DCUM Weblog

On Saturday, over 7 million people participated in "No Kings" rallies held across the United States. The events were almost completely peaceful, for the most part resembling street celebrations. A woman in Alabama who was wearing an inflatable penis costume was arrested for "lewd conduct," and a handful of MAGA supporters were detained for various reasons, but police officials generally praised the demonstrators for their conduct. The broad resonance of the "No Kings" message was clearly displayed. Not surprisingly, the reaction of the current administration, which is mostly staffed by Internet trolls, was to troll. In doing so, administration officials reinforced rather than rebutted the message that cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump relishes the idea of being a king.

Following the murder of Charlie Kirk, there were outcries from many Republicans to “turn the temperature down" and to stop the use of heated rhetoric that had become commonplace. Republicans were particularly enraged that some Democrats referred to them as "fascists" or even “Nazis," and Republicans demanded an end to the use of such language. In response, some Democrats suggested that ending the practice of masked, unidentified Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents grabbing individuals — including American citizens — off the street and detaining them in concentration camps would be a better way to halt such comparisons. Republicans, however, have now changed their tune and are now apparently in favor of using the type of language they so recently criticized.

Things reached a pinnacle this week when White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt went before television cameras to assert that "The Democrat [sic] Party's main constituency is made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals." Republicans have spent years whining about Hillary Clinton claiming that "half of [cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald] Trump's supporters" could be put into a "basket of deplorables". Yet, saying that essentially all Democrats are terrorists, undocumented foreign migrants, or violent criminals is completely acceptable these days. This is how Republicans lower the temperature. For reasons that I will leave to the reader to deduce, Democrats will not spend the next decade feeling sorry for themselves because of Leavitt's remark. In fact, it will be almost entirely forgotten by next week.

Wikipedia defines "reply guy" as "an internet slang term for someone who excessively responds to social media posts, often in an annoying, condescending, or overly familiar or flirtatious manner." Leaving the flirtatious manner part of this aside, I have long believed that Vice President JD Vance is the epitome of a reply guy. So much of a reply guy, in fact, that he does not limit the practice to responding to social media posts, but acts the same way in regard to offline interactions as well. Both online and in real life, Vance has developed the "annoying" and "condescending" traits of a reply guy to an art form.

The first thing that you should understand about JD Vance is that nearly everything about him is fake. He is not a hillbilly, for instance. He did not grow up on a hill in Appalachia, but rather was raised in a middle-class household in suburban Cincinnati, Ohio. JD Vance is not even his original name, but actually the third (or perhaps even fourth) name that he has had. When he was born, he was named James Donald Bowman. When he was around six years old and was adopted by his then-stepfather, his name was changed to James David Hamel. That is the name he used until just before graduating from Yale Law School in 2013. At that time, he assumed the name "J.D. Vance," with periods as he wrote in Hillbilly Elegy, "like jay-dot-dee-dot". Somewhere along the way, the dots were dropped and the official page on whitehouse.gov identifies the Vice President as "JD Vance". Vance was not originally a Trump supporter, once describing himself as "a Never Trump guy". He wrote an op-ed in the New York Times titled, "Mr. Trump Is Unfit For Our Nation’s Highest Office." Vance even suggested that cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump could be "America’s Hitler." Now, of course, he has nothing but praise for Trump. The only certainty about Vance is that he will willingly change anything about himself if it will further his own advancement. As it turns out, this is a useful trait for a reply guy.

I have written repeatedly about cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump's cognitive decline. Anyone who has ever spent any amount of time around a person suffering from senility knows that such individuals have a tendency to get fixated on particular subjects. Trump has a handful of such fixations (the word “groceries," for example), but one that has surfaced more recently is his preoccupation with heaven and, more specifically, whether he is likely to go there. This interest coincides with a number of troubling health indicators for the President. For instance, Trump has repeatedly appeared with the back of his right hand looking as if it has been used for a blood draw or IV insertion. The White House attributed this to bruising as a result of shaking hands. More recently, Trump announced a visit to Walter Reed Medical Center for his "routine yearly checkup," despite having had a similar "annual" checkup in April. Trump has also been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, which has resulted in his ankles being swollen. Whether this explains Trump's sudden interest in heaven can only be speculation. Trump's comments about heaven, and more specifically the likelihood that it will be his ultimate destination, have opened a window into his thinking about religion.

The federal government is currently shut down due to the failure by Congress to pass fiscal year 2026 spending bills. The House of Representatives has passed a short-term bill to continue funding at levels previously passed by Congress — known as a continuing resolution — but the Senate has repeatedly failed to invoke cloture and allow a vote on the bill. Most Democratic Senators have voted against cloture, essentially utilizing the filibuster, because they want to use that leverage to negotiate concessions by Republicans. Publicly, Democrats have suggested that they are seeking an extension of the enhanced premium tax credits for health insurance plans purchased through the Health Insurance Marketplace. But what exactly are these tax credits and why are they important? I have been purchasing my family's health insurance through the District of Columbia's health care exchange, DC Health Link, since it opened in 2014. My family has benefited from the enhanced premium tax credits beginning with their introduction in mid-2021. Therefore, I can discuss this topic not only from a theoretical point of view, but based on personal experience as well.

