The Fourth

243 years ago, the Second Continental Congress recognized that the American Colonies, at least the northern ones, had been at war with the British Empire for over a year.

(Open this link in a new tab and listen as you read.)

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Shorter Trump: Cruelty Isn't a Bug, It's a Feature

President Trump said on Wednesday that migrants were “living far better” in Border Patrol detention centers than in their home countries, one day after his own administration reported that children in some facilities were denied hot meals or showers, and that cells were so crowded that migrants begged to be freed.

Trump has made it obvious: The cruelty on public display has been encouraged by Trump and his Chief Brownshirt Stephen Miller.

Trump sucks up to dictators, jokes about killing reporters, gives short shrift to our allies, and does everything he can do to stomp on minorities of all types. Trump is a wannabee dictator, a fascist.

The truly sad thing about this country is the tens of millions of people who are fine with that. The wealthy have always hated democracy, there's no surprise that. But what is surprising is that most people would seem to have a stake in a nation that follows the rule of law and treats people with fairness and respect.

But they don't.

On this Fourth of July, I will say this: If you support Trump, you have no business taking any pride in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. You have no moral right to take pride in the American Experiment. You are no patriot.

Affluenza is Dropping Off in New Jersey

Two judges in New Jersey who were giving rich kids a break when they rape girls got their knuckles rapped by the appellate courts. One of the perps recorded his rape and repeatedly shared it with his friends. The judge thought that was just peachy, because the kid came from a good family, was an eagle scout and had high test scores, so he denied the state's motion to prosecute the perp as an adult.

Of course, if the perp had been Tyrone from the 'hood, the judge would have bound the kid over to adult court in a nanosecond, which the appellate court implied.

The appellate courts are signaling that the "rich boys will be boys, whaddya want" attitude of some judges is unacceptable.

As it always should have been.

Ten Years Ago on This Here Blog

Cagers and Donorcycles.

What I didn't mention, then, was that there was a kid in my college class that was in the same type of motorcycle-car accident as AD was. In that kid's case, he was in the hospital, in traction, for weeks. He had on a hip-to-ankle cast for a while after that.

With the proliferation of smartphones, it probably has only gotten worse.

King Donnie's Parade

Mr. Trump said that “brand-new Abrams tanks” and “brand-new Sherman tanks” would be on display on Thursday.

The last Sherman tank rolled off the production line at the Pressed Steel Car Company 74 years ago this month.

No doubt that Trump thinks that this is what the Army uses for "armored cavalry":

No Doubt that Republicans Will Defend the Indefensible

A report from an internal US watchdog has found "dangerous overcrowding" in migrant detention centres in the south and urged authorities to act.

Jarring photos of facilities in the Rio Grande show 51 female migrants held in a cell made for 40 men, and 71 males held in a cell built for 41 women.

Adults were packed in standing room only cells for a week, with others held in overcrowded cells for over a month.

One facility manager called the situation "a ticking time bomb".

"We are concerned that overcrowding and prolonged detention represent an immediate risk to the health and safety of [Department of Homeland Security] agents and officers, and to those detained," inspectors said in the report.

Cramming people in standing-room-only cells for a week? I'm sorry, but that's some Nazi-grade treatment.[1]

Please note that these descriptions are coming from DHS's own internal watchdogs, not from a bunch of squishy Congressmen.

This is who we are, a nation that tolerates industrial-scale cruelty from an administration that couldn't care less. This is the face that we are projecting to the world.

Heckovajob, Donnie.
________________________________________________
[1] No, I'm not sorry.  If you want to understand what happened in Germany in the 1930s, look at what is happening here, now, in the United States.

I’ve spent my entire life trying to figure out how the entire nation of Germany, all of its ordinary citizens living in cities and towns and villages across the country, could have stood by while their own government rounded up people and stuck them in hastily built, disgusting concentration camps, and then proceeded to kill them by gas or bullets or starvation or overwork or disease or simple filth and neglect.

This was the week I think I finally understood it. What happened in Nazi Germany didn’t affect their own lives, it happened away from them, it happened to “others,” to people who were not like them, whom they had been conditioned to hate, and it happened at the direction of a leader they admired and revered. And it happened with the overt or tacit approval of their fellow citizens all around them.
This is what is happening in our country right now, right this minute, right in front of us.

