Collapse is coming

All the signs are pointing towards collapse.

Masked, anonymous agents, driving unmarked cars, abducting people off the street without warrants.

This achieves two ends. First, it terrorizes the people. This creates high levels of anxiety and powerlessness: a cowed people is a compliant people.

Second, it invites amateur criminals to adopt masks and other elements of secret police cosplay. There have been reports of masked men trying to pass themselves off as ICE or police.

In recent days, two masked, bulletproof vest-wearing thugs, posing as police, tried breaking into a home in Texas. The homeowner, being a Texan, gunned them down and sent them to St. Peter.

What *I* believe Trump (and most likely, actually Miller) is preparing for, is an armed citizen taking a shot at these masked "ICE" agents. This will be their justification for calling a national emergency and deploying military forces inside the country, against the people.

Personally, I think the best path forward is to do just this, and to keep doing it. Martial law can be declared, but ICE agents still have to roam the open to collect people. Martial law will not stop them from being gunned down.

Of course, this means civil war by the federal government against the people, and lots of death. But, this, I think, will be what finally cleanses this nation. People have a choice: cower and live in fear, or fight and die in power.

It has happened in stages so obvious, even a caveman could see them.

The ICE deployment. Meanwhile, Trumpstein festers in the open.

TIMELINE

The ICE hiring frenzy. Trumpstein trending.

Opening a concentration camp. Trump asks why people are still talking about Trumpstein.

Texas takes up massive gerrymandering. A man throws an italian sub at ICE/Natl Guard troops.

Ghislane Maxwell gets a Trump deal to be moved to a minimum security facility, in exchange for acquiting Trump in a DOJ interview. An LA police officer shoots a citizen nearly point-blank with a rubber bullet.

The National Guard deployed in DC. People are making Trumpstein a loud, central element of their protests.

Which brings us to now: Trump is threatening to deploy the Guard to major, non-MAGA cities. Trumpstein is taking up all the air in the room.

It all points to war on the people. To deny this is criminal.

And what are we to do?

What ARE we to do???

Just do it, Newsome.

Masked, unidentified and unidentifiable goons, invading cities and kidnapping people, are nothing more than criminal goons.

Governors need to get creative with interpretations of state laws applying to official id of officers, kidnapping, terrorism, etc., to arrest these goons and jail them.

Throw them in a cell and build camps to house them, in a tit-for-tat. Hold them in dessert squalor while the cases work their way through the legal system.

Barring governors growing balls and taking action, the only thing to protect us from this scourge is for citizens to take up arms against the goons, themselves. People will die, but some of them will be the goons, and, as we all know, when one goon in a squad drops, the other goons grow cold feet.

I'm looking at you, Newsome. If you want to be president, show us how far you are willing to protect the people from a tyrannical government. Deputize every citizen willing to defend California.

DO. IT.

Defund ICE and DHS, like Bill Kristol says.

I agree with Bill Kristol (a sentiment I never thought I would express): ICE and DHS should be defunded. Furthermore, I feel DHS never should have been created (it was an authoritarian wet dream), and ICE is naught but the American Stasi.

I remember when DHS was created, and I felt then as I feel now, that it would be bad for the nation: we already HAD numerous security agencies, and the only failure of 9/11 was that the sitting president didn't read his daily briefing, on August 6, 2001, that said OBL was planning a hit on America soon. But, we were in the throes of 9/11, and that gave people with authoritarian streaks a headwind and a hard-on for the securitate.

Of course, many years needed to pass before a group of thugs took control of it and ratcheted up the Stalinist aspects, to see what it could REALLY do. And now, here we are, a toad in a pot of hot water, wondering how we came to be boiled alive.

I know I come across as a crotchety windbag, but I was alarmed about things 24 years ago, and found myself distinctly in the minority. Most people shrugged and accepted the creation of a security state as a fait accompli.

I am tired of always being right about how the right wing wants nothing more than to destroy America. But, again, here we are.

This ride is not for sissies.

I figure there are only three ways Trump will ever leave office: natural death, fleeing into exile, or dragged out by patriotic soldiers.

There is no way average people can make it happen BY FORCE: the stasi are too focused on kidnapping and, in all likelihood, spying on people. So, there is no way to form a group to take him down by force. Even if such manifested, he has sycophantic secret service and military thugs with machine guns to protect him.

