ONE SMALL STEP – The Indefensible Murder of Renee Good

One step. 

That’s all it would have taken Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross to spare Renee Good's life last Wednesday, Jan. 7. 

She was a young protester simply following an ICE order to leave the area. As she was doing so, other agents ordered her out of her car. Good likely saw this, as anyone would, as a bunch of armed Gestapo thugs with a reputation for “disappearing” folks set to drag her from her vehicle for no apparent offense. 

Yet she responded with a warm smile and the words, "That's fine, dude, I'm not mad at you," and started to pull away.

        Ross decided the penalty for (disobedience) was death.

In the second or so it took Ross—standing not in front of the SUV as Trump regime officials insist, but near its front left headlight—to draw and point his weapon, he could have simply taken one not-very-big step to his right.

PHOTO: Screen capture from Agent Jonathan Ross's cell phone video

And guess what, that is exactly what he did; he took one not-very-big, not-all-that-desperate step to his right. No ramming, little or no contact, no threat to him or anyone else. In fact, Good was clearly starting to turn to the right, away from Ross.

It appears her only infraction was disobedience. And Ross decided the penalty for that was death. Not a warning shot; not a shot to disable the vehicle or its unarmed driver. Three shots, at point blank range, into Renee Good’s head as she drove past without touching him.

I don’t really care what kind of a day Agent Ross was having. Nor his reported previous experience with a suspect trying to flee. What I and other compassionate human beings care about is that one small step.

Why wasn't that step, one that clearly took him out of harm's way, not enough for him?

TRUTH: NO CONSEQUENCES
This senseless tragedy, this brutal murder, is just the latest in the deluge of lawlessness inflicted on our once-great country by the authoritarian Trump Regime. What's more frightening than these cretins' deadly ineptitude is the near certainty that, with Congress and the Supreme Court all bought and paid for, none of them—especially the Rambo wannabe who blew Renee Good's brains out—will ever face justice.

America, please prove me wrong. 

RISK, SCHMISK! – The Rote Recklessness of Donald Trump

A Jan. 5 page-one article in the Minnesota Star Tribune, “With (his sudden annexation of) Venezuela, Trump is diving into a new era of risk,” begs the question: what is this troubled little man’s grasp of risk?

The whole notion of risk hinges on the possibility that something might go wrong. But Trump, since childhood, has been taught—by his father, by Roy Cohn and other mentors of ruthlessness—that, if you employ certain techniques, mistakes are, if not impossible, never yours. 

    No consequences, no risk. It’s all pure rote.

A BLOODY WAKE
You do whatever you want. If you’re caught breaking the law, you vow it never happened. If that doesn’t work, you blame the thing that never happened on someone else. If they fight back, you double down. If threats fail, you sic your lawyers on them. 

IMAGE: Harvard Gazette

Should your legal thugs lose, you appeal. And you keep appealing until your case ends up before a judge you’ve bought and paid for. If 
it's a political lackey turning on you, you either fire, libel or “primary” them out of a job.

No consequences, no risk. It’s all pure rote. 

The scheme has worked for Trump his whole life. His business misadventures have left a bloody wake of folks holding the legal and financial bag for his mistakes. His personal life—think infidelity, sexual predation, slander, whatever—is also Teflon-coated. (Even his family members have all signed NDAs.)

PHOTO: France 24

A PERILOUS GAMBLE
Not even when he parlays his charade into the presidency of the United States has the man ever had to live with the results of his reckless, ego-driven actions. Why would his playbook for that role be any different from that which has guided his entire life?

One of the most powerful men in the world with no morals, no conscience, no accountability, no soul. Where’s the risk in that? I assure you, it is not on Donald Trump. And if this doesn’t compel you to take constructive political action, it should.

IMAGE: Shutterstock

IGNORANCE, JUDGEMENT AND THE MAGA BASE’S NUCLEAR OPTION

PHOTO: Change.org

Thoughtful Americans have been trying for a decade 
or more to understand the mindset of those of our compatriots responsible for bringing this noble nation—admired by the world for nearly two-and-a-half centuries for its vision, values and leadership—to its knees. 

I’m still baffled at how such betrayal is possible, but I’ve come up with new angle to consider.

VENGEANCE AT ANY PRICE
Oh I know, we’ve heard this song and dance about Donald Trump’s poor base feeling unheard and un-
appreciated by us conceited “liberal elites.” About their fear of immigrants’ and the poor’s snatching what they see as their entitlement to the American Dream. And about how their perceived suffering merits as much credibility as our own aspirations.

