Hal Brown's Substack (fomerly Hal Brown's Blog): Chicago

Showing posts with label Chicago. Show all posts

October 31, 2025

A not so Happy Halloween: The Trickster Trump thugs have a message for kids. Eat your candy and breathe the tear gas. By Hal M. Brown

Not so Happy Halloween…

Last night I read this about my hometown: “Portland ICE protests leave nearby residents caught in chemical crossfire. And more.”

The article on the Oregon Live website included this photo:

I’d previously read about Gov. Pritzker asking for a pause in ICE enforcement in Chicago over Halloween weekend:

“Illinois families deserve to spend Halloween weekend without fear,” Pritzker wrote in a Wednesday letter to Noem. “No child should be forced to inhale tear gas or other chemical agents while trick or treating in their own neighborhood.”

Yesterday I read Trump may walk into a Halloween trap set by Dem: analyst.

Excerpt:

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) issued an impassioned plea to the Trump administration Thursday to pause its immigration raids in Chicago, at least for Halloween, though one journalist and political analyst suspects the plea may also be a trap that could see the administration stumble into a self-inflicted political blunder.
In a letter addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Pritzker pleaded with the agency to halt its immigration raids in Chicago through the Halloween weekend, which kicks off Friday. His request comes just days after U.S. Border Patrol agents deployed tear gas at a children’s Halloween parade, and weeks after children were dragged from beds to U-Hauls by immigration officers during a raid.
“Illinois families deserve to spend Halloween weekend without fear. No child should be forced to inhale tear gas or other chemical agents while trick or treating in their own neighborhood,” Pritzker wrote. “...Illinois children should not be robbed of their innocence. Let them enjoy a time-honored American tradition safely and peacefully. Please let children be children for one holiday, free from intimidation and fear.”

I thought I might write about it today and used AI to make some images of children in Halloween costumes wearing gas masks.

When I got up this morning I didn’t know what I was going to write about.

Then I read this:

Here’s the comment I posted (click here to enlarge)

I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to write about this. Then I looked at the images that came from Perchance AI and they were nothing short of horrible. I thought about the news about SNAP cuts:

These two stories mesh together. They add up to another demonstration of the brutal sadistic callousness of the the Trump administration.

Consider this:

This is what Republican strategist Lindy Li wrote comparing the 16 million children poised to lose food assistance on Saturday to “socialist beasts” during an appearance on Newsmax on Friday.

As for the total number of SNAP recipients – 42 million – Li questioned that they were even eligible for the program, but for those that were, suggested that they “start making better choices” so that they didn’t “have to rely on the government.”

I suppose the children who die because of the cuts to USAID assistance should have made better choices too.

Addendum/afterthought:

Let’s not forget that the estimated 61 people Trump killed on the speedboats were fisherman who needed the money paid by the actual drug criminals. It’s likely that most of them had families and children they were trying to feed. See: U.N. Human Rights Chief Says U.S. Strikes On Alleged Drug Boats Are ‘Unacceptable.

September 7, 2025

Col. Kilgore and Donald Trump, By Hal M. Brown

By now you’ve read about the reaction to Trump’s posting the “Chipocalapse Now” image of himself as Col. Kilgore with an under attack Chicago burning in the background (see HUFFPOST article). Here’s how Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, reacted:

Aside from uttering one of the two most memorable lines in “Apocolapse Now,” “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” (the other being Col. Kutz’s “the horror, the horror”) it is instructive to consider the character of the character.

The following (from the FanDom website) should suffice as a “nuff said” when trying to explain why Trump admires him so much he liked his own face being superimposed over Kilgore’s in the now infamous Truth Social post. Bold emphasis mine:

Lieutenant Colonel William "Bill" Kilgore is the secondary antagonist of the 1979 film Apocalypse Now. He is an amoral warmonger who actually enjoys the war and calls it home.
He is introduced in the movie when Willard and his allies ask him for help in getting up to the Nùng. Kilgore scoffs but befriends Lance after discovering his surfing experience and agrees to escort them through the Nùng's Viet Cong–held coastal mouth. They successfully raid at dawn, with Kilgore ordering a napalm sortie on the local cadres. He and his men then proceed to mercilessly kill, shoot and blow up numerous innocent civilians, showing a complete and utter disregard for civilian and human life, and showing Kilgore as what he is, a bloodthirsty, sadistic and amoral warmonger. This arguably makes him eviler than the film's main antagonist, Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, as he is willing to involve innocent civilians in his reign of mass murder and destruction, and shows no guilt for his deeds.

This is in stark contrast to Col. Kutz who when, as he was dying, uttered “the horror, the horror.” He was reflecting on the darkness and brutality of the war and humanity in general.

We also have stories about waging war on Venezuela and articles like “Trump’s Venezuela gunboat diplomacy: sabre-rattling or prelude to invasion?”

It is only a bit of my being lazy that I won’t expand on what makes Trump admire the Kilgore character. Hopefully it is obvious that Trump is one very sick excuse for a human being.