Change of Pace

Instead of writing about El Jefe de Mar-a-Lago's corruption of the Fourth of July or the fact that he has to use paid foreign models to stand in for his supporters, let's look at something a little different.

LAPD gear in the 1970s:

Here is a better photo of the gear:

The revolver, a S&W Model 67, has a barrel that is significantly heavier than the standard barrel. I've been told that the LAPD armorers were well versed in doing barrel work on S&W revolvers. When the LAPD moved from 6" Model 14s to 4" Model 15s in the late 1960s (a change you can see if you watch old episodes of Adam-12), a lot of those Model 14s had barrels that were shortened to 4" by the department armorers.

What Trump Has Wrought on Iran

Thanks to Trump, the Euros have created an alternative banking system to get around American sanctions on Iran.

The governments of France, Germany and the United Kingdom have developed a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to enable European businesses to maintain non-dollar trade with Iran without breaking U.S. sanctions. That SPV, known as INSTEX, is now up and running.

Note that Russia, China, Japan and other countries are interested in joining INSTEX.

What this may lead to is a long-held goal of the EU, the Russians and the Chinese: Replacing the dollar as a global currency. Trumps grandstanding and going-it-alone on Iran may very well hasten that happening.

Good job, Donnie.

Shorter CBP: "9,500 is Only A Few."

There's a formerly-secret Facebook group of Border Patrol agents, which is pretty much a cesspot of racism and sexism.

Members of a secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol agents joked about the deaths of migrants, discussed throwing burritos at Latino members of Congress visiting a detention facility in Texas on Monday and posted a vulgar illustration depicting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez engaged in oral sex with a detained migrant, according to screenshots of their postings.

And now, the bullshit:

"These posts are completely inappropriate and contrary to the honor and integrity I see—and expect—from our agents day in and day out," U.S. Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost said in a statement.

Cue up the whining about "a few bad apples":

"We take all the posts that were put out today very seriously. These do not represent the thoughts of the men and women of the US Border Patrol. Each one of these allegations will be thoroughly investigated," said US Border Patrol Chief of Operations Brian Hastings...

What Trump Has Wrought

Iran has breached a 300kg (660lb) limit on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium set under a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, sources say.

One told Iran's Fars news agency that the International Atomic Energy Agency had measured the stockpile on Monday.

Make no mistake, this is on Trump. He recklessly pulled out of the Iranian nuclear deal, hoping that he could bully Iran into giving into a deal more to Trump's liking.

It hasn't happened.

There was a chance to bring Iran back into the world community, which Trump threw away because anything negotiated by Obama has to be bad. That is his motivation, "Obama bad, Trump good". Trump would impose a ban on AR-15s if Obama had had range time on one.

More broadly, the US government bleats about Iran being a state supporter of terrorism, but they continue give a free pass to the Saudis, which have aggressively spread a hate-based version of Islam around the world. It's been well-documented that the Saudis have provided aid and comfort to all manner of terrorist groups, including al Qaeda and ISIS, if they agreed not to bother the Saudis.

To shift gears a little, color me "unimpressed" over Trump's latest stunt with one of the more murderous dictators on the globe. Trump is a showman, or, less charitably, a circus act. While they say that lower-level negotiations will begin again soon, those will be farcical. North Korea has nuclear weapons and they are not about to give them up. Trump may promise that there will be a better life for North Koreans, but Kim Jong Un doesn't care. His family runs the country, they have for generations. In a country beset by repeated famines, Kim appears to be morbidly obese. The Kim dynasty well know that a people obsessed with filling their bellies every day aren't going to ask for higher things, such as freedom. In short, there is likely nothing that Trump can offer Kim to get an agreement.

Any lower-level negotiation involving the United States is farcical, nowadays. There is no American team anymore. What we have, instead, is an impressionable toddler with no impulse control at the top. So no matter what deal is reached, Trump can, and has, whimsically throw the whole thing away. Other nations are slowly realizing that any negotiation that doesn't directly involve Trump will be risky and, quite possibly, a huge waste of time.