Three weeks in and we have Fort Sumter. By Hal M. Brown

If you know the most basic bit of American history, and I assume since no MAGAs read my Substack, that you do, when someone asks you why Fort Sumter is significant you can tell them that this is where the first shots of the Civl War were fired by Confedrate forces attacking a Union fort.

Here's how Wikipedia describes this battle:

The attack on Fort Sumter is generally taken as the beginning of the American Civil War—the first shots fired. Certainly it was so taken at the time—citizens of Charleston were celebrating. The First Battle of Fort Sumter began on April 12, 1861, when South Carolina Militia artillery fired from shore on the Union garrison. These were (both sides agreed) the first shots of the war. The bombardment continued all day, watched by many happy civilians. The fort had been cut off from its supply line and surrendered the next day. Major Robert Anderson took the flag with him as they evacuated.

What has just happened mere few weeks into the Trump presidency is that we have had our Fort Sumpter in the form of Trump attacking federal agencies and, as I wrote yesterday, locking Democratic members of Congress out of federal buildings. 

The war is about to escalate as Trump threatens to defy court orders and Vance, Musk, and some Republican members of Congress say he has every right to do this.

It is worse than that. There are also thinly veiled threats to try to take control of the media.

Two Substacks describe this today:

Ben Meiselas writes in The Meidas Touch “Trump is threatebning to prosecute us.”

We knew this would happen. As Trump gets more desperate, we always thought he would try to use his Department of Justice and FBI to attack Meidas and try to shut us down. Since MeidasTouch is not on terrestrial TV or cable TV, the FCC does not have regulatory authority over us. Since we don’t have investors, the SEC and DOJ do not have regulatory authority over us to approve mergers. So what is an authoritarian regime to do?

This weekend, Elon Musk published a letter from the top Trump federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., stating he would be investigating “networks” that covered and exposed Elon Musk’s team for seizing control of government agencies and people’s private data. Then, Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary stated she would be going after networks that exposed ICE raids and protected migrants. Trump is apparently livid at the coverage by us and others who have alerted migrants about ICE raids.

Robert Reich wrote “The end of law?:”

He is the most lawless president in American history.

He’s allowed Musk’s rats unfettered access to the Treasury’s payments system. Banned birthright citizenship. Refused to spend money appropriated by Congress. Closed independent agencies without Congress’s approval. Substituted political loyalists for civil servants. Unleashed the military on civilians. And on it goes.

Republican lawmakers won’t restrain him. In one of the most shameful apologia for dictatorship I’ve ever heard coming from a public official, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina admits that much of what Trump is doing “runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense.” But, Tillis adds, “nobody should bellyache about that.”

We shouldn’t bellyache about Trump’s torching the Constitution?

As Trump’s marauding continues, America's last defense is the federal courts. But the big story here (which hasn’t received nearly the attention it deserves) is that the Trump-Vance-Musk regime is ignoring the courts.

Here’s some of what George Conway said on Morning Joe: 'Mark my words': George Conway predicts alarming showdown that could 'end' U.S. democracy.

"They are violating the text of statutes by having DOGE run around and do all the things that they've been doing, the executive orders, there's no reason that this government that has decided not to obey the laws and the Constitution of the United States is going to obey a court order and, as you know, having practiced law there's really only one way that courts can enforce their orders when somebody is being contumacious and refusing to obey an order, and that's to send the U.S. Marshals out to take somebody in and to hold them in contempt or to otherwise enforce court orders."

"Well, who does the U.S. Marshals Service work for?" Conway added. "The U.S. Marshals Service is part of the United States Department of Justice. It reports to Donald J. Trump, and what's going to happen here, mark my words, is that at some point, they are going to basically tell the United States Marshals Service, do not enforce any of these orders, we will not obey them, and you are not to enforce them and, once that happens, I mean, I hope it doesn't happen, but I know in my heart that it will, our 236-year experiment in the federal rule of law, in democratic self-governance for the United States of America, in American constitutionalism, is essentially over."

Conway didn't see any institutional bulwark against Trump's abuse of the rule of law.

The difference between what is happening now, and what happened at Fort Sumter, is that we now have the equivalent of the Union firing on a Confederate fort. The Confederate soldiers were the rebels. They were waging war against the elected goverment of the United States. Now we are the rebels. We are engaged in a battle against an elected government. There is an equivalency. The country is equally divided. Unfortunately, this is only by population rather than by hard power. We have the ability to wield soft power which, unfortunately, is akin to bringing a knife to a gunfight.

