Weekend Open Thread

12 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread”

1. Bringing a whole new meaning to "Trumped up charges".  Heather Cox Richardson reports:

   Today, after months of maintaining it could not bring back Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully rendered to the notorious CECOT terrorist prison in El Salvador, the Trump administration returned him to the U.S. A grand jury in Tennessee has charged Abrego Garcia with participating in a ten-year conspiracy to carry undocumented migrants from Texas to other parts of the country. The indictment alleges Abrego Garcia participated in more than 100 trips that moved children as well as members of the MS-13 Salvadoran gang.

   The indictment has issues. Abrego Garcia is the only person named in the “conspiracy,” and the investigation into it began only in April, after the courts ordered the administration to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. The indictment is based on a 2022 incident in which Abrego Garcia was stopped in Tennessee for speeding with eight passengers in his vehicle. He told police they were construction workers and was neither ticketed nor charged. While the indictment alleges that Abrego Garcia lied to the officer by not revealing he was coming from Texas, the referral report says he told the officer he was coming from Houston, Texas.

   Phil Williams of NewsChannel 5 in Nashville, Tennessee, noted that the chief of the criminal division for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nashville, Ben Schrader, resigned on May 21, saying: “It has been an incredible privilege to serve as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, where the only job description I’ve ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons.” Williams notes that May 21 is the same day as Abrego Garcia’s indictment.

   ABC News reported that Schrader resigned out of “concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons.”

    

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   1. [A] conspiracy to carry undocumented migrants from Texas to other parts of the country . . .

      Somewhere deep in the bowels of Texas, I imagine, Greg Abbott is about to enjoy another Sunday lunch completely free from even the slightest bit of any reason for concern.

       

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2. This is how it's done, folks ….

   https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/07/great-unawokening-2028-presidential-candidates-00393376

   Although Gavin Newsom probably over did it when he claimed he never used the term "Latinx."  It would have easier – and more credible – to explain that he had used it before but dosn't anymore because Latinos don't like it.

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3. FWIW — Michael Cohen (yes, THAT Michael Cohen) predicts that Trump and Musk will not call off their war.

   So while White House aides play amateur referees, frantically trying to slap duct tape on a relationship that’s already gone full Thermopylae, the rest of us are left watching two megalomaniacs light each other on fire with government contracts, conspiracy theories, and Christmas dinner flashbacks.

   Let me be crystal clear on this… there’s no truce coming. No peace summit at Mar-a-Lago. No hug-it-out photo op with matching MAGA hats and SpaceX hoodies. This is now a zero-sum ego war between a man who controls the nukes and another who controls the satellites—and neither one knows how to lose quietly.

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4. In a rare display of competency the trump administration federalized California National Guard troops using an old law to help distract from the news THAT THE RICHEST MAN IN THE WHOLE WORLD SAID TRUMPS A PEDO. 

   Context that rich guy is a drug addict according to Trump (you know the guy who hired him, defended him, gave him access to all government information…)

   https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/us/trump-national-guard-deploy-rare.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NU8.MiJi.wIHcOlpxIz7P&smid=url-share

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5. LA ICE Protesters should all Back Off. This would highlight the Trump/Stephen Miller National Guard over-reaction.

   Secondly, Immmigrants in LA should evaporate from work for the next week. Maybe include legal, green-card, and citizen immigrants. 

   Josh Marshall:
    

   There have always been a few clear break points, rubicon thresholds in the Trump autocracy storyline where the entire legitimacy of the state and the freedom of American citizens could go sideways very, very fast. This has always been one of the most obvious ones. There’s no need here for the Guard. The irritant is the wildly inflammatory raids by militarized ICE squads. But even assuming those continue the Guard still isn’t necessary. The President has triggered this crisis and is now using it to exercise military authority within a state against the wishes of the state’s civilian elected leaders – Mayor, Governor, congressional representatives, etc. This is 100% Trump. He’s created the situation and now he’s exploiting it.

   We’re very clearly entering a moment of grave danger. My main thought about this is to remember – as we’ve said in other contexts – that the fight to preserve the American republic remains fundamentally one over public opinion. The President has a lot of power here for violence and mischief. But he’s not in charge of what people think about it, whether they think his actions are legitimate, wise, anything they support. You can dismiss whether public opinion matters in a case like this. I disagree. It’s fundamentally what it’s all about, what will eventually decide all of this. So I hope all the players here, in the decisions they make, keep that in mind.

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   1. Very Important! Josh Continues:

      I’ll return to my earlier point. The larger context is public opinion in California and around the country. These are illegitimate actions and abuses of presidential power. How the public at large views this is critical to the future of the country and Donald Trump’s whole effort to create a Putinized, autocratic presidency. In my opinion every elected leader and really every citizen should be choosing their next moves with an aim to having this play out in such a way that the public views these actions in that way – as illegitimate, unAmerican. The future of the Republic, civic democracy is the real game here. Having the public reject the legitimacy of this decision is critical to that goal. So everything every decision needs to be made with that goal in mind.

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6. But, is there a difference between what the Republican Party wants and what Yammie-pie wants? Everyone is worried about the creep toward an authoritarian government, but will it outlive him? Can the Republicans find a POTUS candidate to pull us back to the democratic republic that the Founders set us up to be, or must we simply shut them out of government for a generation while Dems fix the mess he’s made?

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7. Pre-requisite: Police State – h/t Heather Cox-Richardson.

   Andy Craig, who studies election law and policy, noted today that “[m]ass deportation and immigration enforcement in the interior requires a police state, and the more of that you want, the more obviously it will look and act like a police state.”

   Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council agreed. He wrote: “In order to build a mass deportation machine to round up and deport 4% of the entire goddamn population, you must first build the police state.”

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   1. The pieces of the the police state are already in place, and have been since the militarization of our local police forces began after 9/11. So many local jurisdictions are well equipped with armor and weapons and a real bad attitude. 

      The situation developing on the ground was scripted long ago. Trump wants desperately to invoke the Insurrection Act.

      Honestly…is anyone surprised by any of this?

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      1. Another shitty thing that Bill Clinton helped create–the militarization of the police and the relative demise of community policing. 

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8. DHS Secretary "GI Barbie" Noem commentary yesterday supports your comments Duke. It is scary. 

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