Donald Trump only wakes up when he can bully, lie and denigrate Americans and people he wrongly perceives as being weak

Echo opinion letter published in The Virginian Pilot newspaper:

Trump’s ugly coercive style rarely has positive results

Donald Trump is the American bully — and nobody likes a bully. Throughout his political career, his communication style has heavily relied on public humiliation, aggressive behavior and personal attacks. When dealing with individuals — including political rivals, journalists and private citizens — he frequently uses derogatory nicknames and targeted social media campaigns to isolate and disparage his targets.

Internationally, this confrontational approach translates into a transactional foreign policy — everything is a deal.

What kind of deal can he make❓ Rather than relying on diplomacy using professional negotiators, he frequently uses public threats, tariffs and the withholding of foreign aid to pressure both adversaries and allies. This behavior often undermines international agreements and strains traditional diplomatic alliances.

This pattern is starkly visible in Latin America, where his playbook is designed to force sovereign nations into submission. His approach in Venezuela was to arrest President Nicolas Maduro on narco-terrorism charges and then dictate the terms under which Venezuela can participate in global oil markets. 

In Cuba, he has boasted about an imminent friendly takeover or military intervention. Trump recently used federal indictments against former Cuban President Raul Castro to try to force political collapse in the country.

This bullying coercive style usually just makes people mad and want to dig in their heels. It rarely results in positive outcomes.

From David M. Grochmal, in Virginia Beach, Virginia

Donald Trump obsessed with power but he will fail because his failed leadership is unable to inspire loyalty

Echo opinion published in the Boston Globe: 

Trump’s obsession with winning is a losing strategy. 

Raw power can only get a strongman leader so far. 

Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it❗

Thank you for your service❗ 😞😰💘💙

By Stacie Nicole Smith, the managing director of the Consensus Building Institute and the director of the Workable Peace Project, a high school curriculum designed to teach conflict resolution.

For years, I watched ninth-graders learn a lesson that continues to elude some of the most powerful people in the world.

These students participate in a classroom role-play exercise based on one of history’s most famous diplomatic exchanges: the Melian Dialogue, recorded by Thucydides in his account of the Peloponnesian War. 

In 416 BC, Athenian envoys arrived at the small island of Melos with an ultimatum: submit or be destroyed. 

When the Melians protested, the Athenians cut them off. “The strong do what they can,” they said, “and the weak suffer what they must.”

The outcome: Athens “won” that conflict. Melos refused to submit and was conquered, its men killed, its women and children enslaved. In the very short term, it was a victory for Athens. 

Today, the logic of “the strong do what they can” seems to define how the world works. Great powers are ignoring the norms that once restrained them: Russia invaded Ukraine, and the United States arrested Venezuela’s leader and bombed Iran. The current administration’s approach to US foreign policy embodies the Athenian ethos, from a zero-sum approach to trade relationships to a willingness to take the country to war. 

In Canada, like the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney recently lamented at the World Economic Forum’s summit in Davos, “It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry, that the rules-based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”

Those who admire the Athenians’ vision of strength seem to miss the fact that Thucydides didn’t record that exchange to celebrate it. It’s a prelude to catastrophe. Because, within a few years, Athens’s enemies united against it. The empire Athens built by force dissolved precisely because it had been built by force. 

Loyalty from its conquered coalition proved only as durable as the armed force holding it together. I mediated environmental disputes, organizational conflicts, and complex multiparty negotiations, and I have seen how decisions dictated by the powerful are much less stable than agreements designed to meet the interests of all parties.

Students I observed almost always figured this out. In the role-play, some were Athenians, some , and they were prompted to think beyond what they “can” or “must” do. 

Instead, they had to consider what would meet their core needs, uphold their values, and endure the test of time. Students routinely found compromises Athens never even considered — like reduced payment by the Melians* or autonomy over some matters of governance. Those arrangements would have given Athens much of what it needed while giving Melos more reason to accept its rule. This is what mediation experts call the “mutual gains” approach to conflict resolution.

In other words, the students I work with learned the limits of coercion. By rejecting the moral case out of hand, Athens made its contempt for justice explicit and thereby handed every wavering city-state a common cause. Overtly illegitimate behavior reduces the cost of opposing the aggressor, makes coalition-building against it easier, and converts previously neutral parties into motivated adversaries. 

Legitimacy is not a constraint on power — it is a form of power. In their focus on demonstrating strength, the Athenians ignored the strategic importance of building legitimacy.

Mediators know that win-lose deals are almost always worse deals, especially in the long run. The pattern is consistent: One party’s interests are ignored and it is forced to comply with the aggressor’s demands, resentment accumulates, and the forced “agreement” holds only as long as the aggressor can maintain the pressure.

The mediators I work with share the conviction that achieving win-win deals on the world stage is possible. 

People practicing the dynamics of coercion and negotiation firsthand can learn to avoid the pitfalls of the raw, and usually short-lived, exercise of power.

The lesson from Thucydides, then, extends far beyond violent conflict. The ninth-graders in my classroom figured this out in an afternoon. The question is whether today’s strongmen will figure it out before the costs become irreversible.

*Melians were the inhabitants of the Aegean island of Melos, famously involved in a 416 BC, incident during the Peloponnesian War. They maintained neutral, friendly ties with Sparta but were forced into a confrontation by Athens, which demanded their submission. Following their refusal to surrender, Athens conquered Melos, executing all men and enslaving women and children

Donald Trump and maga Republicans: 250 years but now GOP violates the principles Americans fought for during the War of Independence

PennBay Pilot/talk:  Opinion letter to the editor:

Donald Trump's attack on Venezuela exemplifies totalitarian mindset
From James Matlack in Camden, Maine

In 1776, Tom Paine's widely read pamphlet "Common Sense*" energized Colonial resistance to British rule setting the stage for the ultimate success of the Revolution.

