they were abducted in. So you can't predict how far the Roberts Court will go to protect the man they already granted immunity for "official acts" or criminality and his staff of thugs and goons.

Anyway, I bring up the Garcia case mostly because I kind of hope my uncle is reading this. You may have noticed that he left a comment on my post about the Dodgers tarnishing their reputation by visiting the White House.

Bob, I know that your comment was at least partly tongue-in-cheek, and I do take it in that fashion (though it's often difficult to parse MAGA attempts at humor, there's always an element of cruelty in them) but really, man, I do hope you poke your head up from the right-wing propaganda bubble and see what's really going on every now and then.

Anyone who thinks opposing this POTUS47 regime is something "radical" needs a remedial vocabulary lesson:

Radical (rad•i•cal): A person advocating thorough or complete political or social reform; a member of a political party or bloc that pursues such aims.

We are living under a regime now that is literally criminal. The president himself is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and fraudster, has admitted to being a tax cheat, has gotten away with violations of the espionage act only because he has a corrupt Florida judge in his pocket, has a history—which may well include this week—of securities fraud, and uses extortion as a primary means of "negotiating." His cabinet of corrupt incompetents is also a mass of humanity steeped in moral, ethical, and intellectual deficiencies.

And that's just the criminal aspect. Then there's the un-American aspect. The despotic aspect. 

The Department of Justice is being reorganized to be, essentially, a base for the Joker's henchmen to operate from. Congress is a thing to be circumvented. Treaties are for suckers.

In a mere three months—not even, in fact—this criminal regime has not only done the typical Republican stuff of trying to destroy Social Security, Medicare, and make middle-class and poor folks pay more taxes so the filthy rich can hoard more money; demonizing immigrants and making policy based in racism and misogyny; and rhapsodizing about how government is by its nature bad. They've also gone out of their way to decimate public health infrastructure—on the heels of a global pandemic!!—and utterly destroy the United States' standing and reputation in the world, alienating (former?) allies and perhaps intentionally wrecking the global economy. 

All of it—ALL OF IT—illegally.

On this matter in isolation, my position is conservative while the regime's position—and that of the Republican party writ large, at least so far—is radical. A radical attempt to fundamentally alter the nature of the United States, to take it from a representative democracy revering freedom and the rule of law to an autocratic dictatorship ruled by a small cadre of oligarchs and the whims of one idiotic pathological liar.

I support retaining the societal adherence to equal justice under the law and the protections of the U.S. Constitution. The regime supports decimating the rule of law and trampling the Constitution.

There are other areas where you might call me radical, depending on your interpretation of normal. For instance, I support national health insurance (e.g. Medicare for All), strict gun control measures, a return to an 80+% marginal tax rate, and substantial reforms to our election laws that ban the unfettered influence corporate wealth. Personally, I think that's pretty mainstream and I think polling would back me up, but I can see were even a 20th-century version of a rightward Republican would consider those things somewhat radical. But none of those things defy the basic tenets of American society. President Convicted Felon's regime defies those tenets multiple times every day.

Regarding the Dodgers and their contributions to normalizing this in-progress fascist takeover, I can make some allowances for many of the guys that made the trip. Because (a) they are largely quite young men, (b) living the lives of professional athletes and thus paying scant if any attention to any news outside the sports press, and (c) the duration thus far of this administration has been while they were busy with Spring Training and concerned about making the team and traveling to Tokyo. Plus, (d) they travel in their own bubble of protection and do not have to worry about the harassment and other dangers the general public—especially brown-skinned and non-English speaking members of the public, like many of the Dodgers—does now when traveling in this country. So there is an ignorance that can be assumed. Non-players, though, should know better. Including manager Dave Roberts, who has studied history and is smarter than this. Owner Fred Wilpon is filthy rich and probably hasn't figured out yet that the leopards will eventually eat his face too, but there are plenty of people involved in the decision to go to the White House and shake the hand of the man who let Los Angeles burn not so long ago and who would happily rendition a bunch of them to a Salvadoran gulag who knew better.

Opposing this regime is not radical. It's at its core what this country was founded upon.