#12 | #13 Blame the victim.

Quelle surprise.

The homeless just arent like us

Luke 14:12-14
He said also to the one who had invited him, When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.'

Luke 16:19-25
There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man's table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried.

Luke 11:39-42
Then the Lord said to him, Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you. But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God.'

Luke 12:16-21
Then he told them a parable: The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' Then he said, I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.'

The homeless just arent like us

Luke 4:16-19
When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.'

Matthew 25:34-36
Then the king will say to those at his right hand, Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.'

Mark 10:21-22
Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.' When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

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Francis Fukuyama: The prominent political scientist, and one-time neoconservative, actually shared his views on YouTube on Sunday, but they didn't get public attention until yesterday. In the latest installment of Frankly Fukuyama, the Stanford prof opined:

I want to say this straight out: as an American, I have one thing to say to my many European friends"do not back down in this confrontation. Up to now, both the E.U. and the major European powers have sought to appease Trump by offering him concessions, flattery, personal gifts, and other forms of tribute. This strategy has not worked and should be abandoned immediately. Donald Trump is fundamentally a bully who wants to dominate everyone around him.

Trying to placate him with concessions is a fool's errand. He despises weakness and those who display it. Last spring, the E.U. cut a trade deal with him that accepted a 15% tariff on all European goods with no retaliation against American products. This was a bad decision. The E.U., which in terms of population and wealth is on a par with the United States, should have taken a common position and retaliated. What makes any European think that conceding Greenland will mollify Trump? He will simply come back for more later.

The arguments that Europeans have used for a concessionary policy is that they are still dependent on the United States for security and need help in dealing with Russia. They also argue that they don't want to provoke a mutually destructive trade war. But at this point, Trump's America has amply demonstrated that it will not be a reliable ally when push comes to shove.

It has already abandoned Ukraine and stated in its national security strategy document that Europe has fallen behind the Western Hemisphere in terms of American priorities. Europeans should keep in mind that those countries that stood up to Trump's threats in 2025, which include Brazil, India, and China, have actually done well for themselves. They've increased domestic support, and in the case of China, they forced America to back down.

My European friends need to keep in mind that Donald Trump is not the United States. A majority of Americans are dismayed and outraged by his policies, and they will likely vote against him and the Republican Party in the coming November election. It may be the case that the world will have to suffer a global recession as more countries stand up to Trump and retaliate against his policies. But a U.S. politician who wants to weaponize trade and use it as an instrument for territorial aggrandizement really needs to be stopped. Thanks for listening.

We don't see anything there we disagree with. And we are confident that world leaders and their advisors, around the globe, have done this same analysis. They just can't say it out loud, like Fukuyama can.

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Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a "right of ownership" anyway? There are no written documents, it's only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.

Thank you!

President DJT

How much of something like this does Trump really believe? You never know, but it's probably a lot. For the record, Trump did not stop eight wars plus, there are MANY written documents (including some signed by the U.S.) confirming Demark's relationship with Greenland, Trump has done nothing for NATO (much less more than any person since its founding), and "a boat landed there hundreds of years ago" could also describe the United States' claim to ITS territory.

We'll also note the disrespect entailed in using the PM's given name, rather than his title and last name. There's also the problem of holding Store responsible for what the Norwegian Nobel Committee does; that's like blaming Trump if Leonardo DiCaprio does not win the Oscar for Best Actor this year. Finally, note that this administration does not seem to notice (or maybe it doesn't care about) the implications of its words. That first sentence makes very clear that, at least up until this year's Nobel Peace Prize was announced, Trump was sometimes putting his personal needs ahead of those of the United States. But at least he's not going to do that anymore. Right?

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What it amounts to is that there MIGHT be states that would allow themselves to be invaded by ICE, without much in the way of complaint. We are not sure what states those might be, but they COULD exist. What we do know is that Minnesota definitely is not one of them. Certainly it's not a state that WE would want to try to impose our wills upon. And that's before you add in the cherry on the sundae, at it were, namely what season of year it is. There's a humorous observation going around right now, first brought to our attention by reader P.K. in Marshalltown, IA, that goes like this: "ICE made the decision to attack a city... full of the descendants of Vikings... in the middle of the winter."

