May 11, 2025

Habeous Corpus, immigrants, and the dandelion invasion

 


Stephen Miller said that the "privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended at a time of invasion. So I would say that's an action we're actively looking at.” (Reference)

Dandelions are not indiginous to the United States. It has been speculated that they were introduced to the country by the Pilgrims who brought them here on the Mayflower (reference) because of the belief in their medicinal benefits. 

Here’s an article which notes the benefits of dandelions. It is from Washington state’s  The Peninsula Daily News. It features a photo showing a lovely field of dandelions. Once upon a time were were no dandeloins in the state of Washington.

Everyone can understand why dandelions propagated so easily and spread so rapidly across the country. As kids we liked to blow on them when they were about to seed.

Watch the video.

This is from this website:

Before the invention of lawns, people praised the golden blossoms and lion-toothed leaves as a bounty of food, medicine and magic. Gardeners often weeded out the grass to make room for the dandelions. But somewhere in the twentieth century, humans decided that the dandelion was a weed. Nowadays, they’re also the most unpopular plant in the neighborhood – but it wasn’t always that way.

By now you probably see where I am going with my comparing the so called invasion of immigrants to the invasion of dandelions.

Dandelions once were considered useful and even cultivated. Not only are there documentated medicinal properties, but every part of them is edible. When people decided to keep their lawns pure green they were defined as invaders, as persona non grata.

They are bright yellow when in bloom and fields of them are lovely to look at. As far as someone who wants a pristine green lawn they think they ruins its appearance.

Nobody I can find suggests using them for your entire lawn. I tried a web search:

There are countless websites about how to get rid of dandelions, but I couldn’t find any about how to cultivate a lawn entirely of dandelions. This would be a very low maintenance lawn. It would change its appearance through the seasons.

There are millions of people who consider brown skinned immigrants to be an invasive species. They think that are not unlike the huge number of truly destructive creatures in the country (see list) from the African Clawed Frog to the Zebra Mussel.

For those who want America to be as white, or as White, as possible, the presence of some people with dark complexions has to be tolerated and sometimes applauded. For example they can suspended their underlying racism for Clarence Thomas and for various entertainers and sports figures. However, they have an excuse to rid the nation of others who they can claim are dangerous invaders.

As you can see from the following graph from this website most MAGAs are White and a large percentage are Christian. By chance, no doubt because white on white wouldn't show, the White bar is colored yellow like dandelions.

Many people like dandelions. Consider this from Amazon:

Likewise, many people like or love either individual immigrants who they have as family members, friends, and/or aquaintances. Others just like the idea of welcoming immigrants to our country and to any country. Most recently, prominent among these people, is Pope Leo XIV.

Addendum:

Thanks to Sabrina Haake in her comment I was reminded of dandelion wine, and of the Ray Bradbury novel by that name

Excerpt from Wiki:

The title refers to a wine made with dandelion petals and other ingredients, commonly citrus fruit. In the story, dandelion wine, as made daily by the protagonist's grandfather, serves as a metaphor for distilling all of the joys of summer.

Bonus:

The Rolling Stones had a song about a woman named Dandelion (here):

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May 10, 2025

Trump lit the fire and is burning down the house. Now he's sitting there happily roasting marshmallows. By Hal M. Brown




I read one line in the RawStory article '“Why are we not talking about his mental acuity?' MSNBC host nails growing Trump problem” and I heard the Talking Heads song “Burning Down the House” (see Wiki for info.) in my mind. 


This is he line from MSNBC's The Weekend" co-host Jonathan Capehart talking about Trump's tarriffs and his saying container ships coming in to our harbors being half empty: 

You know, and what he [Trump] does is he burns down the house and then he comes in and says, 'Oh, the market went up.' Well, no."

I find it impossible to visualize Trump happily sitting by a campfire with his family or friends toasting marshmallows. The best image my Perchance AI could come up with is below on the upper left (click to enlarge):



If the video doesn't play click here.

This is the line from MSNBC's The Weekend" co-host Jonathan Capehart talking about Trump's tarriffs and his saying container ships coming in to our harbors being half empty: 

You know, and what he [Trump] does is he burns down the house and then he comes in and says, 'Oh, the market went up.' Well, no."

I find it impossible to visualize Trump happily sitting by a campfire with his family or friends toasting marshmallows. The best image my Perchance AI could come up with is below on the upper left (click to enlarge):

The meaning of the song “Burning Down the House” has been analyzed. Here's an example: UNCOVERING THE FIERY METAPHORS & CULTURAL IMPACT.

Here’s an excerpt:

While the song’s chorus seems to emphatically endorse literal destruction, ‘Burning Down the House’ harbors a more nuanced subtext. It’s about both self-renewal and critique of stasis. Byrne, as the ‘ordinary guy’ caught in the throes of change, is not advocating for chaos but rather an inward ignition of transformation.

This metaphorical ‘burning’ reflects a universal sentiment of disruption. Be it personal growth or societal upheaval, ‘Burning Down the House’ serves as the anthem for those moments when the old ways are razed to make room for the new—a familiar cycle in the ever-changing landscape of American culture.