In part Paine wrote: "In America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king, and there ought to be no other."

Donald Trump defies this premise totally and relentlessly. He breaks both domestic and international laws in nearly every action he takes, scorning those who obey such legal guidelines. He demands slavish devotion from his followers as if he were a king.

As Peter Baker observed in the New York Times, "In his first year back in office, Trump has unabashedly adopted the trappings of royalty just as he has asserted virtually unbridled power to transform American government and society to his (hideous❗) liking."

Donald Trump's illegal recent attack on Venezuela exemplifies his totalitarian mindset. Without consultation with much less a vote of support from the Congress, a severe assault was made on a foreign capital city including abduction of that country's President after which Trump said that he would "run" Venezuela and "keep the oil" there.

Every day produces additional lawless conduct, arrogant boasts, and delusional claims. No guard rails now curb Trump's monarchical aspirations or his addled speeches. British historian Thomas Macaulay wisely said that "a good constitution is better than the best despot." Alas we seem to be losing our Constitution to a second-rate despot.


Yet Trump is losing public support. His charade of power is being challenged on all fronts with sagging poll numbers. His shrinkage in office reminds me of Shakespeare's description of Macbeth exercising his stolen powers: "like a giant's robes upon a dwarfish thief," his "ill-gotten title hangs loosely" upon him.


James Matlack lives in Camden

*Common Sense, published anonymously by Thomas Paine in January 1776, was a hugely influential pamphlet that argued for American independence from Great Britain, using clear, persuasive language to rally colonists to the cause of revolution by attacking monarchy and advocating for a democratic government. It became an instant bestseller, selling widely and being read aloud in public, and is considered a foundational document of the American Revolution, converting many undecided colonists to the idea of separation.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans must stop illegal invasions and making threats against sovereign countries!

Echo opinion published in the Baltimore Sun:

Understandably, Americans are more concerned with their job security and the challenging ability to meet weekly expenses than they are about international issues. (Maine Writer opinion, although Trump will use our tax money like his own personal checkbook because the Supreme Court said he can do and get away with anything❗)

But, what Donald Trump is doing on the international stage is so crazy and so dangerous that it demands our attention (“Trump meets with oil executives at the White House on Friday, seeking investments in Venezuela,” Jan. 9).

Trump argues that the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela was merely the arrest of an indicted criminal. Whether that authorizes him to bomb a foreign country and forcibly change that country’s leadership without authorization from Congress is highly questionable. In defending Trump’s action, Sen. Lindsey Graham compares the arrest of Maduro to the arrest of the leader of Panama, Manuel Noriega, in 1990. But, we did not thereafter intend to “run” Panama like Trump stated we intend to run Venezuela. That Maduro is a cruel dictator is clear; that Trump intends more than just his arrest (such as taking Venezuelan oil) is equally clear. That explains why the Senate, with the votes of five Republicans, just moved forward a bill to restrict the president from taking further military action against Venezuela.

Moreover, what this administration is saying about Greenland is even crazier. The White House made clear it does not reject the possibility of using military force to take over an autonomous territory belonging to our NATO ally Denmark. I don’t think even Trump would suggest that the prime minister of Denmark is a narco terrorist, a term he has used for Maduro. Take a step back for a moment and reflect on the fact that the president of the United States is not ruling out the use of force against a NATO ally for no apparent reason other than a claim that it would help American security to possess Greenland.

Aside from how just plain wrong this is, consider how China could use Trump’s rationale for the use of force and continued occupation of Venezuela and Greenland with regard to actions it might take against Taiwan or anywhere else where its national security could be enhanced by taking over parts of another country. Surely, we lose the moral authority to scold Russia for its brutal attack on Ukraine.

At this point, I don’t care about the hypocrisy and inconsistency Trump demonstrates daily (you’ll remember during his campaign how he warned against foreign interventions), but at some point, enough has to be enough.

From Steven P. Grossman, in Baltimore, Maryland

Donald Trump's defense enabler Pete Hegseth extended his loyalty to the cult master to becoming his executioner

Echo opinion published in The New York Times by Frank Kendall.

Pete Hegseth is now the Heinrich Himmler* of the Trumpzi administration. 

While there may be little sorrow over the deaths of (proven) drug dealers somewhere in the ocean, Americans should all be concerned about how our military is being used by the Trump administration, and what that implies for the future of our country.

Over the past several weeks Donald Trump and his defense enabler and executioner Pete Hegseth have ordered American forces to kill at least 64 people whom the administration alleged were moving drugs headed for the United States. This campaign seems to be expanding and may soon include strikes into sovereign states such as Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico.  Donald Trump has unilaterally justified these actions by asserting to Congress that we are effectively at war — a noninternational armed conflict, as he calls it — with drug trafficking organizations.

Our military leaders are trained to evaluate the legality of orders they are given. As part of their professional education, the American values of respect for and compliance with the law are reinforced throughout military officers’ careers. They all understand that they have a duty to challenge any order they believe may be illegal — and disobey any order they know to be illegal.