The most prominent figures in pushing back against the Trump government, of course, are Walz and Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey. Walz has mobilized, and is getting ready to deploy, the Minnesota National Guard to protect his citizens. Trump may well try to seize control, but recall that the law says that's only legal when states are refusing to enforce federal law (most obviously, this happened during the Civil Rights Movement). If the White House does try to take over, it will claim that is what is going on here, and Walz will run to court so fast that it will make Trump's head spin. At that point, the administration will have to try to convince a judge that what it's doing is legal, and what Walz is doing is illegal. This is not likely to turn out the way the administration wants.

Meanwhile, Frey has been all over the media, and has been sharing some strongly worded verbiage. For example, he appeared on Face the Nation on Sunday and referred to ICE as an "occupying force." He added that "This is not about safety. What this is about is coming into our city by the thousands and terrorizing people simply because they're Latino or Somali. And yeah, people in Minneapolis are speaking up. They're speaking up peacefully."

Some of Frey's widely circulated remarks have been, uh, a bit less family-friendly. Still, he's young (44), and a man of conviction, and he's very charismatic and telegenic. He could well have a future at the state, or national, level. And with Walz being somewhat calmer and older and wiser, they make a pretty interesting pairing, something along the lines of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker, or Jean-Luc Picard and Will Riker, or Batman and Robin.

In addition, the citizenry of Minneapolis (and other places in Minnesota) is up in arms, and is taking it to the street, despite the frigid temperatures. There have been a lot of protests and protesters, and, as Slate's Aymann Ismail writes, they are turning into a disciplined resistance movement. Their anti-ICE activities have become regularized (e.g., people taking assigned shifts monitoring agents) and they are developing a vocabulary appropriate to the context (e.g., tailing ICE agents in unmarked cars is now known as "commuting"). These are folks who look to be in it for the duration, however long ICE decides to remain in town.

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This story is on our minds, of course, because the Minneapolis mess just keeps growing and growing in scope. This series began as a single item, and then we accepted that it would have to be two parts, then three, then four. Well, we've done the first three parts, plus an intermission, and today we have Part IV. And guess what? We are going to have to do at least two parts AFTER this one. Today, we are going to insert an item that just updates everyone on all the drama since the last time we wrote about this subject. Then, tomorrow, we'll (hopefully) be able to proceed on to an item about the other acts of violence from ICE, and then finally we will do an item about the response thus far. Maybe we'll complete it this week, though the universe might have different ideas. For now, the latest:

Minnesota Resists

There aren't too many states that have a more interesting political culture than the North Star State. It's center/center-left, of course, but beyond that there's a strong current of self-reliance, and some populism, and a fair bit of rebelliousness. There is a reason that this is the state that give election victories to Hubert H. Humphrey, Paul Wellstone, Al Franken, Gov. Tim Walz (DFL-MN), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (DFL-MN) Jesse Ventura and Walter Mondale, among others. Those are some pretty different kinds of politicians (excepting the Wellstone/Franken pairing and maybe the Humphrey/Mondale pairing), but they all express well-established elements of the Minnesota milieu.

#4 I was in Orlando for a week-long seminar in the late 1990s.

There was a space shuttle launch scheduled for the week I was there. And it was scheduled to takeoff around 4:00am.

I set the alarm for 3:30am or so and went out to the front of the hotel where I was staying. Conveniently, the hotel entrance faced due east.

Shortly after 4:00am, the eastern sky lit up as if the sun was rising, then the rocket was in plain view as it accelerated into the sky.

It was breathtaking, JPW.

I hope you and your son can see a launch in person.

#37 Not to worry, JPW.

#134 And BJ boi correctly and succinctly describes the Trumpf and his minions: "...sound like children having tantrums because the adults want them to obey rules."

As it turns out, the adults wanting Trumpf and his minions to obey the rules are liberals.

And the child having tantrums (plural) is Pedodent Trumpf himself.

Great job highlighting that, BJ boi.

#8 Yep.

The 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution has done absolutely nothing positive for the USA.

Nothing positive whatsoever.

#40 Want to know a place where "conservatives" are never, ever blocked/plonked?

Stormfront.

#40 Have you once thought that maybe, just maybe, you're at the top of that list because you are stupid, illiterate, gullible, and naive?

Something you display every time you vomit out your barely legible nonsense?