The Dumbest Man in Trump's Cabinet Has an Idea

(Not that there isn't some insane competition for that title.)

This is his bad idea:

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin says his office is “drawing up” plans to pull Customs and Border Protection agents from airports in “sanctuary” cities, which would make it illegal for international flights to land there.

The threat comes in response to protests outside an immigrant detention center in Newark, N.J., where demonstrators claim conditions are inhumane. Mullin dismissed those claims and doubled down, pointing to Newark’s airport, which handled 24.5 million international passengers last year.

NYC metro airports receive 50 million passengers a year from international flights. San Francisco recieves nearly 16 million/year. LAX, 11.77 million. You can find the numbers for other such airports inf you care. We're probably talking about 75 million passengers a year coming through those aiports. And Mullen's going to fuck with them at a time when this country is one of the few in the world to see drops in tourism (Russia's likely the other one).

Besides that, a number of those international flights are the subject of agreements with other governments. Cancel those landing rights and US airlines might find their slots canceled as well.

Markwayne couldn't outsmart a one-door mailbox. But sure, go ahead, Markwayne, fuck with the global air transport system. Let's see how bad it can get.

But he won't, because Markwayne doesn't have the balls.

2025

In an image:

2025 was worse than 2024 and I have no optimism that 2026 will be better than 2025. The Right seems to be fully onboard with the destruction of democracy and the installation of His Fraudulency, King Donald of Bronzer. The Democrats in Congress seem largely feckless.

Not all of the Right has buckled. Grandpa Sundowner pushed Indiana too hard and they didn't like it. As for the Democrats, their leaders in Congress seem to be addicted to tut-tutting as a response.

As for the media, well, a couple of cartoons summed it up:

Oligarchs bought up the companies that control most news outlets and then used that control to bend them to Trump. If they were hesitant, Trump had no qualms signaling that he'd use his power to fuck with their companies. So Larry Ellison, who owns Paramount, put a Trump-loving sycophant in charge of CBS News, who promptly spiked a 60 Minutes story that was unfavorable to the Administration (after he terminated Stephen Colbert's show). Bezos, who is trying hard to get into the rocket biz, muzzled the Washington Post's editorial section and forced out Ann Telnaes (the cartoon that precipitated that is the second one, above).

The only way this gets fixed is if we do it. If we vow, for the duration of Trumpism, to not vote for a Republican for any office whatsover, right down to the Town Dogcatcher. Maybe the non-Trump conservatives can assemble and for a new party, for the GOP may be irrevocably tainted by its slavish devotion to a corrupt wannabee dictator.

But we have to vote. For something like 35% of this country hates the fact that the rest of us can have a say. They want to repeal the Civil Rights Act, as well as the 14th and 19th Amendments. They want to repeal the Married Women's Property Acts. They want to repeal no-fault divorce to make it harder for women to get out of abusive marriages. And I have zero doubt that they want to make husbands immune from spousal violence laws.

The only way to stop this in a civil matter is to vote those fuckers out.