How The Regime Wrecked My Morning Coffee, Plus

Don't let the high court fool you, plus the great escape, plus music

Tourists & a forgotten man (credit Weldon Berger)

How The Regime Wrecked My Morning Coffee

The two things I most rely on to write my newsletters are music and my morning coffee. The two things that most interfere with writing are my native depression and listlessness, exacerbated for some years now by the cancer and pain meds, and, of late, an absolutely crippling level of anxiety.

This is by way of apology for not writing much during the last two or three weeks. The depression is just a thing, usually, but the anxiety has never been a constant in my personal landscape until certain recent events. And I can’t get much relief from my doctors, who refuse to prescribe one or another of the benzodiazepines that can pull the emergency stop cord when that train gets out of control.

The notion that the coffee ritual might be contributing to my anxiety only occurred to me a few days ago. I’ve cut back on my coffee consumption over the past year or so anyway, going from lots to not that much, and from continuously throughout the day to only in the morning, because it started notably interfering with my sleep.

So I was down to what my coffee maker thinks is four cups and what my coffee mug thinks is two cups, a historic low, by the time the regime took power. How could I imagine that was too much? But it turns out that thanks to red-lining the anxiety tachometer all the fucking time under the threat of losing medical and housing benefits, it was.

Now I’m down to two coffee machine cups/one coffee mug’s worth in the morning, which is like subsistence-level stuff. And if I don’t get my writing done in the morning, I’m lost. The anxiety is better, but I’m stuck with multiple drafts of posts, mostly of the “this is what’s going to happen next” variety, that I couldn’t finish before they were well overtaken by events.

Anyway. Sorry about that. Thank you for your continuing support.

Don't let the high court fool you

The supreme court have elicited huge sighs of relief from some court watchers and political talkers as the crackhead majority have in a few instances turned into a crackhead minority on the question of recklessly enabling the regime, notably with the court’s late-night order temporarily forbidding them from rendering more immigrants to El Salvador’s torture palace without due process, something the regime say they’re perfectly entitled to do but had no plans for so why all the fuss?

Sadly, the court can do nothing to diffuse the impact of their ultimate “are you fucking insane” ruling granting immunity to presidents for crimes committed in the conduct of their duties which, broadly interpreted, covers anything they might do so long as they say um, yeah, that was an official thing. The court can rule on this and that and whichever and the president may or may not recognize their authority—in word if not in deed—but if he doesn’t, nobody can hold him accountable.

The biggest recent court-related kerfuffle comes from possible serial killer Kash Patel’s FBI, agents of which arrested a Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, circuit court judge for allegedly aiding an immigrant from ICE agents seeking to arrest him in her courthouse. She has been charged with two felonies. The country’s chief law enforcement officer, Pam Bondi, recipient of what looks very much like a bribe from Trump when she ran Florida’s justice department, called the judge “deranged.”

The obvious point here is nailing a judge’s pelt to the door in order to intimidate other judges and public officials who might think about frustrating the regime in their various pursuits.

Returning for a moment to the high court, which will soon be asked to rule on the regime’s attempt to further gut the 1964 Civil Rights Act via a Trump executive order: the Roberts court has historically been eager to act against any law protecting citizens from discrimination, so this is likely to be one decision with which the regime are happy to comply.

Acclimating the public to the government’s assault on the courts is only one anti-constitutional project; what we’re seeing is more in the way of carpet-bombing everything that challenges their thievery and ideological oppression and their authority to impose those. They’re disappearing people, including minor US citizens; they’re extorting law firms and universities; they’re wrecking any part of government aimed at protecting people from regime campaign donors and the reactionary ire aimed at poor people, women, LGBTQ people, immigrants, dissidents, and more, all with utter disregard for human rights and well-being.

Late last week, a platoon-sized force of ICE, FBI and US Marshals Service paramilitary troops mounted a home invasion against U.S. citizens, kicking down the door in the middle of the night. The goons had a warrant with the right address but the wrong names; rather than apologizing and leaving, they terrorized and humiliated the family and stole their stuff.

A woman says her family’s fresh start in Oklahoma turned into a nightmare after federal immigration agents raided their home, taking their phones, laptops, and life savings – even though they were not the suspects the agents were looking for.

The agents had a search warrant for the home, but the suspects listed on the warrant do not live in the house.

The woman who actually lives in the house had just moved to Oklahoma City from Maryland with her family about two weeks earlier.
. . .
She said they ordered her and her daughters outside into the rain before they could even put on clothes.

“They wanted me to change in front of all of them, in between all of them,” she said. “My husband has not even seen my daughter in her undergarments—her own dad, because it’s respectful. You have her out there, a minor, in her underwear.”
. . .
Marisa said the agents tore apart every square inch of the house and what few belongings they had, seizing their phones, laptops and their life savings in cash as “evidence.”

“I told them before they left, I said you took my phone. We have no money. I just moved here,” she said. “I have to feed my children. I’m going to need gas money. I need to be able to get around. Like, how do you just leave me like this? Like an abandoned dog.”

As the mom noted, had she been armed the family would probably be dead now.

Federal goons are nothing new, as nor are local ones, but it’s been a while since they were so broadly empowered as they are now, especially with that presidential immunity decision and the likely presidential pardons lurking to excuse any excesses for which someone, some day, might want to hold them accountable.

Not that accountability is high on this country’s agenda even in the best of times and regarding the most blatant, well-publicized offenses. (See, for instance: Bush, George W, torturer, and the successor who let him skate.) One suspects that the high court will be more willing than ever to forgive armed violence and oppression by agents of the state.

To review: don’t imagine the courts will save us.

The great escape/Subscribe!

As previously noted, I need to get out of here. The plan is to hole up overseas with my extended progeny. I simply cannot sustain this level of anxiety, waiting for dropping shoes and falling axes, atop the cancer and my other difficulties. I never thought I’d want to leave Hawai’i, especially for anywhere with winters, but here we are.

Anyway: I always include an invitation to subscribe to the newsletter, and I’ll be doubling down on that from here on in. Free or paid, whichever you can do—the more free subscribers I get, the more paid ones will come of it, and as always the primary difference is that paid subscriptions include the sublime satisfaction of helping me defray the excess luggage fees I’ll be incurring.

You can also super-subscribe, and I’ll send you a print of one of my photos if you like. Good, good-sized prints cost me about $80 with shipping, so keep that in mind.

I’ll also be establishing a donation link soon for people who feel like helping out but not committing to a paid subscription. And as always, if you like what you’re seeing here, please let me know and share it around.

DO IT!

Music

Television, Television, “1880 Or So” live;

Richard Hell and The Voidoids, Destiny Street, “Going Going Gone;”

Big Star, #1 Record, “In The Street.” There’s a reason this tune anchored That '70s Show. It certainly spoke to me when it came out in 1972.

The Raveonettes, The Raveonettes Sing …, “Shakin’ All Over” (Johnny Kidd and the Pirates cover);

Bonus shaking: The Guess Who, “Shakin’ All Over;”

The Raveonettes, PE’AHI II, “Killer”