The order to preemptively execute alleged drug traffickers at sea has never been considered a legal act before. The Justice Department informed Congress that it considers the strikes to be lawful and not to require congressional authorization under the War Powers Resolution. But many legal experts believe these strikes to be illegal; on Friday Volker Turk, the U.N. High Commissioner for human rights, said they violate international human rights law. Nevertheless, our military continues to carry out these strikes against vessels, intentionally killing people who, as far as can be determined, are not engaged in any violent, hostile act against the United States, have no perceived intent to engage in hostile acts against the United States, do not appear to be armed to carry out any attack and could be apprehended easily instead of killed summarily.

What happened to the requirement to disobey an unlawful order❓

There is a protocol for what members of our military should do when faced with this type of situation. If an officer is concerned about the legality of an order, he or she turns to the unit’s organizational legal authority for a legal opinion. If needed, there is a legal chain of command that can provide higher levels of legal authority, too. That chain starts with military judge advocates within all major commands, rises from there to that Military Department’s judge advocate generals, the general counsel of the Department of Defense, and then the White House Office of General Counsel and the attorney general of the United States.

In the course of Donald Trump’s second term, there has been a concerted and successful effort to put compliant and supportive lawyers in positions of legal authority within the administration and within the military chain of command. This is true in the White House, in the Justice Department and in the Department of Defense. Pete Hegseth has been very direct about this. One of his first actions as defense secretary, along with firing several senior leaders he viewed as too woke, was to fire some of the Military Department’s most senior judge advocate generals. He has openly bragged about prioritizing “maximum lethality, not tepid legality.”

Today I believe we can say with confidence that the legal chain of command for the military, at least at its senior echelons, has been populated with lawyers who will not say no to virtually anything Mr. Trump or Mr. Hegseth directs them to do.

This puts our military leaders in an untenable position. While they may question the legality of an order, once the department’s legal authority has ruled that the order is lawful, disobeying it becomes a criminal offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. They could be court-martialed for disobedience; to defend themselves, they must prove the order was illegal. Facing this situation, a few officers may, as a matter of conscience, still say no. But while I have enormous respect for the professionalism and integrity of our senior military leaders, I’m afraid they will be the exception. Most officers would almost certainly obey the order.

One of those exceptions may be Admiral Alvin Holsey, the head of the U.S. Southern Command, where the attacks on suspected drug vessels and their crews are occurring, who said last month that he was stepping down. We still don’t know the circumstances of his departure, but I have never seen a four-star officer leave a major command after what will be only one year, and after having served only one of the three years needed for retirement at his highest grade. Like many other events associated with the Trump administration, this is not normal❗

This all leaves us with two critical questions: What other illegal orders will Donald Trump or his executioner Hegseth give that would involve the use of lethal force by our military❓ And is there any use of force that Donald Trump's  handpicked legal authorities (aka "SS" squads) would find unlawful❓❗

During his first term, Donald Trump proposed sending military forces to Portland, Oregon, to respond with lethal force to protests. General Mark Milley, who was then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had the character and the courage to push back on this proposal. Importantly, General Milley was supported by the senior lawyer in the room at the time. 

In this administration, if the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs pushes back, we can be confident that the lawyers in the room will support the president.

Frank Kendall was the secretary of the Air Force for the Biden administration.

*Heinrich Luitpold Himmler - Nazi- (b. 7 October 1900 – d. 23 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician and military leader. He was the 4th Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel (Protection Squadron; SS), a leading member of the Nazi Party, and one of the most powerful people in Nazi Germany. He was also one of the main architects of the Holocaust.

After serving in a reserve battalion during World War I without seeing combat, Himmler went on to join the Nazi Party in 1923. In 1925, he joined the SS, which was initially a small paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party that served as a bodyguard unit for Adolf Hitler. Himmler rose steadily through the SS's ranks to become Reichsführer-SS by 1929. Under Himmler's leadership, the SS grew from a 290-man battalion into one of the most powerful institutions in Nazi Germany.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans must end the reign of anxiety and fear caused by their GOP "SHITdown" policies

Echo opinion published in the Los Angeles Times by Jackie Calmes.

Saturday’s October 19, 2025, nationwide (and international) “No 👑Kings” rally vies for bragging rights as perhaps the largest single-day protest in U.S. history. The volume of protests and the numbers in the millions who attended sparked Donald Trump's disgusting monarchical outrages.

Leave aside Trump’s grotesque mockery of the protests — his post that night of an AI-generated video depicting himself as a becrowned pilot in a fighter jet, dropping poop bombs on citizens protesting peacefully below. Consider instead two other post-rally actions: On Sunday and Wednesday, “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth announced first that on Trump’s orders the military had struck a seventh boat off Venezuela and then an eighth vessel in the Pacific, bringing the number of people killed over two months to 34. The administration has provided no evidence to Congress or the American public for Trump’s claims that the unidentified dead were “narco-terrorists,” nor any credible legal rationale for the strikes. Then, on Monday, Trump began demolishing the White House’s East Wing to create the gilded ballroom of his dreams, which, at 90,000 square feet, would be nearly twice the size of the White House residence itself.

As sickening as the sight was — heavy equipment ripping away at the historic property as high-powered hoses doused the dusty debris — Trump’s 💲250-million (now re-evaluated at 💲300 million) vanity project is small stuff compared to a policy of killing noncombatant civilian citizens of nations with which we are not at war (Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador). Yet together the actions reflect the spectrum of consequences of Trump’s utter sense of impunity as president, from the relatively symbolic to the murderous.

“In America the law is king,” Thomas Paine wrote in 1776. But, not in Donald Trump’s America.