Yesterday I wrote about the roundtable held the previous day by cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump to discuss Antifa. In addition to Trump administration officials, participants included several right-wing influencers. One point that I stressed is that these influencers work hand-in-hand with the administration to both provide justification for and generate acceptance of the administration's policies. In this respect, the influencers have an important propaganda role for the administration. The role of the influencers during the roundtable was to create a convincing argument that Antifa exists and presents a violent threat in order to justify Trump's plans to deploy military forces to American cities. In reality, Antifa in the United States is simply an ideological movement with no organizational structure. But Trump's cognitive state is such that he is incapable of distinguishing reality from illusion. Moreover, Trump is surrounded by those for whom his delusions serve their own ends. Therefore, the influencers were not only expected to create a false narrative for the American public, but for Trump as well. Given the outsized role now played by these influencers, it is worth knowing more about them.

Yesterday, cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump held a roundtable on Antifa. The participants included a number of high-ranking Trump administration officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Kash Patel (apparently referred to within the White House as "a giant douche canoe"), and world-class hater Stephen Miller (who remained silent). In addition, there were a number of so-called "journalists" who were in reality right-wing influencers. They included Nick Sortor, Jack Posobiec, Cam Higby, Jonathan Choe, Andy Ngo, Katie Daviscourt, James Klug, Savanah Hernandez, Nick Shirley, Brandi Kruse, and Julio Rojas. While apparently aimed at shedding light on Antifa, the roundtable was actually an exercise in disinformation, lies, and propaganda.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is making significant investments in social media monitoring. Information gleaned from social media sources will be integrated into existing databases to allow investigators increased visibility into individuals being scrutinized and provide additional information to identify potential targets. While these tools are initially being developed to focus on residents who lack legal status to remain in the U.S., there is an obvious danger that they may eventually be used to surveil U.S. citizens as well. These systems provide an additional weapon for an increasingly pervasive surveillance state.

The heart of ICE's data analysis system is its Investigative Case Management (ICM) system provided by Palantir. As Wired reports, this system combines "disparate streams of data into a single investigative platform." The system "lets agents search people using hundreds of categories, from immigration status and country of origin to scars, tattoos, and license-plate reader data." According to a 2016 Privacy Impact Assessment of ICM, "ICE collects information from a wide variety of internal and external sources". Such sources include reports generated from information provided by ICE agents and other individuals; tracking information provided by cellular services, surveillance cameras, and license plate readers; and other federal databases including the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) System, and several Customs and Border Patrol databases. Users of the system may also add data from commercially available databases. Essentially, ICM has combined as much information about individuals as the government has been able to obtain into one system. The online publication 404 Media reported on ICM last April and said:

Republicans have a child sex problem. To be sure, far too many Democrats have also been caught behaving inappropriately with children. However, Republicans appear to be particularly prone to being caught having sex with children or trafficking child pornography. Connections to sex with children reach to the top of the Republican party, where cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump and Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson are both doing their utmost to keep information related to Jeffrey Epstein hidden from the public. The problem extends downward throughout Republican leaders across the nation.

Let's start with Epstein. In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to procuring for prostitution a girl under the age of 18. As punishment, Epstein served less than 13 months in prison in very cushy conditions. Trump later appointed the prosecutor who agreed to this sweetheart deal to be the Secretary of Labor. In 2019, Epstein was arrested again and, this time, charged with sex trafficking and conspiracy to traffic minors for sex. Subsequently, Epstein was found dead in his jail cell, officially as a result of suicide. Much of the evidence collected during the Epstein investigation has been withheld from the public. Releasing the so-called "Epstein files" became a central issue of the MAGA movement, promoted by, among others, Kesh Patel and Dan Bongino, the current number 1 and number 2 officials in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. When they assumed office, Patel and Bongino — along with Attorney General Pam Bondi — promised a quick release of the files. There was particular interest in what has been called Epstein's "client list," allegedly a list of powerful individuals who Epstein provided with often underage women for sexual encounters. At one point, Bondi announced that the list was "sitting on my desk right now to review."

On Friday, I wrote about a military-style operation launched by federal agencies, including Customs and Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in Chicago, which involved agents rappelling from a helicopter. This militarization of federal agencies is a concerning step in cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump's efforts to establish authoritarian rule. Over the weekend, Trump initiated a number of additional steps towards establishing military control of American cities. This involved attempts by Trump to deploy National Guard troops to cities over the opposition of local political leaders.

Trump's first deployment of National Guard troops, as well as regular military forces, was in Los Angeles. The federal use of military forces, including the National Guard, for law enforcement purposes is restricted in the United States by the Posse Comitatus Act. Trump deployed the troops under the authority of Title 10 of the U.S. Code, Section 12406. This provision allows the National Guard to be called into federal service when the U.S. is being invaded, there is a rebellion, or regular law enforcement is not able to execute federal law. Because none of these conditions applied in Los Angeles, California Governor Gavin Newsom sued the Trump Administration. A federal District Judge, Charles Breyer, decided in favor of Newsom and ruled that the National Guard units were subject to the Posse Comitatus Act and had unlawfully engaged in law enforcement. However, Breyer's decision is currently stayed.