We are the rebels. We are like guerrillas. Guerrillas can win a war when a majority of the population supports them, but we only have half. We have to fight smart though being on the side of righteousness isn’t enough.

Robert Hubbell writes” We are not sheep. Get louder. Take action. Create a shadow cabinet.”

Over the weekend, Musk and JD Vance each posted statements asserting that the president should or could defy court orders. A Harvard law professor joined the conversation by endorsing the notion that judicial restraints on the president violate the separation of powers doctrine.

They mean business, folks. They want Trump to be unbounded by the Constitution, Congress, or the courts. In other words, they want a dictator. They think we are sheep who will huddle together for safety and look the other way. They are wrong, and it is time for us to let them know by raising the volume.

Let’s skip through thousands of words of analysis and get to the point: Trump believes that he is immune from all laws, can ignore Congress, and spend money (or not) based on his whims (or those of teenage hackers and rogue AI), and that we will dutifully send our tax dollars to Washington without so much as a whimper.

Hubbell recommends the actions we can take against this:.

• Street protests must continue to grow daily.
• Telephone lines into the offices of every US Representative and Senator should melt from the volume and anger of the messages.
• Everyone in America should belong to a grassroots organization that is actively involved in planning protests (even if you are unable to show up at the protests).
• Engage in daily acts of resistance: Jessica Craven Chop Wood Carry Water, Third Act, and 5Calls.org, and others.
• Support Democrats while demanding that they act in a manner consistent with the constitutional emergency we face.
• Support the legal advocacy organizations leading the fight in court: Democracy Forward, Public Citizen, Democracy Docket, ACLU, and other legal advocacy groups

We should do as much of this as we can but not kid ourselves into false optimism but we should not wallow in pessimism. We must be realistic. This is a battle against an enemy that is better armed than we are which in addtion to controlling Congres is supported by of half the population. 

The Civil War lasted four years. It is a grim coincidence that this is how long Trump’s presidency is supposed to last. If he wins the war it may last longer than that, but our power will be be greatly diminshed. Since mass peaceful protests will have been outlawed we may end up being solitary rebels hiding in basements trying to find a way to use the internet to have our voices heard. This may be difficult since Substack and Google Blogger which is owned by Google where it’s CEO is a Trumper and where I post a mirror of my Substack, may be shut down.

You may not be ale to read what I and others post on Bluesky. Not that more than a few people are interested in what I have to say, but if they take RawStory down they won’t be able to follow my comments to their articles.

Addendum

We all may have to figure out how to use TOR to post and read websites on the dark web. Make a hard copy of this: What Is the Dark Web? Here's How to Access It Safely (and What You'll Find)

Related Substack about our resistance using peaceful unconventional warfare.

Update: If you think I am going overboard in raising the alarm about what Trump would like to do, and how Kash Pattel wants to turn the FBI into Trump and his Gestapo, read this.

What's wrong with this photo? A man with a badge and a gun stopped a US Senator from entering a federal building. By Hal M. Brown

 

A photo was embedded in a RawStory article that damn near jumped off the screen of my laptop this morning. It was in the article "Efficiency − or empire? How Elon Musk could end government as we know it."

The man is shown blocking Senator Ed Markey, who is wearing an armband saying "Climate Action Campaign." Here's their website. Markey was attempting to enter the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency headquarters. The man is identified as a security officer. He is not a U.S. Capitol Police officer who would have the authority to restrain, detain, and arrest someone. 

Capitol police can be identified by their badges and insignia.

The expression on the security guard's face as he blocks Markey with outstretched arms suggests he is alarmed as he is shouting something. I wonder what it saying. 

We don't know who this man is. We can probably assume that he works for a private security company and that, because he is armed, it costs more to hire him than if he was unarmed. 

We don't know what his training was. We don't know if he was deputized in some way so he did have police powers.

We do know that he is carrying a gun and that he's preventing a U.S. senator from entering a public building where he has every right to be.  

Unless the man has police authority he has no legal right to lay his hands on anybody except to defend himself. Likewise, Senator Markey would have no legal right to push his way past this man making contact with him.

What would have happened if Markey tried to enter the building by deftly maneuvering past him without making physical contact? Would the security guard have tried to physically stop him. That would be an assault.

I suppose we can be relieved that it was only a pistol he is carrying. Some security guards carry assault rifles like those from this company.