Among the commentariat, the president’s desecration of the East Wing is getting at least as much criticism as his extralegal killings at sea. Many critics see in the bulldozing of the People’s House a metaphor for Trump’s destructive governance generally — his other teardowns of federal agencies, life-saving foreign aid, healthcare benefits and more. The metaphor is indeed apt.

But what’s more striking is the sheer sense of impunity that Trump telegraphs, constantly, with the “je suis l’état” flare of a Louis XIV — complete (soon) with Trump’s Versailles. (Separately, Trump’s mimicry of French emperors now includes plans for a sort of Arc de Triomphe near Arlington Cemetery. A reporter asked who it would be for. “Me,” Trump said. Arc de Trump.)

No law, domestic or international, constrains him, as far as the convicted felon is concerned. Neither does Congress, where Republicans bend the knee. Nor the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 right-wing majority, including three justices Trump chose in his first term.

The court’s ruling last year in Trump vs. United States gives Trump virtual immunity from criminal prosecution, but U.S. service members don’t have that protection when it comes to the deadly Caribbean Sea attacks or any other orders from the commander in chief that might one day be judged to have been illegal.

The operation’s commander, Navy Admiral Alvin Holsey, reportedly expressed concerns about the strikes within the administration. 

Then, last week he announced his retirement after less than a year as head of the U.S. Southern Command. It could be a coincidence. But I’m hardly alone in counting Holsey as the latest casualty in Trump and Hegseth’s purge of perceived nonloyalists at the Pentagon.

“When the president decides someone has to die, the military becomes his personal hit squad,” military analyst and former Republican Tom Nichols said Monday on MSNBC. Just like with kings and other autocrats: Off with their heads.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a rare maverick Republican, noted on Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that in years past, the Coast Guard would board foreign boats suspected of ferrying drugs and, if contraband were found, take it and suspected traffickers into custody, often gleaning information about higher-ups to make a real dent in the drug trade. But, Paul added, about one in four boats typically had no drugs. No matter nowadays — everyone’s a target for deadly force. “So,” Paul said, “all of these people have been blown up without us knowing their name, without any evidence of a crime.” (Paul was the only Republican senator not invited to lunch with Trump on Monday in the paved-over Rose Garden.)

Ecuador said no evidence connects a citizen who survived a recent U.S. strike to any crime. Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the United States of murdering a fisherman in a September strike, provoking Trump to call Petro a “drug leader” and unilaterally yank U.S. foreign aid. A Venezuelan told the Washington Post that the 11 people killed in the first known U.S. strike were fishermen; national security officials told Congress the individuals were headed back to shore when hit. Meanwhile, the three countries and U.S. news reports contradict Trump’s claims that he’s destroying and seizing fentanyl — a drug that typically comes from Mexico and then is smuggled by land, ❗ usually by U.S. citizens❗.

Again, no matter to America’s 👑king, who said last week that he’s eyeing land incursions in Venezuela now “because we’ve got the sea very well under control.” Trump’s courtiers say he doesn’t need Congress’ authorization for any use of force🤥😡 . The Constitution suggests otherwise.

Alas, neither it nor the law limits Trump’s White House makeover. He doesn’t have to submit to Congress because he’s tapping rich individuals and corporations for the cost. Past presidents, mindful that the house is a public treasure, not their palace, voluntarily sought input from various federal and nonprofit groups. After reports about the demolition, which put the lie to Trump’s promise in July that the ballroom “won’t interfere with the current building,” the American Institute of Architects urged its members to ask Congress to “investigate destruction of the White House.”

Disparate as they are, Trump’s ballroom project and his Caribbean killings were joined last week. At a White House dinner for ballroom donors, Trump joked about the sea strikes: “Nobody wants to go fishing anymore.” The pay-to-play titans laughed. Shame on them.

Trump acts with impunity because he can; he’s a lame duck. But other Republicans must face the voters. Keep the “No  👑Kings” protests coming — right through the elections 🗳️- VOTE this November and next❗

Bluesky: @jackiecalmes
Threads: @jkcalmes
X: @jackiekcalmes

Republicans must face the historic parallels between ICE raids and 1930s Nazi Germany - Chicago immigrants are hiding in fear

The moral test feels painfully familiar. Shadows of the 1930s.

By Jennifer Obel for the Philadelphia Inquirer- Excellent reporting❗

"I thought of families in Europe who hid neighbors in attics and back rooms..."

This is what is happening to immigrants and citizens in Chicago right now | Opinion

Right now in Chicago, immigrants are fleeing the militarized city at night, helped by U.S. citizens who fear for their own safety.

Just before 9 p.m. on October 15, Tracy pulled up outside the townhouse on the west side of Chicago. She ushered Juliana and her 6-year-old, Yori, into the back seat and headed for Union Station — the overnight train to New York City, their best shot at safety.

For a month, mother and daughter had barely opened the door of their one-room apartment. Yori stopped attending first grade. Juliana stopped cleaning houses. Neighbors left groceries at the threshold.

In mid-September, during a construction site raid, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained José, Juliana’s husband and Yori’s father, and deported him to Venezuela. He was “lucky”: at least he wasn’t lost in detention purgatory or sent to a prison in El Salvador.

From Venezuela, José texted me about conditions at the Broadview Detention Center, where he had been held before deportation, calling them inhumane.

He asked for only one thing: “Please help my family to leave Chicago. It’s too dangerous for them there.”😟😡

I first met José outside my local grocery store, Jewel-Osco, in Wilmette, one of Chicago’s North Shore communities. He held up a sign, looking for odd jobs. 

Many Venezuelan immigrants who congregated around the Jewel ended up there when Texas Governor Greg Abbott bused them to Wilmette shortly after 2023, when they crossed the border.

