The Trump Administration decided they didn’t like the President’s House and what it showed about American history. They could very easily have started a conversation about what the history of the era was and how the presidents of that time dealt with the issue. They decided instead to simply remove all of the explanatory texts and illustrations, to be replaced with scrubbed and sanitized texts and pictures. Here’s a People’s World piece on the issue. I did a quickie summary of the issue as it was discussed in court. Here’s a piece on this particular rally. Essentially, Trump signed an Executive Order last March that said monuments would avoid anything that works to “disparage Americans past” and that instead celebrates “the greatness of the achievements and progress” that the American people have made. In other words, he wants a “Yippee America” point of view instead of the complex truth.
Update: U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe issued a ruling Monday requiring the federal government to “restore the President’s House Site to its physical status as of January 21, 2026,” which is the day before the exhibits were removed.
In somewhat related news, the Trump Administration also removed the rainbow flag from the Stonewall National Monument. The flag is back!
According to Gallup, Presidential approval rating is down to a very anemic 36%. In terms of how that effects his electability, that means Trump has no “coattails,” that is that no one can benefit by associating themselves with Trump unless they are running a “base only” campaign and don’t care about “soft” Republicans or moderate, middle-of-the-road voters. Nevertheless, the Trump Administration is confident that, in the wake of the abandonment of their Minnesota operation, that they’re still popular with the American people. Did ICE achieve cooperation with local law enforcement in Minnesota? Ehh,
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz do not appear to agree with that. Walz:
“The trauma that’s been inflicted, certainly across an immigrant community, but to every single Minnesotan, is unlike anything we’ve witnessed.”
Is ICE “retreating” from Minneapolis? Have they been “defeated”? A Philadelphia columnist doesn’t think so. ICE promptly launched a “raid that targeted a bus stop for an elementary school in a district that is 60% Latino.” No children were captured, “But the suburban community some 15 miles southeast of Philadelphia was shaken to its core.” There’s no question that Minneapolis was indeed a victory, but it’s not the end of the fight by any means. Of very great concern:
DHS is currently spending $38 billion from last year’s legislative windfall to buy as many as 23 massive warehouses that critics see as concentration camps on U.S. soil.
Companies that obtain office and prison space for ICE are marking a “significant growth opportunity.”
How healthy/sanitary are ICE facilities?
ICE is responsible for oversight and management of detention facilities, but it has a history of inadequate compliance with detention standards and insufficient health care, and research shows that immigrants in detention experience widespread health risks.
It’s indictive of serious potential problems when ICE is secretive about what they’re doing as far as keeping prisoners healthy and safe. How detainees are treated at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas is the stufff of nightmares. Also, a “judge is warning us that abuses being inflicted on immigrants now are a preview of what could be unleashed on citizens.”
“Antifa,” as we all know, is at best a scattering of small groups across the country. There is no centralized leadership, no common message, no “chain of command.” The Trump Administration is desperate to prove otherwise. They want Antifa to be the boogeyman, their “Emmanuel Goldstein” (See 1984, their “Two Minutes of Hate“). In a court case in Texas, they’re trying to prove that a group of people whose only common denominator is that they were all in a group chat and all wore black to a particular protest were all part of an Antifa “cell.” Ordinarily, the case would be simply laughed out of court, but we’ll see what happens.
Video of rally.
Secretary of State Rubio gives a lengthy speech about the US in the world and Western Civilization generally.
In this thread, a criric points out that Rubio is esentially making
an unapologetic defense of colonialism and ethnoreligious supremacy and a rejection of liberal democracy
This statement of Rubio’s just blew my mind!
To appease a climate cult, we have imposed energy policies on ourselves that are impoverishing our people, even as our competitors exploit oil and coal and natural gas and anything else
Rubio just goes completely off of a cliff and into sheer delusion. Is Trump demanding “seriousness and reciprocity“ or is he just making crazy demands? Rubio doesn’t like mass migration but doesn’t seem to have any idea why it occurs. It’s difficult to battle against something when you have no idea why it’s happening. Yeah, defending colonialism as Rubio does is just…no.
Rally against ICE in front of a Target store
How realistic is Rubio about Russia/Ukraine?
Rubio said the US still doesn’t know if Russia is serious about ending the war in Ukraine.
That’s completely insane. If you have no idea why the other guy does as he does, you have no hope of resolving the conflict.
As Kate from Kharkiv points out, Rubio is pressuring the wrong side! Ukraine didn’t start the war, has not committed war crimes and most certainly is not losing on the ground. Yet Trump and Rubio aren’t asking that Russia make any concession whatsoever!All of the pressure they’re applying is against Ukraine!
Video of rally
Last October, Bari Weiss was named Editor-in-Chief of CBS News. In December, she demonstrated that she knew full well what was in her self-interest. Knowing full well that President Trump would take offence at a 60 Minutes
investigative segment centering on allegations of abuses at an El Salvador detention center where the Trump administration sent hundreds of Venezuelan migrants last March.
She abruptly cancelled the show, citing the nonexistent “need” to do further editing. As of mid-February, there is no word as to when it will air. Arguing about that on Xitter, someone claimed that no, that hadn’t demonstrated that CBS News had now become a presidential mouthpiece becaus Stephen Colbert was still free to speak out.
I responded that dictators rarely take power all at once, pointing out that the Roman Emperor Augustus accumulated power slowly and carefully, he wasn’t in a rush and playe a long game. Well now, CBS late-night show host
Stephen Colbert is indeed being disciplined and muzzled. Colbert had interviewed
Democratic Texas State Representative James Talarico, who is running for his party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate
and again, CBS’s Editor-in-Chief knows where her self-interest lies.
Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson died this week, at the age of 84.
Mondoweiss put out a piece on Jackson. He had felt a commitment to Arab-Americans. That commitment not only made him an international citizen as opposed to just being an American one but was a good political move that broadened his voter base.
Also, Trump’s “Board of Peace” presents a dilemma for the Palestinian resistance:
reject the Board outright and risk annihilation and the stalling of reconstruction, or engage with it and risk the slow erosion of their nature as resistance organizations.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is nobody’s idea of a democrat, of someone who believes in democracy. Nevertheless, Secretary of State Rubio felt obliged to embrace a man who, Trump has made clear, is a good friend of his. In 2019, Rubio expressed what appeared to be a principled opposition to the Hungarian dictator. Without any attempt at explanation and certainly with no change on Orbán’s part, Rubio now embraces Orbán. The piece on Orbán then goes into the Texas story of lasers and party balloons.
RLGardner.net
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