Doom Report (Week 9: The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil)

If one wanted a reasonably compact roundup of the week’s news, it’s tough to beat this week’s Armageddon Update.  It’s, as Christopher Titus puts it, “a partial list of idiocy, hatred, and darkness that President Felon Rapist crapped out his stupidhole,” and it’s a tight 5 minutes.  He concludes that “the billionaires have decided that people with nothing have too much,” and that’s pretty incisive commentary from a guy who never went to college, a guy who once described himself as “just a very thin layer of charming with some funny sprinkles wrapped around a huge creamy center of raging arrogant A-hole.”

And the thing he opens his list with is the renditioning of over 200 supposed “Venezuelan gang members.” And, to think: I spent all that time last week talking about one guy that our government has disappeared—if only I’d been patient enough to wait a few days, I could have covered so many more.  (That one person is Mahmoud Khalil, by the way, and he is still being detained, without charge.  Strict Scrutiny thoughtfully released a clip from their full show to catch you up on all the details.)  And, lest you think I’m exaggerating about how bad this is—despite getting surprisingly little coverage from the usual sources; only America Unhinged gave it the full analysis it deserved—let’s just be clear: once again, there were no actual charges; people were just being rounded up based on tattoos, and the Trump regime apparently can’t tell a Venezuelan gang tat from a Spanish soccer team one; and the fact that innocent people were included in the group is no longer in doubt.  If it’s not so bad, then why did the Trump regime go to such extraordinary lengths to defy a court order telling them to stop the illegal deportations?  First they said that the judge’s oral order didn’t count because it wasn’t written, then they said the written order didn’t count because the planes had already left American airspace, then they said that the judge had no authority to enjoin them from using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798—again, the same act used to justify locking up Sulu and Mr. Miyagi for the crime of having their parents be born in Japan—to disappear people.  If it’s not so bad, why is Legal Eagle reporting that the regime claimed the lack of evidence against them “proved” how bad they were?  If you still have any shred of possible belief that just maybe this was all justified and all on the up and up, then I want you to do something for me.  I want you to look at this picture and tell me one thing:

Why can we see the faces of all the prisoners—the people who have never been convicted of anything, because they’ve never been charged with anything, because they’ve never even been accused of anything other than having tattoos—but the guards are all wearing masks?  If you saw this picture without any context whatsoever, what country would you suppose those black-masked guards work for?  Now think back to the video of Khalil’s wife asking for the name of the officer arresting her husband and the man saying “we don’t give our names.”  No names, no faces: these supposed Americans sure don’t seem too proud of their work.

More Perfect Union this week talked to a fired CFPB lawyer who was investigating companies turning off people’s cars while they were driving.  They also talked to one of the fired FTC lawyers (and the Coffee Klatch interviewed the other one) who were engaged in cases against companies owned by Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg.  Both organizations are effectively gutted now, meaning that the billionaires are finally free to continue ripping us off without pesky government interference.  Not to mention the attempt to shut down the Department of Education, the resumption of the mass killings of Palestinians despite the “ceasefire”, and the attacks on Social Security: first they gutted the phone service, claiming people could still get service in person (which conveniently ignores the fact that many people on Social Security find it difficult to travel for medical reasons), then they started massive force reductions, meaning that there won’t be nearly enough people to handle those in-person visits.  Then perennial idiot Howard Lutnick (who Ian Michael Black refers to on Have I Got News For You as “this fucking guy”) had the balls to say this:

Let’s say Social Security didn’t send out their checks this month.  My mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain—she just wouldn’t.  She would think something got messed up, and she’ll get it next month.  A fraudster always makes the loudest noise: screaming, yelling, and complaining.

To which the only reasonable response is YOU’RE A FUCKING BILLIONAIRE.  Of course she won’t complain if she misses a check: she’ll just call her moron of a son-in-law and get a few thousand in pocket change to tide her over. I swear the cluelessness of these people makes me not only question how they got so rich, but also how they managed to just survive this long.  This fucking guy in particular seems like he should have wandered out into traffic to play by now.  Darwin ain’t always right, you know.

But, look: I keep saying I’ll try to end these things on a positive note.  This time I wanted to share with you my collection of quotes from people that still have the balls to stand up to President Musk and his pal Trumpy.  A lot of people have not been doing that, including most of the Democrats.  But some have.  Here are a few:

the single most un-american and anti-constitutional statement ever uttered by an american president
— Jamelle Bouie, New York Times columnist, in response to Trump’s quoting of Napolean

The Government again evaded its obligations.  This is woefully insufficient.
— James Boasberg, U.S. District Judge, in his response to ICE’s defiance of his temporary restraining order

That should not have been done in our country.  It was a sham in order to avoid statutory requirements.
— William Alsup, U.S. District Judge, in response to mass firings by Elon Musk’s faux department

It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward Adams’s opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment.
— Danielle Sassoon, former U.S. Attorney, resignation letter

I’ve been on the bench for over four decades.  I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one.  This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.
— John Coughenour, U.S. District Judge, when striking down Trump’s executive order outlawing birthright citizenship

I am not going to abide by government officials saying one thing to the public—what they really mean to the public—and coming in here to the court and telling me something different, like I’m an idiot.
— Ana Reyes, U.S. District Judge, in her order blocking the Department of Defense banning trans troops

May you renew daily your dedication to justice, and always seek to end each day secure in the knowledge that you showed up and sought justice for your one and only client, the people of the United States of America.  You serve no man.
— Sean Murphy, former Assistant U.S. Attorney, resignation letter

I understand that Donald Trump wants to ruin me and he has a lot of tools to be able to ruin me.  But the question is: am I going to look myself in the mirror and say “Okay, therefore, compromise everything I believe in, compromise everything I’ve fought my career for, and just hide or cower or—even worse—make a deal with him?”  Or am I at least going to look in the mirror every day and stand tall and say “You know what, I have my integrity; I have my self-respect.”  And if Donald Trump’s able to destroy me, then he destroys me.  But at least he will he will have taken out someone who, to the bitter end, was doing the best he could to fight for democracy in this country.
— Marc Elias, after being targeted in a memo to the Department of Justice

But any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way.  If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion.  But it was never going to be me.
— Hagan Scotten, former Assistant U.S. Attorney, resignation letter

Some of those voices are even conservatives.  Danielle Sassoon is a member of the Federalist Society and clerked for Scalia.  James Boasberg was appointed to the bench by George W. Bush and appointed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court by Chief Justice Roberts.  John Coughenour was appointed by Ronald Reagan as I was starting 11th grade, 2 years before the first episode of Stranger Things ... not before it aired, before it takes place.  These are not squishy liberals.  Or to put it like Christopher Titus does in the first video I linked above:

None of these things are Democrat or Republican things; none of it.  It’s good and evil.  I have family who are Republican—guess what: they aren’t evil.  But this fat felon fuckup douchebag, and South African dork Lord Vader, are.  Pure evil.

Amen brother.