PHOTO: Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call

I don’t buy it. It gives way too much credit to people who somehow managed to turn off both 
their brains and hearts and hire the con man of our age to avenge their grievances for them. 
A charlatan who figures they won’t notice that he’s destroying their country in their name—while not just impoverishing them, but enriching himself and his family to the tune of more than $1,000,000,000—and that's in just the past year.* 

GRAPHIC: AmericanProgress.org

For me, a better answer—perhaps the easiest one—would be that these Trump groupies are simply thoughtless, self-obsessed, philistine, chest-beating assholes. Idiots who’ll pay any price to stick it to people not like them. But the more I think about it, the more certain I am that that’s not the whole story either. 

     Trump literally tells them what they know and don’t know.

COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE
What makes more sense is that these Trump groupies are just so ashamed of their own ignorance that they're in denial, demonizing anyone honest enough to hold their noses to it. How dare you judge, they feel. Judge not just us, but anything at all! Beauty, kindness, sophistication, style, merit. It's all "woke," not because those attributes are invalid, but because they provide a reflection of their own soullessness. 

Judgment—the process of weighing and comparing the truth of stuff—lies at the very heart of intelligence. Along with curiosity and creativity, critical judgment is a key component of acquiring and applying knowledge. And that, to folks with little education and short attention spans, poses a huge threat, because all it does is remind them just how stupid they really are.

This is why their Dear Leader’s tack has been to systematically discredit judgement—and along with it truth. Because he knows his MAGAts not only can’t judge what’s true or not, but wouldn’t buy the truth anyway if it challenged their simplistic, fear- and anger-stoked beliefs.

Playing on those beliefs, their anger, their fears—and their latent shame in their ignorance—Trump literally tells them what they know and don’t know. (Listen for those slick little inter-
jections in his unhinged ravings: “Everyone’s saying…,” “Everybody agrees…,” “People know…” and “You know that, right?” )

ALTERNATE TRUTH
The response Trump has incited in his MAGA cult is the cultural equivalent of the nuclear option: I don’t get it…so I’ll be damned if anyone’s going to get it. Instead of elevating our own aspirations, we'll drag down yours. So, yes, let’s yank the U.S. government’s investment from any program, any institution, that stands, even remotely, for intelligence, refinement…or even basic human kindness. 

PHOTO: Dave Killen/the Oregonian

Add to the bogeymen hit list anyone purporting to honor the truth. Hey, after being forced to stomach these pompous educators,' researchers,’ scientists,’ doctors’ and journalists’ fancy-pants proclamations all these years, Dear Leader has finally given me permission to claim my own, “alternative” truth…about everything.

The blindness to reality is so complete that these suckers can look right at this master manipu-
lator, this draft-dodging sexual predator who espouses not one of Jesus Christ’s teachings, and believe he’s their model of patriotism, their personal gift from God. 

    A charismatic leader steps up and shows Americans…that 
    there’s a better, healthier vision for our country than Trump’s 
    deeply negative one.

A HEALTHIER VISION
So, that’s my half-assed theory. What of it? What’s to be done? Is there hope for our faltering “shining city upon a hill” Democracy?

I still believe a spark of love and kindness glows at the core of every human being. Like so many of our best qualities, though, it’s gotten buried under layer after layer of concerns and emotions that are very good at pretending to be important. Like fear, anger, conceit…and, yes, shame.

One answer might be for an extraordinarily charismatic leader to step up and show Americans—even those of us who’ve been exploited by Trump—that there’s a better, healthier vision for our country than his deeply negative one. (I think most folks yearn deeply to reclaim hope and joy from the hate fest Tiny Hands has promoted.)

And this figurehead must do more than out-Trump Trump with charisma; she/he must, with guidance from the Democratic National Committee, craft a message that’s more appealing to folks than the simple, disciplined—and highly effective—one of grievance and vengeance that’s driven the MAGA movement. 

SNEEZIN’ ON THE HOUSE OF CARDS
Another possibility is that Trump eventually miscalculates himself right off the precipice. Takes just one too many liberties with his power. Makes one too many assumptions about his supporters’ depravity. 

We’ve already seen a few Congressional Republicans dare risk their careers for integrity. With cause, more might join. Some editorial boards in the mainstream media will draw the line. The trickle builds to a tide, and then to a tsunami of love, generosity and hope that inundates even the most willful ignorance.

And Donald Trump's fools-gold empire, wobbling on its foundation of hubris, collapses, swept away by a smarter, nobler, more joyous vision.

IMAGE: Adobe Stock

But none of this will happen without ever-more-massive public displays of defiance. We must continue to assert our hopes, raise our voices and apply our talents to The Resistance. 