Perhaps if a large enough crowd assembled outside 1600 Penn Ave, such that a limo cannot exit the grounds, he might catch a clue and attempt to Marine One it the fuck outta dodge to Andrews and then attempt to fly to Russia. My fear is that, were this to transpire, the powers that be would allow it, just to be rid of him, and not be motivated to shoot the fucker out of the clear blue.

I doubt that any military will ever even consider taking him out by force. The brass are ass-kissing pussies who deserve eternal KP duty, with random cycling into latrine cleaning.

With the War on America Bill that just got sent back to the House, I doubt that any Rethuglicans will grow a spine and vote against it, even though each of them will face unholy rage from their constituents, which will lead to their ouster, assuming the GOP allows elections in 2026, which I am about 55% sure will not happen at this point.

2026 is our nation's 250th birthday.

In 1976, I was a second grader making broken glass collages in celebration.

How will we be celebrating next year?

Who will rid me of this meddlesome tyrant?

The Corporatists have been trying to take control of America for a century, at least.

They wanted (and TRIED) to oust FDR, but failed.

They got Reagan in, though, and decided to slow-walk us into post-democracy America.

And we are very nearly there.

Talk about shutting down Social Security is a threat to the nation, body and soul.

I do not apologize for wishing someone would take their second amendment right seriously, and, according to the ravings of the extreme right, defend us from tyranny.

Because tyranny is here, and it is a fat target: either a fat fucking slimeball Trump, or his assistant Stephen Miller, and his huge fivehead.

Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent revolution necessary.

And Trump and Miller need some violent revolution.

Spring springs eternal, eternally springing at Springtime: How I felt some optimism today.

I have little faith in the nation's ability to right it's course, at the moment. Whether you are crestfallen at the utter lack of leadership from Democratic leaders, or despondent at the superhuman ability of Trump to gut the government without any seeming resistance, or feeling despair like all the others that our collective voice is being ignored in most cases, and actively-suppressed, in others.

But I do see a light of hope.

Part of that optimism I have (what, wait, who am I and what did I do with, er, uh... me?) about the nation's immediate future, is that Modern American Gruppenführers, Associated (MAGA) know what Goebbels knew: get the lie out there big, fast, and loud, because time is the enemy, as word gets around about our own Naziing-around.

Well, Stephen Miller and Elon Musk (both descended from a long line of Nazis) and everyone else connected to this Trump admin KNOWS that you have to be quick, fast, and an early-riser to beat the sheer mass of the American people, and the chance that they will catch on to your game.

You do not have time to waste, if you are trying to topple a nation like the US. And every judge's order to turn around deportee planes, and every court order to re-hire federal workers, and every burning Wankpanzer in the news does only one thing: slow down the coup.

Spring stands to demonstrate this, very shortly. I have seen more reports of protests, many staged by constituent groups most-beloved by America, but also most insulted and injured by Trump and MAGA. Today, I saw that veterans were turning out in numbers for their own protests not as a member group, but the core group. And they are emerging in greater numbers as the temperatures (both actual and metaphorical) rise.

Spring is coming. It is when we, as a species, collectively are going insane with cabin fever, and are just waiting for that first good day to get the Hell out of the house, and to keep being out of said house.

Spring is coming. People have been sitting on a growing rage, and are feeling the need to express it, and make catharsis. This makes getting out of the house even more pressing an issue for Americans.

Spring is coming: students will be getting out of school, and the Spring of 2025 will shape them now and for forever: that time it thawed and they went outside to punch Fascism in the face to save the nation (only, now, there will be no culture war separation, but class unity).

Spring is coming.

Spring is coming, and I usually miss the starting gun: that moment, between maybe 4:12 and 5:46 AM, sometime in April, when all the leaf buds explode and we have a canopy, again.

Spring is coming, and the buds will be busting out, all over.

Modern Tips for Health and Happiness: Footy Pajamas.

I really dislike pajamas.

Mostly, it is the legs creeping up while I lay there. Every time I turn over, they ride up another half-inch or so, until it feels like I am wearing knickers.

So, I decided about a month ago that I had a solution: I would wear socks to bed, and tuck the ends of the pant legs of my PJs into them, keeping them in-place.

But then, my shirt would get bunched-up and twisted, so I tucked IT into the PJ bottoms.

And thereupon I realized I had created my own adult-sized footy pajamas, and I was at peace with it.

I think all the world needs footy pajamas.