The lyrics ‘Hold tight we’re in for nasty weather / There has got to be a way’ echo a sentiment of foreboding, a recognition of the challenges that accompany any form of change. As if to say, the journey will be tumultuous, and the status quo will not go quietly into the night.

I wish I could say that Trump is burning down the house because he wants to achieve a positive result. Fire fighters set old houses ablaze to practice their skill. Trump is either doing this because he’s a pyromanic who enjoys watching the conflagration he ingited, or because, for the conspiracy minded, because Putin told him to do it.

To quote my partner, Ann, who just proof read this for me, “why, why, why, would he want to do this? He lives here too. Why would he want to do this? That’s the million dollar question. Why would you want to burn down your own house.”

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May 9, 2025

The Demonization of Albrego Garcia

 It takes some rudimentary photoshopping to make Albrego Garcia look like a real demon. Why not do this if you want to turn him into a truly bad guy? There are no bare chested photos of him with gang tattoos to publish. The best/worst Trump Trump could do was use a poorly rendered photoshop to show M, I, 1, and 3 on his knuckles. 

Below is what Kristi $50,000 Watch Noem (read “The Watches of the Trump Administration”) had to say.

Read the HUFFPOST article which makes Garcia out to be a really bad guy article here.

Excerpt:

“Abrego Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador and should never have been in this country and will not be coming back to this country,” she told senators. “There is no scenario where Abrego Garcia will be in the United States again. If he were to come back, we would immediately deport him again.”

Noem said he doesn’t belong in the U.S. “because he is a terrorist, he’s a human smuggler and he is a wife-beater.” There is no evidence that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist, and he was never arrested on or charged with human smuggling. It is true, though, that his wife filed a protective order petition against him in 2021, alleging he had physically attacked her on multiple occasions.

Kristi Noem is not a lawyer. Even so, she has a bachelors degree in political science. This should be enough for her to understand due process. Irregardless of this, she shouldn't be throwing out unsubstantiated accusations about Abrego Garcia. Of the three crimes she’s accused him of, only one has any evidence to suggest it is true. That would be her saying he’s a wife beater. Even on this he was never convicted in court. His wife filled a protective petition alleging he pshycially attacked her.

A Trump executive order designated MS-13 as a foreign terrorist organization. This hides the fact that the gang originated in Los Angeles in the 1980s. Their members largely join out of economic need, self-defense, or social pressure—not ideology. Trump’s executive order says the following:

….transnational organizations, such as Tren de Aragua (TdA) and La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) pose similar threats to the United States (as drug cartels). Their campaigns of violence and terror in the United States and internationally are extraordinarily violent, vicious, and similarly threaten the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere.

It is the policy of the United States to ensure the total elimination of these organizations’ presence in the United States and their ability to threaten the territory, safety, and security of the United States through their extraterritorial command-and-control structures, thereby protecting the American people and the territorial integrity of the United States.

You can’t have it both ways. Either each and every person who joins a gang is a criminal or some may be in the gang but have never committed an act of violence, let alone jumped a turnstyle at a subway station. 

This seem to harken back to the bad old Joe McCarthy Communist Party demonization and witchhunt days when either being an actual member of the party, being sympathetic to the party, or having any association with it made one a target. At least McCarthy never tried to get those he deemed party members or sympathizers deported to a hellhole overseas prison.

The United States still doesn’t deport people who are legally residing here because they’ve committed crimes. If Garcia is to be deported it must be because a court determines he is here illegally. McCarthy called them un-American. He never said they were terrorists. Not a single person who appeared before McCarthy'committee went to jail for accusations McCarthy brought against them (reference).

There’s this idea that Noem, her boss, and others are promoting that anyone here who they say, with no evidence, is a vicious criminal can be denied their day in court - a now quaint and irrelevant notion - and be sent to prison here or in another country. This is a country that sometimes seemingly is selected by throwing darts at a world map.

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May 8, 2025

Now defunct website called Trumpelthinskin endeavored to skewer Trump. Trump 45 wasn't as bad as predicted, but now he has a second term and he's a horror show. By Hal M. Brown

 


If not moving To animate the image above click here.

In 2017 Hillary Clinton accused Trump of being thinskinned. His reponse was "I don't have thin skin — I have very strong, very thick skin.” 

Donald Trump is disputing Hillary Clinton's critique of his foreign policy, including her epidermal argument that the New York businessman is too thin-skinned to be commander-in-chief.

"I don't have thin skin — I have very strong, very thick skin," Trump told CNN's State of the Union in an interview broadcast Sunday.

Trump was responding to a speech last week in which Clinton said that the presumptive nominee is too volatile and lacks the temperament to manage the nation's military and foreign affairs.

"This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes," Clinton said, "because it's not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin."

If someone who responds to the slightest attack with a rage tweet in the middle of the night isn’t thin skinned I don’t know how else to characterize him.