We must continue to live our truth, honor our values. Call and write our representatives in Congress. Write opinion pieces. Support thoughtful, principled candidates. Stick our necks out on social media. And, finally, we must display our sheer numbers, joining with other true patriots to take our resolve to the streets.

Don’t lose sight of the vision of a kinder, gentler, renewed America. Do not lose hope.

* Trumps Take-Counter, AmericanProgress.org

THE TRUMP CARD – How Smart Tyrants Play Wannabes

Donald Trump was raised and schooled to be a manipulator. His father, his mentor Ray Cohn and any number of vile men he’s tried to emulate drilled the lessons into him: Do whatever you want. Ignore the wishes of others. Flout the law. 

Prior to committing a despicable act, accuse your intended victim of committing the same act. If anyone objects, double down. If they persist, destroy them—if slander fails, sue them out of the water. If that fails, keep appealing till you end up before a judge whom you’ve bought and paid for.  

Never, ever admit defeat.

This is how Donald Trump lives his life. One might say it’s genius. It is not. There’s not one shred of intellect, no reason here; it’s pure rote. The way any predator acts.

PHOTO: AnimalsTime.com

NUTTY PUTTY 
And the ultimate payoff for a man leading such a life? In Trump’s case, it’s as shallow and transparent as every other aspect of his raison d'être. He’s merely an emotional adolescent desperate to feed his insatiable lust for attention.

We know Donald Trump. He’s made quite sure we do. But the scarier thing is, so do men like Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu. Say what you might about such tyrants, but both these men have shown themselves to possess some emotional and intellectual depth. Both are capable of insight, nuance, managing complexity and strategic thinking. 

Trump has none of these capacities, and these clever despots know it. In fact, they know Trump better than he knows himself. They know how wretchedly insecure he is, how gaudy and artificial the ruse of his power. And how easy it is to manipulate him.

  If your schmear hits eight figures—I appoint you to my cabinet. 

DOUBLE-DEALER
There are two kinds of “deals” Trump makes. First is what I’d call the kiss-my-ass deal. This is the kind he makes with the little people in his world, the Rudy Giulianis, the Mike Lindells. Oh, and also with his gutless Trumpublican lackeys in Congress: You brown-nose me and I hold off on “primarying” you or shitting all over you in the media. You’re soiled in my feces, but I let you survive.

Even if you’re a nobody like those MAGA goons he incited to desecrate the Capitol on January 6, as long as you commit your crimes in my name, you’re off the hook.

The second kind of Trump deal is the “business” deal. You give me something I desperately want—praise, campaign funding, my name on a new building, women…and, oh, I don’t know…the Nobel Prize—and I let you stand near me at the inauguration, share state secrets with you, maybe even—if your schmear hits eight figures—appoint you to my cabinet. 

PHOTO: Bloomberg

      This ninny presents no less a threat to our national security 
      than 19 radical Muslim terrorists at the controls of four 
      commercial airliners.

SACRED BUST
Donald Trump has put the sacred trust with which this country has endowed 45 presidents up for sale to the highest bidder. He’s not just hawking influence, not just feeding his ego, but monetizing national-treasures. Everything’s up for grabs: endangered wildlife and habitat, the National Parks, even the White House itself, branded with his gaudy, fools-gold veneer.

Most often, the deceit enriches him and his little tyrants-in-training, Don Junior, Eric and Ivanka. But blood bonds aren’t necessary to claim a slice of the pie; million-dollar bribes-cum-campaign donations will do just fine.

AI IMAGE: Western Standard

The evidence of Trump’s corruptibility just keeps mounting: 
  • his push to reward Putin for his aggression against Ukraine 
  • his “deal” to honor Netanyahu’s Gaza genocide in exchange for Trump’s “ownership” and commercial development of Gaza
  • his pardoning of Saudi Crown Prince bin Salman’s gruesome murder of an American journalist to keep the wheels greased for the $50 million in business deals struck by the Trump family cartel
  • his acceptance of a $400 million-dollar bribe—a Boeing 747, no less—from shrewd Qatari leader Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. 

Meanwhile, as Despot Light counts his coins and compliments, the real heavyweights laugh it up over the easiest exploitation they’ve ever wrangled. It’s like some young hotshot chess cheat taking on Garry Kasparov; they’re wiping the floor with him.

OUTRAGE TO ACTION
This ninny and his warped transactional MO presents no less a threat to our national security than 19 radical Muslim terrorists at the controls of four commercial airliners. Thoughtful Americans must unify, as we did after 9/11 and other national tragedies, in confronting the threat. He must be stopped.