I spoke with José and hired him to do some repairs and painting. He traveled by subway two hours each way for work, Juliana and Yori in tow. While José worked, I drew with Yori.

One warm summer day after José finished working, we all walked to the edge of Lake Michigan, where Yori made sand castles.

These were good people who faced difficult circumstances. It felt right to help them.

José was a proud craftsman, and I recommended him to other friends, including Tracy — one of the three of us who would later make sure Juliana and Yori had some money and helped arrange their transportation to New York after José’s deportation.

What happened last month is not the 1930s. But as a Jewish woman, I can’t ignore the echo of that dark period.

The author's great-uncle, Max Berg, standing, third from right, was a Jewish immigrant from Poland, the third of seven children. He became a successful lawyer in New York and, on the eve of World War II, sponsored 49 families to enter the U.S. These individuals wrote to him because they shared a common last name, though it remains unclear whether they were actual relatives. Many of those he sponsored became judges, writers, and leaders in their respective fields.Read moreCourtesy of Jennifer Obel

In Adolf Hitler’s Berlin, families packed by day and moved quietly toward the border by night, clutching papers that might open a path to New York, a city that, for many, meant survival.

They wrote to cousins, begged for affidavits, queued at consulates, and measured hope in stamps and signatures. The promise was simple: make it to New York, and you can gain freedom from terror.

Our family, led by my great-uncle Max Berg, had settled in New York City after immigrating from Poland. On the eve of World War II, letters began arriving from people in Europe desperate to escape Hitler. They wrote because they shared his last name — Berg — hoping for a connection that might save them.

Max never knew whether any of the 49 families were actually relatives, but he sponsored them all, buying their passage and covering their first month’s rent so they could begin new lives.

The differences matter, of course. Hitler engineered annihilation; today’s migrants are not facing that. But the moral test feels painfully familiar.

When government policy makes ordinary life like work, school, or a doctor’s visit unsafe for families who pose no threat, do we widen the circle of protection or narrow it? In the 1930s, too many Germans hid behind drawn curtains rather than opening their doors.

As residents of Philadelphia and other American cities steel themselves for the possible deployment of immigration agents, Chicago offers a bleak preview of this chilling and shameful moment in our nation’s history.

My hometown has faced an onslaught of immigration enforcement as part of Operation Midway Blitz. Chicago has responded to the crisis by widening its circle of protection. Our neighbors are already organizing.

Rapid-response networks canvass homes and storefronts, sharing “know your rights” cards and training witnesses to safely document encounters with ICE — even here in the affluent North Shore, where there are few immigrant residents but many immigrant workers.

We also hold peaceful protests, which include clergy and citizens from across Illinois, to exercise our right of free speech.

And we record encounters whenever possible. In some instances, Chicagoans have faced down multiple ICE agents wielding weapons during an attempted arrest. In one such incident, a man, once pinned to the ground, was released because bystanders gathered to document and demand accountability.

However, ICE agents are using aggressive tactics, often crossing the line into violence directed at protesters and people who document their activities.

On September 19, federal agents, who appeared like snipers perched on a rooftop at the Broadview Detention Center, shot a local pastor in the head with a pepper ball and then teargassed him.

In recent footage, rows of agents in tactical gear surround protesters and push their faces into the pavement. On October 10, a producer with a local television news program was thrown to the ground, handcuffed, and detained without cause.

These are not “isolated incidents,” but rather tactics intended to intimidate and provoke. Chicago feels combustible — one itchy trigger finger from our own Kent State massacre.

The real suffering isn’t confined to the protesters, of course, but to the detainees inside Broadview’s walls. In Lake County, Ill., immigration attorney Kimberly Weiss described the case of her client, Juan — who, like all the immigrants included in this commentary, was willing to be included in this essay only if his surname was withheld. (Likewise, some of the native-born U.S. citizens I interviewed agreed to participate only if their surnames were withheld, for fear of retribution.)

Juan is a widowed father of four U.S.-born children, ages 12 to 20, detained by ICE outside his home. “His children contacted me terrified,” 💢Weiss said.😰

That same night, she filed emergency motions to stop his deportation and request bond, with a hearing set for the next morning. “It would have been a strong case,” she said. “He entered legally, held valid documents, like a work permit, Social Security number, and driver’s license. He’s a union roofer, a widower caring for his U.S. citizen children. He qualified for lawful status under a widower petition.”


But before the hearing could take place, Juan was gone. Weiss said her client described Broadview Detention Center as so inhumane that he couldn’t endure another night. Detainees had no access to water. The air was so thick and suffocating that Juan witnessed others gasping for breath.


Officers threatened Juan into signing his deportation papers, using an ICE agent as a “translator” to deceive him. Without his glasses and terrified, he finally signed. By the next afternoon, Juan was across the border.

There’s no accountability for what happens inside Broadview,” Weiss said. “It’s overcrowded, filthy, and cruel. There is no oversight, even when the conditions amount to torture.”

Stories like these ripple far beyond detention centers. Dread doesn’t stop at the gates of Broadview. Anxiety seeps into neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools, touching even those who are U.S. citizens.

During a recent nighttime raid in a South Shore neighborhood, Blackhawk helicopters dropped armed federal agents on top of an apartment building, as dozens of masked ICE agents arrived in trucks.

Hundreds of agents moved through the building, kicking in doors, setting off flash-bang grenades, and rounding up residents as they slept. Children were separated from parents, zip-tied, and held in vans for hours.