I found a GIF of Trump called Trumpelthinskin showing him having a tantrum with tears flowing from his eyes.

Then in trying to learn more about this GIF I discovered an old website named Trumpelthinskin which I hadn’t seen before. .This website was created to attack Trump. It has not been updated since October 3, 2018.

As for the GIF, Slansky’s website explains that it was “created by the famous guerrilla street artist ROBBIE CONAL, whose savage portraits of the worst of the nation’s politicians have been assaulting the eyes of unsuspecting Americans since 1986.”

From the website:

Our mission is to be the ultimate repository of damaging information about – and scathing satire of – the most absurd, the most odious, the most psychopathic man ever to seek the Presidency. We are compiling the definitive record of exactly how Donald Trump – one of the very worst people in the nation’s history, a tantrum-throwing seven-year-old in the bloated body of a seventy-year-old – rose to this exalted level of potential power.

I found it illuminating and prescient to read the “about us section” here. Consider the following, not in light of what Trump in his first term did, but rather looking at his second term so far. Trump 45 seems mild compared to the Trump of today. You can read the dire predictions on this old website in view of what he already has done in his second term. Here’s their comparison of Trump to Rumpelstiltskin.

Once upon a time there was a fairy tale character named Rumpelstiltskin. He was a short-tempered dealmaker who, when one of his deals went bad, went into such a rage that he stamped his right foot so deep into the ground that his whole leg went in. Then, in a furious effort to free himself, he tugged at his left leg so hard that he tore his body apart and destroyed himself.

The real life dealmaker we call Trumpelthinskin has a similarly short fuse, but, as President of the United States, his fits and frenzies would have the potential to destroy us all.

Trump didn’t destroy our democracy in his first term. Now the horrors we thought he’d unleash upon democracy in his first term seem mild compared to what is happening today.

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May 7, 2025

Who deserves to be called "The Greatest," Donald Trump or Muhammad Ail? By Hal M. Brown

 



Trump is making the news (here for example) with his announcing that the country needs two new holidays, one each to celebrate victories in the two world wars.

Has any other president made the news at least once a week with lunatic ideas like those about Greenland, Panama, Canada a state, alligators in the Rio Grand, making the border zone a military base, making Gaza a resort, etc. Does he think of all these things himself? I might be impressed if he did.

This aside, Trump once again reveals how obsessed he is with taking credit for anything he possibly can brag about even though he had nothing to do with the accomplishment.

I need not elaborate on the how insulting this war victory holiday idea is coming from someone who earned the nickname “cadet bonepsurs” and who disparged veterans and POW’s, and is now allowing the VA budget to be cut.

The subtext of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan is Make Me Greater Again and Again and Again. Trump believes not only that he is the greatest U.S. president in history, but that he is the greatest human being ever to walk the Earth. He thinks he’s smarter than Einstein and more powerful than a Jedi knight.

The Einstein level genius Trump is too uninformed to realize that Darth Vader wielded a red light saber, while Jedi knights fought with blue light sabres. He also shows his ignorance about Star Wars by posting an image of himself with bulging muscles. No character in Star Wars looked like this. 

Yoda was hardly muscle bound. For that matter neither was Darth Vader:

Trump keeps equating intelligence with muscles. He wants everyone to believe that he’s a world class golfer, and that this means he, putting myself into his mind, believes this proves overall he is the greatest everything. Add this to his being able to grab any woman by the genitals and having people kowtow to him cements this belief in his conception of himself.

If the personal slogan “I Am the Greatest” wasn’t already taken I wouldn't be surprised if Trump adopted it. He has basically said that he’s the greatest president ever. 

There’s no way he could say it the way Muhammad Ali did. Consider his own ballad:

This is the legend of Cassius Clay, 
The most beautiful fighter in the world today.

He talks a great deal, and brags indeed-y, 
Of a muscular punch that's incredibly speedy. 
The fistic world was dull and weary, 
But with a champ like Liston, things had to be dreary. 
Then someone with color, someone with dash, 
Brought fight fans a-runnin' with cash. 
This brash young boxer is something to see. 
And the heavyweight championship is his destiny. 
This kid fights great. He's got speed and endurance. 
But if you sign to fight him, increase your insurance. 
This kid's got a left. This kid's got a right. 
If he hits you once, you're asleep for the night. 
And as you lie on the floor while the ref counts ten, 
you pray that you won't have to fight me again. 
For I am the man this poem is about, 
the next champ of the world, there isn't a doubt....

Trump does have this proof that he’s the greatest. 

Muhammad Ali had this:

Mumammad Ali proved he had character by taking a stand against the Vietnam War, being a conscientious objector, and being willing to go to prison for this (see reference).

Ali had character. Trump is a character. 

If I could muster up some empathy for him I might be saddened by anyone who would think it was amusing joke about his being the next pope and posting an image of himself as a pope.

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Eventually Trump will say "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead," only for him the torpedoes will be nothing more than Nerf balls.

  Trump may or may not know that it was David Farragut (pictured in the old drawing used in a WWI recruitment post, shown above) who is alle...