Wish My New Meme Would Go Viral

I was inspired by the Pedophile-In-Chief's demolition of the People's House for another of his fools-gold monuments to himself. 

 

CRITICAL SASS – Resistance and the 3.5% Engagement Rule

Here we are at a critical juncture in the history of our Democracy, where the dire threat to our cherished way of life cannot be denied. And we know exactly what and who we’re up against. 

It’s an aggressively insecure, temperament-of-a-two-year-old, wannabe dictator, enabled by an ignorant, vengeful constituency and a cadre of suck-ups in Congress. Together, they’re throwing a tantrum that’s brought our country to its knees. 

ILLUSTRATION: Violet de Torres

How do we stand up to such outrage? Stop this monster from cheating and intimidating his way to total fascist control.

By now we know very well the Crimbecile’s M.O. Among 
his tactics—drilled into him by his ruthless father and other mentors in megalomania—is, whenever challenged, you “double down.” Accuse others of the crime you’re about to commit. Counter criticism with twice the criticism; one lawsuit with two; threats of justice with promises of ruin.

It’s easy and, I guess, entirely human for rational people to 
respond to such aggressiveness defensively. It’s like someone’s broken into our home and is headed for our kids’ bedroom. Not the time for a measured response; not the time for reason. 

So, folks, we take the offensive. Fight fire with fire. And here’s how we do it: we launch our own doubling-down assault. 

        What does “engaging” that many 
        people look like?

THREE-POINT-FIVE TO TURN THE TIDE
For those of us not savvy to the workings of political influence, lacking the resources to purchase the ear of our Congressperson, and not comfortable with door knocking, the best way to go after a tyrant is to simply show up with our voices and placards in a good old-fashioned street protest.

PHOTO: Madison Badger Herald – Lizzy Larson

But protests don’t even start worrying corrupt politicians until they reach a critical mass. And what is that threshold? Research by the Carr Center's Erica Chenoweth posits that “No government can withstand a challenge of 3.5% of its population without either accommodating the movement or (in extreme cases) disintegrating.” *

So…three questions. First: what is 3.5% of the US population? A bit more than 12,000,000 of us.

Second: What does “engaging” that many people look like? I know of no better way than persuading them to take it to the streets.

Third: What will it take to reach that pivotal threshold? Every single one of us bearing witness to what our eyes and ears—and history—warn us is a full-on rush to fascism by the Trump regime. Each and every American who values freedom responding to the alarm. 

The good news is that we’re well on our way! 

  Imagine being part of the absolutely stupefying 
  crowds taking to the streets that day.

WE’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER VOTE
The nationwide No Kings protests on June 14, 2025 saw somewhere between 4,000,000 and 6,000,000 Americans taking to the streets in 2,100 cities and towns coast to coast.

As impressive as it was to be among the multitude of protesters in St. Paul that day, I recall my clear-as-day reaction when I turned around and got my first good look at the size of the crowd: We’re going to have to at least double this…and maybe double it again.

So that’s the vision I’m promoting. At least 8,000,000 Americans showing up Saturday, October 18 to defy the goose-stepping thugs gutting our democratic institutions. A loud, clear, unified rejection of Trump’s reckless push to consolidate power.

What can each of us do to make October 18, 2025 the date history will come to recognize as the turning point in America’s rejection of fascism? First of all, we must simply imagine it, imagine being part of the absolutely stupefying crowds taking to the streets that day.

The we must talk it up, promote it on social media, make signs, include appeals in our email signatures, bring friends and neighbors with us to the event…and anything else we can think of to make our vision real.

For my own part, I take inspiration from the courage of that iconic—yet still-unidentified—Chinese man who stood up to a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square in 1989. We can do this!

PHOTO: New York Times

* From a BBC.com article by David Robson – 13 May, 2019

GUNS – IN DEFENSE AGAINST OR OF TYRANNY

The main argument behind some Americans’ militant defense of their right to bear arms is that the Second Amendment of The Constitution guarantees it.

They insist that one intent of that amendment was to enable citizens to protect themselves in the event of a tyrannical government—a debatable interpretation.

At any rate, how ironic that these gun nuts' justification of this country's firearms glut (now easily outnumbering citizens, and including assault-style weapons designed for military use) has taken a U-turn.

The outrageous personal arsenal excused for so long by MAGA extremists and the NRA as a defense against a potential rogue government, has now become a military asset in their defense of a rogue government. 

We tolerate these zealots, this misguided crusade, at our great peril. Since appeals to their reason, emotion and even basic human decency fall on deaf ears, they must be beaten with our protests and at the polls.

Let’s get busy!