Imagine being a child, awakened in the middle of a peaceful slumber, snatched from your parents, and restrained. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security proudly boasts about the raid, but dozens of those arrested were U.S. citizens.

We’ve now reached the point where friends of mine, Indian American physicians named Shila and Ravi, make sure they and their 14-year-old daughter always leave the house with their driver’s licenses and U.S. passports, in case they are stopped by ICE.

“Show me your papers” is a demand one might expect from the Gestapo, Hitler’s secret police, but as Americans, we do not expect this, and should never accept it.

“Being a brown-skinned woman in America means constantly proving my right to belong,” Shila told me recently. “My citizenship and contributions never seem enough to erase the question — ‘Where are you from?’ — that marks me as foreign. I’ve learned to live with this othering, but seeing my child inherit it breaks my heart.”

“What was once an occasional ‘Go back home’ has become a deeper threat: ‘I’ll make sure you get home,’” she added. “But where is home when this is the only one we’ve ever known❓ 🏠🏡Nothing can shield us from the fear that belonging can be questioned or revoked at any moment.”

When ICE occupied Los Angeles and the National Guard was deployed, José and I exchanged texts so that I could better understand his asylum case.

José then called me at the end of August. I could feel his embarrassment reaching through my phone, but he asked: Could he and his family move in with us? He’d heard about the planned ICE buildup and wondered whether his family would be safe in the predominantly Latino neighborhood where they were living.

I declined. I thought of families in Europe who hid neighbors in attics and back rooms, and felt the weight of closing my door to him. My daughters were still home from college, and there wasn’t space for anyone else. I also wanted time with my girls before they left.

And truthfully, I wasn’t sure José and his family would be any safer in my predominantly white suburb. I suspected my next-door neighbors were Trump supporters, and worried they would report him.

Still, I told myself that by mid-September, when the girls returned to school, I would offer them refuge.

But when I finally texted him, it was too late. He had already disappeared. 

Donald Trump and maga Republicans declared a war against Venezuela without evidence of war crimes!

Echo opinion published in The New York Times by W.J. Hennigan

The Trump administration told Congress that the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels, targeting fishermen in Venezuela. (Just curious, did Venezuelans attack Americans❓  Did I miss something❓) 

The average American knows vanishingly little about what its government seeks to accomplish in this fight. Citizens aren’t in possession of the metrics by which to judge the administration’s pursuit of those goals.

• We haven’t been told which specific drugs they seek to stop.
• We haven’t been told much about which specific groups they seek to destroy. 
• We haven’t been told much about what legal authorities they are acting on.

Withholding this information from the American public is the administration’s way to escape scrutiny. At the very least, the country deserves some evidence of whether the military operation is working.

If stopping the flow of drugs is the goal, the actions taken so far have been unpersuasive. 

American forces, at the direction of Donald Trump, executed a lethal airstrike on Friday on a boat off Venezuela, killing four people on board. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted a video of the attack on X, saying, “The vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics - headed to America to poison our people,” adding that it was “affiliated with Designated Terrorist Organizations.”

This is the sort of vague language the administration has used in its campaign over the past two months as it directs the military to sporadically launch airstrikes — now totaling four — against boats in the region that the government says are running drugs. No corresponding evidence has been provided to the public to support the actions. The operation amounts to extrajudicial executions, according to U.N. officials.

Without delving into the strikes’ questionable legality again, the bombing runs fall well short of decisive military actions. It would be hard to convince anyone that blowing up a few motorboats — and all the people aboard them — will prove conclusive in winning the half-century-old war on drugs.

For one thing, this isn’t how the Pentagon combats enemy networks. Say what you will about the many failures of America’s global war on terrorism, but it’s undeniable the U.S. military became frighteningly proficient at penetrating and taking apart organizations over the past quarter-century.

Instead of systematically killing low- and midlevel henchmen in pinprick airstrikes, U.S. forces learned that more information could be gleaned through capturing those suspects and gathering, bagging and tagging their personal electronics for intelligence analysis. A phone from a suspect’s pocket in Iraq, for instance, would often include enough information, such as phone numbers and text conversations, so that a follow-on raid on other operatives could be planned. This is how U.S. forces mapped out countless terrorist groups’ leadership ranks along with the fighters under their command.

The infrastructure for ship interdictions already exists in the Caribbean. The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy have long interdicted vessels that they suspected of drug running.

Why the Trump administration has opted to blow apart potential leads and sources instead of exploiting them is anyone’s guess.

So what’s the ultimate goal? The Pentagon has amassed a wide range of firepower in the region that indicates that its ambitions extend beyond destroying drug boats: F-35 stealth fighter jets, a Marine expeditionary unit and a flotilla of warships. Perhaps, as experts have speculated, the strikes are merely the opening salvo to push Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, from power. 

In fact, the Trump administration has formally identified Maduro as a leader of Cartel de los Soles, which experts say describes networks of elites who benefit from drug smuggling and is labeled a terrorist organization. The U.S. government is offering up to $50 million for information leading to his arrest.

There are a few odd things about all this. When it comes to drugs, Mr. Trump speaks loudest about fentanyl, a synthetic drug that Venezuela doesn’t play a major role in trading, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. So then you might surmise the objective is impeding the cocaine trade. But here again, Venezuela and the Caribbean account for less of how that drug enters the United States compared with other routes.

It isn’t that Maduro is a great guy. He brutally represses political opposition and oversees an economic nightmare. The Trump administration has made no direct threat to unseat Maduro, but the buildup of more than 6,500 troops in the region raises questions about what might come next.

