America Held Hostage, An Update

“America Held Hostage—Day XX of the Clinton Administration” bellowed right-wing radio bloviator Rush Limbaugh back in the day. We need a similar “organizing” trope for the advent of Mafia Don Trump. Currently Trump has been in Office 271 days (as of today) so all blogs need to be blaring:

“America Held Hostage: Day 272”

Of course, notch it up a day per day.

How we survived the first Trump Administration is a bit beyond me. Was it that Fox News had higher quality people back then, so Trump had better people to choose from?

Donald Trump is a SSP

According to The Donald, aka The Clapper in Chief, aka Our Beloved Lord and Savior (the Orange One), aka The Chutney Chomo (Chomo is prison slang for a child molester), the country cannot afford meals for poor school children (a proven effective way to higher levels of learning), but he can afford to send federally-authorized troops into cities, like Chicago, for no good reason. Actually Trump’s reasons are that Chicago is a liberal city, run by liberal politicians, and has a Black mayor, can you imagine? He hopes that the invasion will turn violent so he will have an actual reason to send in more troops. His logic is, again, that of a three-year old. Sending in troops to provoke a riot and then sending in more troops to quell it?

In Chicago they are transporting portable buildings to house the troops that have been put on hold by a federal judge and are actually buying buildings! According to Kristi Noem, aka ICE Barbie, “the department was ‘doubling down’ by buying buildings in Chicago – and also Portland – for ICE personnel to operate from.

“We’re purchasing more buildings in Chicago to operate out of. We’re going to not back off,” she said. “In fact, we’re doubling down, and we’re going to be in more parts of Chicago in response to the people there.”

“In response to the people there…” WTF? Oh, there are brown people in Chicago … clearly members of Venezuelan gangs. (I have pointed out that Venezuelan gangs would last ten minutes in Chicago gang territory. Chicago gangs have settled territories and agreements as to safe spaces, etc. Trump is only disrupting working relationships that were addressing real problems.)

The Effing UK is Following Our Lead Into Authoritarianism

A non-violent, law abiding protest group, Palestine Action, in the UK has been declared to be a “terrorist group” [under the Terrorism Act]. This is not a mere label. If anyone shows up wearing, say a tee shirt supporting that group, they could end up in jail for six moths. If they donated funds to the group they could end up in jail for 14 years!

On the same day, June 23, that Home Secretary Yvette Cooper formally announced to Parliament she would proscribe the group, The Times published a report saying, “Iran could be funding Palestine Action, Home Office officials claimed”.

It added: “Officials are understood to be investigating its source of donations amid concerns that the Iranian regime, via proxies, is funding the group’s activities given that their objectives are aligned”. (Source: Consortium News, July 16, 2025)

In other words, they were investigating the group and before they found anything concrete, they went ahead and proscribed Palestine Action, just to be safe. Of course, this is a killing blow for that organization.

If I were them, PA, I would recommend they disincorporate and re-incorporate under a different name. This is done all of the time in the U.S. All the debts of the closed business become unrecoverable, and the new business can happily go along … with the same staff, same headquarters, etc. (This is the major advantage of corporations to business, they can die.) Of course, I am totally ignorant of the law in the U.K. and that trick may not work there.

My main point is the higher-ups are using words like “could” and “might” and “fears” and “concerns” with no direct evidence and they fucking acted anyway, dealing what could be a killing blow to a so far blameless organization (we don’t know … they may be guilty, or may not be, that is why we have things like trials in courts).

Then, of course, the news media get the vague claim and run with it and soon, it becomes a certainty in the minds of citizens rather than an outrageous act of authoritarianism.

The Consortium News article went on to state “We Believe in Israel (WBII) had launched a campaign to ban Palestine Action earlier in June and The Guardian noted that “language from a report it published was similar to that used by Cooper in her statement” announcing the group’s proscription. Indeed, WBII has taken credit for Yvette Cooper’s proscription of Palestine Action. It tweeted on June 24.

The UK government is infamous by being lead around by Israel, now it is being lead around by Israel’s support groups, who of course have antipathy toward any group that opposes their positions. And just like the the 1950s and 1960s here in the U.S. we called anyone who opposed anything we were in favor of a “communist” as that was the most negative thing we could think of, now groups and individuals are called “terrorists” for the same reasons.

Oh, the “terrorist act” claimed that the group actually admits to was “it splashed red paint on a British war plane in protest of it assisting Israel’s genocide in Gaza.” Clearly this misdemeanor created terror in the U.K. citizenry, at least in those who live in fear of having red paint thrown on them.

At least part of the U.K. “fourth estate” (Or maybe it is the fifth estate, being bloggers and whatnot outside of the usual journalistic channels) is still free so that we now know of these things.

Fucking amazing!