Documenting the decay #325.434

The article Roaming Charges: From of the Mouths of Madness by Jeffrey St. Clair (CounterPunch) discussed several interesting news items.

ICE

St. Clair started off with a few items about immigration:

“Cost of painting Trump’s border wall black: $500 million.

“ICE recently shelled out $2.4 million for a fleet of new trucks and SUVs, which were custom detailed with gold wraps reading “DEFEND THE HOMELAND, INTEGRITY, COURAGE, and ENDURANCE.”

“ICE has lowered the hiring standards (it will no longer require agents working the southern border to speak Spanish) and raised the salaries for ICE agents. The starting salary is now $90,000 with a $50,000 signing bonus.”

I guess they’re having trouble finding people to work for them?

These people are all malignant toddlers smashing their toys and throwing them out of the pram. As they feel the power they’ve arrogated to themselves, they will get much more dangerous. It will be short-lived, as anything this maniacal and divorced from reality must be, but there will be so much damage and ruined lives

All of this is, at its root, racism. It is a deeply racist policy that treats anyone with a different last name and brown skin as being from a plethora of interchangeable countries. No-one cares whether someone is from Venezuela or El Salvador or Pakistan; it doesn’t matter whether the details of the accusation are completely false. None of this invalidates the accusation: you don’t belong here and we will make you suffer and then throw you out.

It doesn’t matter where you’re from; we don’t think that you’re from here—you’re most certainly not one of us—so you’re not human. Citizens of the U.S. barely have rights anymore. Anyone trapped here who’s not a citizen of the U.S. is vermin, to be tortured for pleasure and then removed from sight—it doesn’t matter how.

Immigration Enforcement by Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (YouTube)

Mispronouncing “Mamdani”

“While Fox News is having a meltdown over Mamdani’s plans for a few city-owned grocery stores, the Trump Administration is buying up massive stakes in US corporations…”

Yeah, someone here tried to engage me on Mamdani but I didn’t believe that he was of good faith about it, so I demurred. I simply said that the people will choose their mayor, as it should be … and that Cuomo is a giant piece of shit. He couldn’t disagree because (A) Cuomo absolutely and provably is that and (B) he’s also a Democrat, which is all the proof a Republican needs.

The person pretended to not be able to pronounce Mamdani, to which I had to reply that the name had only seven letters and none of them were mysteriously pronounced. Sure, Cuomo has two fewer letters but pronouncing Mamdani correctly shouldn’t be too challenging for anyone of reasonable intelligence and linguistic facility. But these people do pretty much what FOX News says. So, if FOX News says that it’s difficult to pronounce Mamdani, then they’ll stumble over those seven letters like they can barely read or speak.

“Mamdani told the press this week that Cuomo is still running because “Andrew Cuomo is someone who doesn’t understand that no means no.” He’s good.”

He’s used that one before but it’s not yet gotten old.

Personal Aggrandizement

“Florida Senator Rick Scott disclosed $26,000,000 in stock trades.”

These people are looters and plunderers. Their work in government is 100% to grease the wheels for their personal enrichment. They will never support a policy that they see as being detrimental to themselves, even were it to be very beneficial for everyone else. The only way to get anything like that to happen is to fool them into believing a communally valuable law would be personally valuable as well—which, despite their stupidity, is not so easy because they are quite cunning about personal profit—or to get rid of them. Depressingly, the former is a much more plausible path than the latter.

Terrible negotiating skills

“Stephen Walt on the abbreviated Trump-Putin summit: “Trump is a terrible negotiator, a true master of the ‘art of the giveaway.’ He doesn’t prepare, doesn’t have subordinates lay the groundwork beforehand, and arrives at each meeting not knowing what he wants or where his red lines are. He just wings it.””

Honestly, that’s even a generous appraisal of his abilities. It doesn’t mention how easily he’s led by his ego or how naturally illogical he is. He is not a smart man. He is cunning. He has charisma. He succeeds against other base creatures like himself, the kind which almost exclusively fill the elite ranks of business and government. His charisma and cunning work on them because they see themselves in him. They wish to be him. They, too, have no principles and would do anything for their own personal enrichment, so they can’t help but respect the player and the game, kowtowing immediately in the hope that some of the riches they grant him with feigned subservience will be returned ten-fold. They don’t care if a rising tide lifts all boats, so long as it lifts their boat.

Trump probably looks good in shorts

Trump in shorts

“Trump on the US hosting the World Cup: “I may play…I’m a very good athlete. My son is a good athlete. A good soccer player. On the tall side for soccer…I may put on shorts, I look extremely good in shorts, and join the play.””

This is probably the craziest quote I’ve heard from Trump. I don’t even think he was kidding. He’s just like a machine that says that he’s the best in the world at whatever he happens to be talking about. He’s the world’s leading expert on grass. He’s a great soccer player, at almost 80 years old and looking like he hasn’t taken a quick step in about 40 years. He would look great in shorts. I want to think that he’s taking the piss, but I think he’s deadly serious, in his own mind, in his own world. He’s delusional.