And it’s not as if the United States has been afraid of deploying the U.S. military for regime change in the Caribbean. U.S. troops were involved in overthrowing Panama’s Manuel Noriega’s regime during Operation Just Cause in late 1989, and early 1990. U.S. forces joined coalition armies in 1983, to oust the government in Grenada during Operation Urgent Fury. Though the U.S. military didn’t have a ground role in the disastrous 1961, operation to overthrow the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, American-trained Cuban forces were crushed in the Bay of Pigs after they invaded.

Donald Trump could have similar aims in Venezuela, opting for a more muscular action than the failed pressure campaign taken during his first term. The current deployment of U.S. forces, while sizable, still isn’t enough for a full-scale invasion. But we should know and hear more about the underpinning rationale for positioning them there.

Instead, we’re left piecing together a picture with the few shards of information that have been publicly offered. (Our US Congress are abdicating their oaths of office❗

Donald Trump has decided to inform Congress that the U.S. military is engaged in an armed conflict. But, now, Americans deserve answers on what to expect next.

W.J. Hennigan writes about national security, foreign policy and conflict for the New York Times Opinion section.

Truth be told- If Vice-President Harris rambled incoherently like DonOLD Trump does, would the New York Times notice?

Opinion: Harris' economic speech lacked anger and racism. 

So Harris can stay focused and complete a sentence❓ So what🤷❓ Who knew you could give such a speech❓😉😁😲

Tongue in cheek echo opinion essay by Rex Huppke published in the Tennessean newspaper

What's wrong with her❓ Harris' thoughtful rhetoric on the economy does nothing to make me hate people who are different than I am. Useless!

Comrade Kamala Harris (aka- the Vice-President) gave an economic speech in Pittsburgh, and let me tell you, it was light on the two things I demand out of a serious leader: rambling stories that have nothing to do with the economy and rabid xenophobia.

Ms. Harris wasted my time by using her speech to detail a plan and vision for the American economy, promising things like a middle-class tax break for more than 100 million Americans that includes $6,000 for new parents during the first year of their child’s lives; working with builders to add 3 million more homes to the market, bringing home prices down, and helping first-time home buyers with $25,000 in down payment assistance; and doubling the number of registered apprenticeships while eliminating degree requirements for federal jobs.

Oh yeah? Well, what about the damn battery-powered boats that keep sinking and the people getting eaten by sharks 🦈, huh❓ What about the fact that GOP presidential candidate DonOLD Trump has told me, and (fake❗)Fox News host Sean Hannity has confirmed, that America is a dystopian, third-world hellhole and the only way to fix it is to yell “TARIFFS!” as loud as possible?

What, Madam Vice President, do you have to say about the late, great Hannibal Lecter❓ No answer❓ It figures.

Harris' economic speech may have had details, but Trump\'s had anger.

Shortly before Harris took the stage in Pittsburgh to speak with highly suspicious clarity and compassion, Trump was in North Carolina showing REAL AMERICANS how it’s done.

Trump, under a banner that read "JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!", showed us his plan to boost the economy by being mad that former President Barack Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize, promoting his nearby golf course and suggesting that the Iranians want to kill him because he might harm their furniture-export operations.

“All of your furniture-makers are going to come back and come back bigger and stronger and better than ever before,” Trump said. “They’re mostly gone. They're all coming back. This is why people in countries want to kill me. They’re not happy with me. It is, it’s a risky business❓ presidents, remember that.”

Right on! So Harris Wow! She can stay focused and complete a sentence So what?

Trump continued to masterfully demonstrate how a real he-man leader stays on topic: “I will end the chaos in the Middle East quickly, and I’m the only one that's gonna do this. We have never been so close to World War III as we are right now, we are so close. I will be sure that World War III will not happen, I’m the only one who can say it, won’t happen. But you’re very close, and that will be a war like no other because I always say it’s not going to be two army tanks, two tanks, which by the way our country wants to convert to electric, I’m not going to let that happen. They want electric tanks. 😫😳😰😜 But...They don’t work well (ya'think❓). The battery size is so big you’re going to have pull a trailer behind the tank, can you believe this, they want electric tanks, they don’t care, they want to have a nice, free, beautiful for the environment as we blast our way through countries. These people are crazy, they’re crazy.”  (Correctamundo❗ As TV character Fonzi would say.... because, DonOLD Trump is obviously mentally ill.😵😕)

Right! ☝ Vice-President Harris can stand there all she wants and “discuss actual policies” while “not sounding like her brain fell out of her ear” and “appear to care about people other than herself.”
Harris spoke with compassion. And that makes me very angry.

She can say things like: “I remember being there when my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Cooking meals for her, taking her to her appointments, just trying to make her comfortable, figuring out which clothes were soft enough that they wouldn’t irritate her, and telling her stories to try to make her laugh. I know caregiving is about dignity, it really is. And when we lower the cost and ease the burdens people face, we will not only make it then easier for them to meet their obligations as caregivers, we will also make it more possible for them to go to work.”

That kind of thoughtful rhetoric does nothing to make me hate people who are different than I am. Useless! Trump gives us specific details about made-up immigrant stories.  Trump caused the hate circuit in my brain to light up during his speech when he said: “But Kamala should have closed the border years ago and we wouldn’t have hostile takeovers of Springfield, Ohio; Aurora, Colorado; where they are actually going in with massive machine gun-type equipment. They are going in with guns that are beyond even military scope, and they are taking over apartment buildings, they’re taking over real estate, they’re in the real-estate development business, congratulations. ... In that case, people from Venezuela, young street gang members that were sent here by the Venezuelan government.”

