Week 30
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The big events of the week were the military occupation of DC and Donald Trump’s fanboy adulation of Vladimir Putin.
JD Vance was kept out of the way in Scotland after being kept out of the way in England.
As usual a great deal of incompetence mixed with a great deal of malevolence and hostile action. It’s tempting to think that the incompetence will bring them down, but historians point out that Hitler’s crew displayed a great deal of incompetence too.
There have been signs of resistance, most notably a serious attack on one of the occupiers with a deadly Subway foot-long. The attacker turned out to be an Air Force veteran and lawyer, working in the Department of Justice as an international specialist until this week. A judge told the DOJ to fuck off with their claim of a felony.
FBI, Secret Service, and other law enforcement personnel have better things to do than show their bodies in safe spaces in DC, but once again Trump has prioritized show over effectiveness. Like the DOGE cuts to FEMA and other agencies, this sort of waste makes us more vulnerable to unforseen events. A big part of governing is being prepared for emergencies, and Trump keeps cutting those margins.
And show themselves is all they’re doing. Numbers of arrests are about the same as usual. Can the auxiliaries even arrest anyone?
Besides the deadly sandwich attack,videos of other acts of resistance are showing up on social media. I am beginning to think that these small incidents can become more frequent and can break the regime. (Please note “can” in that sentence. I am not predicting the future, just noting a trend. The inability of people to read and understand text was one of the things that bugged me this week.)
I particularly liked this thread.
At the same time, news about Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell hasn’t entirely gone away.
Doing a much better job than I am at summarizing the week’s outrages and pushbacks are Heather Cox Richardson, whom most of you know about, and Dan Froomkin, whom you may not. Check out their newsletters. I’m not fond of the emailed newsletter format, but it’s what we’ve got.
Follow the court-watchers for the details of the lawsuits. Chris Geidner (LawDork, Bluesky), Roger Parloff (Lawfare, Bluesky), and the Just Security tracker.
As usual, keep it to things that have actually happened, not hypotheticals. What is actually happening is bad enough.
Caring for yourself and loved ones is resistance too. Post your pets. The piano arrived! It is such a big piece of my mental health. It’s easier to take a walk here too. In Santa Fe, it was always steeply uphill for large parts of any walk.
178 more weeks to go. What are you doing?
Previous weeks: Week 10, Week 20, Week 21, Week 22, Week 23, Week 24 , Week 25, Week 26, Week 27, Week 28. Week 29