Forget Musk and DOGE trying to save money, why not contract with security companies and spend millions to hire a small army of MAGA thugs with assault rifles and give them police powers. They could deploy them around all federal buildings to keep pesky Democratic members of Congress like Ed Markey and other citizens out.

Trump already has lots of men and women with guns who he can order to take action against people. They are government employees, whether they work ICE and other Homeland Security departments, the FBI, and of course the military. 

I don't think he is able to legally order the Capitol Police to do anything. 

The United States Capitol Police (USCP) is a federal law enforcement agency in the United States with nationwide jurisdiction charged with protecting the United States Congress within the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its territories. It answers to the Capitol Police Board and is the only full-service federal law enforcement agency appointed by the legislative branchof the federal government of the United States.

It appears the the Capitol Police Department can't be controlled by Trump. This goes for every police department around the country. We see that many police departments are refusing to help ICE round up immigrants while others have said they will assist them. 

Trump is able to control men with guns who work for security companies to take action against people.

Trump can develop an armed force of people who can go well beyond the usual role that officers with guns have at home in a democratic society. It shouldn't be necessary to point out that this role includes protecting people from being harmed by violent criminals who also are sometimes armed.

When I see these people, from ICE agents to someone like this security officer, I think of the role of the police in a democracy as being to protect and to serve. I think of how this always means to protect and to serve the people, not the polticians. It is a motto you see on the police cars in many communities.

Who do these people with guns actually protect and serve? It isn't me. It isn't you.

Addendum:

The man stopping Democratic members of Congress from entering the Department of Education building wasn’t wearing a unform and, from what we can tell, wasn’t armed. At least there was no pistol visible on his hip. Note that Fox News calls it an ambush.

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I write this as someone who was an auxiliary police officer for 20 years who worked with dozens of officers who actually signed up to protect and serve the public. 

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Follow me on BlueSky.

For example I posted: “Do you call the person who wakes up in a hotel room and smells smoke, and then sees it coming in from under the door, and then touches the door handle and it's really hot, so they pull the fire alarm, an alarmist? This is what some people warning about Trump becoming a dictator are being called.” 

I also posted the following:

I say it's a blitzkreig. By Hal M. Brown

Click to enlarge image

Robert Hubbell titles his Substack today "It's a Coup." 

He writes:

Musk and Trump's unlawful actions go far beyond unauthorized “cuts” accomplished by computer hacking; they extend to the extinguishment of entire agencies and departments created and funded by Congress under the authority of Article I of the Constitution.

So, the “cuts” and “closures” are not merely “controversial,” or “disputed,” or “illegal.” They overthrow the constitutional order and separation of powers by claiming that the president exercises the authority granted to Congress in Article I of the Constitution.

That is a coup. There is no other word for it.

Paul Krugman defines the Trump coup with a more accurate word:

For what’s happening in America right now is an attempted autogolpe.

Latin American readers are surely familiar with the term. An autogolpe is literally a “self-coup” — when a legitimately elected leader uses his position to seize total control, eliminating legal and constitutional restraints on his power. Are Musk and Trump trying to pull off an autogolpe here? Of course they are. And they are doing so with, as far as I can tell, the full support of every Republican in the House and the Senate.

You should look at everything they do through that lens. Yes, we can ask whether a policy move makes sense in terms of its announced goals. But you should also always ask, “How does doing this serve the autogolpe?””

This is from Paul Krugman's Substack.

Krugman says tomatoes, Hubbell says tomatohs. Either way one says it, it describes how Trump is attempting to become a dictator. 

There is another word to describe what Trump is doing. He is engaged in a multi-front assault on democracy. If this was literally warfare, there is a word we could use to describe it. That word is "invasion." However, considering the speed of this invasion and the methods he is using, it more appropriately should be called a blitzkrieg. It is fitting that this is a German word meaning "lightening war."

This is the word used to describe the Nazi tactic which was intended to avoid a prolonged war. This is from the Holocaust Encyclopedia:

"Blitzkrieg," a German word meaning “Lightning War,” was Germany’s strategy to avoid a long war in the first phase of World War II in Europe. Germany's strategy was to defeat its opponents in a series of short campaigns.

 

Germany quickly overran much of Europe and was victorious for more than two years by relying on this new military tactic of "Blitzkrieg." Blitzkrieg tactics required the concentration of offensive weapons (such as tanks, planes, and artillery) along a narrow front. These forces would drive a breach in enemy defenses, permitting armored tank divisions to penetrate rapidly and roam freely behind enemy lines, causing shock and disorganization among the enemy defenses. German air power prevented the enemy from adequately resupplying or redeploying forces and thereby from sending reinforcements to seal breaches in the front. German forces could in turn encircle opposing troops and force surrender.