The fake news media will tell you that’s all nonsense, but it sounds exactly like a fever dream I had the other night after spending 17😒😞😩😪 hours watching (fake❗)Fox News, so I believe it’s absolutely true.
(fake ❗) Fox News didn\'t air Harris' speech, but for some bewildering reason it showed some of Trump's incoherent rambling.

And speaking of (fake ❗)Fox News, I know from watching that network that Harris is a complete mystery candidate who never gives any details about her policies and economic vision. So, did (fake ❗)Fox News cover Harris’ speech, when she gave details about her policies and economic vision❓ 😧No. It wasn’t even mentioned on the network’s "X" account, while the speech was going on.

That makes perfect sense to me. Real Americans have better things to do than listen to a liberal speak rationally about the economy. Instead, we’ve got plenty to worry about, with electric tanks and immigrants with massive machine-gun-type equipment coming to take over our apartment buildings and who we are going to get irrationally mad at next and which of Trump’s golf properties that we can’t afford to visit is the best. You know – the stuff that matters.

Echo from Washington DC - Donald Trump's broken promises

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/07/trump-promised-restraint-has-delivered-more-calamitous-intervention/?utm_term=.8363ae27f68b

Trump promised restraint but has delivered more calamitous intervention- vote Blue 2020!

Echo opinion by columnist Katrina vanden Heuvel, published in The Washington Post.

The lie of “promises made, promises kept,” a favorite phrase in Donald Trump’s stump speech for reelection, is perhaps most apparent in his foreign misadventures. 

In fact, the candidate who scorned “regime change,” and promised to end the policy of “intervention and chaos,” is sowing chaos and intervening from Yemen to Iran to Venezuela and beyond. Instead of wasting money on endless wars, Trump would rebuild America’s roads and bridges. The candidate who promised restraint has only delivered more calamitous intervention.

Last week, Trump vetoed the bipartisan joint resolution of Congress directing the president to withdraw U.S. support for the war in Yemen. This veto is a particularly execrable folly. The administration is continuing to support Saudi Arabia in its unconscionable savaging of that impoverished country, creating the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today. Fourteen million Yemenis are facing war-induced starvation. A cholera epidemic has broken out.

After the Saudi regime assassinated Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi inside their consulate in Istanbul, Congress — led by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) in the House, and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) in the Senate — backed a joint resolution, under the authority of the War Powers Resolution, directing the president to end our complicity in this horror. 

Bipartisan majorities in both houses voted to end this shameful policy started under Barack Obama. Instead, Trump reasserted the claim of untrammeled executive prerogative in matters of war and peace and vetoed the resolution. Sadly, Congress failed to overturn the veto.

Meanwhile, the latest U.S.-backed coup attempt in Venezuela has sputtered, tramples international law and gives lie to Trump’s promise that “we will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn’t be involved with.” The administration decided that the misrule by authoritarian Nicolás Maduro, whose election as president was marred by voting irregularities, must end. It rushed to support the president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, when the opposition leader announced that he was the legitimate leader of Venezuela. In an economy that has already shrunk by half over the past five years, sanctions have been tightened and tightened again, to the point that former U.N. special rapporteur Alfred de Zayas has called them “crimes against humanity.”

Trump announced that “all options were on the table.” His truculent trio of advisers — national security adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and viperous special envoy Elliott Abrams — openly threatened U.S. intervention. Frustrated by the public embarrassment of the failed coup, Pompeo warned that “military action is possible.” 

(OMG!) Bolton asserts that “the Monroe Doctrine (?) is alive and well. It’s our hemisphere,” and invokes the Roosevelt Corollary, claiming the U.S. right of unilateral military intervention anywhere in the hemisphere.  (Did Monroe refer to Venezuela, a nation that was founded in 1811? Just asking.)

James Monroe  (1758-1831)

In 2015, Trump argued that “We’re nation-building. We can’t do it. We have to build our own nation.” 

Now, his administration’s aides are boasting about plans to revive the economy, after Maduro is ousted. Venezuela is a bitterly divided nation of nearly 32 million people. If the administration’s coup does succeed, horrific chaos is sure to follow.

And the “endless wars” that Trump promised to end continue — Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and so on. Libya is a failed state, mired in violence since our “humanitarian” intervention. Drone attacks have escalated in eight nations, almost certainly generating more terrorists than they kill. U.S. Special Operations forces were in 149 countries in Trump’s first year in office. The administration is ramping up economic sanctions against Iran, remaining bellicose with Russia and (especially) China, and going all in with Saudi Arabia and Israel, with Bolton and others pushing for military action. Bolton has designated Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua as the “triangle of terror,” expanding the list of targets.

Here, the so-called adults in the room, the keepers of the “guardrails” to protect an ignorant and impulsive president from himself, are part of the problem. When Trump called for removing troops from Afghanistan and Syria, his national security advisers got in the way. As Trump expresses caution about actual military action in Venezuela, the truculent trio barrels forward.

Trump has trampled his promise to war-weary Americans. Opposition to this endless folly is building, however. Progressives in the Congress — led by Khanna and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) in the House, and Sanders in the Senate — are intent on reasserting congressional power over war and peace. Republicans such as Lee and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) add bipartisan support.

Trump apparently believes that a bellicose position on Venezuela can help him win Florida in 2020. His broken promises about opposing regime change and ending our endless wars should cost him far more. Americans have voted for candidates who promised restraint again and again since 2000. They are likely to keep doing that until they elect someone who will actually live up to that pledge.