Here's their illustration:

Imagine Trump and his army being Germany and all the countries being the American agencies he's assaulted with tanks, the institutions he's shelled with artillery, and the Constitution he is dropping bombs on.

Related from yesterday, what we can learn from how the Underground reistance fought the Nazis.

Addendum:

When I woke at 2:00AM and couldn’t fall asleep worrying about what Trump was doing to our democracy I originally thought I'd title this “The Second Longest Day” and refer to the book and movie about D Day. Here’s how that Substack would begin:

Trump infamously declared that he would only be a dictator on day one. This reminds me of D Day and how it was dramatized in the book and movie “The Longest Day.” In fact, D Day is said to have lasted 85 days from June 6, 1944 to August 30, 1944 when Allied forces crossed the Seine River. D Day was as much of a blitzkrieg as the Nazi invasion of Europe.

The outcome of the Allied blitzkrieg saved the free world from Hitler and Nazi domination. The outcome of the Trump and the MAGA blitzkrieg is yet to be determined. 

Update:

My real life friend, Dianna Jackson, wrote an essay in her Substack, Hiccups Happen, titled “Milquestoast is Normal”. 

She begins:

If only the news organization at this newspaper (The NYTimes) had the courage to blare out the news on the front page, above the fold. Good grief. What will it take for them wake up and call a cup of coffee a cup of coffee? Good headline? TRUMP AND ELON MUSK ARE TAKING OVER THE GOVERNMENT BY UNLAWFUL MEANS Or how about this? AS A CONVICTED FELON, TRUMP IS IN VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. Doesn't an old lady like the Times need to scream out the news that they are attempting to destroy the rule of law? Milquetoasting is normal. None of this is normal. Besides that, the entire first section of the paper should spell it all out not just once, but every week. IMHO.

I agree with her. Another headline, using my word, would be “Trump, Musk, and MAGA on blitzkrieg to destroy democracy.”

Hair of the dog, anybody? I have discovered who some of the FoxNews morning audience are. By Hal M. Brown

Above is a photo I took this morning of a commercial aired on FoxNews. It is for Redneck Rivera Whiskey. It costs $25 a bottle.

This is how their website describes it:

Redneck Riviera American Blended Whiskey is a small-batch whiskey that brings together the perfect blend of smoothness, sweetness, and subtle complexity. Designed for whiskey enthusiasts who appreciate a well-balanced sip, this whiskey delivers approachable sweetness with a rich, full-bodied finish. Whether enjoyed neat, on the rocks, or in a cocktail, this blend captures the essence of a great American whiskey.

NOSE

• Light vanilla and butterscotch sweetness
• Hints of caramel, rounded out by a bright touch of honey

PALATE

• Smooth vanilla mingling with subtle oak
• A rich, complex body featuring honey, dark stone fruit essence, and earthy grains

FINISH

• Approachable sweetness balanced by a subtle oak and earthy grain undertone

In other words, this is a whiskey for rednecks who have a discerning palate.

Look closely at the photo. You'll see that I took this at 6:13. This isn't 6:13 in the evening. It is 6:13 AM. I don't know if this was a commercial aired just locally or nationally. If it was national it means that people on the east coast would have been seeing at at 9:13 AM.

Here are some more of the photos I took:

Mammoth Nation is a merchandise company which wants you to "Hit the Radical Left Where it Hurts."

The actor is supposed to be a cowboy, but check out the chandelier in his bunkhouse.

It took a few minutes but I was able to find out what the logo on the t-shirt was.

Grunt, the slang term for a Marine, is in reference to a t-shirt company. We all know what a throat punch is.

Even though this commercial is ostensibly for whiskey it also advertises t-shirts.

When I watch MSNBC at night I see commercials for prescription drugs. The ads for the weight loss drug Wegovy is on several times a night. I assume  MSNBC has concluded that there are a lot over overweight people watching. There are also ads for diabetes and anti-cancer drugs. In between these ads are insurance company commercials. My conclusion is that MSNBC assumes that part of their evening audience includes older adults concerned about their weight, health, and whether they want to buy isurance.

FoxNews must have studied the demographics  of their morning audience and decided that some of them not only like their macho whiskey, but that they may be nursing a hangover.

Hair of the dog, anybody?