< Notes...

Israel attacking Iran is not a good news. War is never a good news, and it is not one I want to read about right before going to sleep. “The only winning move is not to play.”

To add to the current state of affairs—if you live in the US, you should know everything else that’s happening—we now have a president selling US citizenships under his name, and a Secretary of State celebrating Russia National Day. Yet, Kamala was the “communist” one. Ain’t that right? 😏

I didn’t know Christy Walton, but now I do, and I like her very much. If you can, participate! Look for your city, or nearby, in their map.

Who is going to work the fields now? Point me to a fellow American willing to do it, for the pay they do it, can you? Ugh.

“They’re just taking innocent people who are trying to build their own American Dream,” said Daniel Larios with the UFW Foundation. “This is not law enforcement. It’s a campaign of fear against people whose only ‘crime’ is living and working in the U.S.”

This is disruptive, unnecessary, cruel, and it will affect us all, minus the rich—those are pretty much affected by nothing.

If you read this on a newspaper from Cuba, Iran, or North Korea, it would not surprise you, right?

“The Department of the Interior is requiring the National Park Service (NPS) to post signage at all sites across the country by June 13, asking visitors to offer feedback on any information that they feel portrays American history and landscapes in a negative light.”

I really don’t want to turn overly politicised. I don’t intent to; but when the president of the United States of America becomes Putin’s messenger¹, well, that’s not something I cannot not mention.

“‘We discussed the attack on Russia’s docked airplanes, by Ukraine, and also various other attacks that have been taking place by both sides²,’ Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “It was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate Peace.”

“President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields,” he went on."

She is astoundingly ignorant, clueless, and detestable, don’t you think? How and why do we keep electing people like her to vote, and make decisions on our behalf?

“Full transparency, I did not know about this section on pages 278-279 of the OBBB that strips states of the right to make laws or regulate AI for 10 years.

I am adamantly OPPOSED to this and it is a violation of state rights and I would have voted NO if I had known this was in there.”

“‘Treating them with blanket suspicion not only violates principles of fairness, due process, and our democratic values – it sends a chilling message to the world that America no longer welcomes global talent,’ she wrote.”

I know I already mentioned something related to this, I just find it mind-boggling (I know, it shouldn’t surprise me, but here I am) that our current regime has decided to do something like this. I am stumped.

This marriage is truly over, unless one of the couple sacrifices themselves to keep the relationship alive a little bit longer.

“Elon Musk has hit out at President Donald Trump’s signature tax and spending bill, saying he “can’t stand” the legislation and describing it as a ‘disgusting abomination’”.
“‘Shame on those who voted for it,’ Musk said in a post on X on Tuesday.”

“You know, there are things that I don’t entirely agree with. But it’s difficult for me to bring that up in an interview because then it creates a bone of contention. So then, I’m a little stuck in a bind, where I’m like, well, I don’t wanna, you know, speak up against the administration, but I also don’t wanna take responsibility for everything this administration’s doing.”

Now we know “the rest of the story”, eh? Things were not as they seemed to be at Pleasantville, yes? What else is happening at the House of TACO?

Nothing, absolutely nothing about this regime surprises me. That’s obvious because of their past, and current behaviour. It is also worrisome; are we desensitising?

“He also took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms at private gatherings across the United States and in at least one other country, according to those who attended the events.”

I mean, read the whole thing. That’s the guy the current regime chose to spearhead the Department of Government Efficiency (is that even an official department?). Absolutely abhorrent.

If this weren’t so dangerous, I would laugh. Yes, this isn’t laughing matter. It is worrisome, it is scary, and it is barely starting.

“The 73-page “Make America healthy again” report – which was commissioned by the Trump administration to examine the causes of chronic illness, and which Kennedy promoted it as “gold-standard” science backed by more than 500 citations – includes references to seven studies that appear to be entirely invented, and others that the researchers say have been mischaracterized.”

President TACO considered it a “nasty” question when a reporter asked him for his response to the recently coined acronym, and “name” for him.

“Six months ago, this country was stone cold dead. We had a dead country. We had a country that people didn’t think it was going survive,” Trump said. “And you ask a nasty question like that. It’s called negotiation.” — “Don’t ever say what you said because that’s a nasty question.”

“Japanese universities and students are scrambling for information after the U.S. government paused its student visa application process just as preparations for overseas study from the new academic year get underway.”

This is so unneccessary, so uncaring, so absurd. It accomplishes nothing, and places an unneeded burden on international students which enrich our country, and contribute to our economy. To mention two, Sundar Pichai, Alphabet’s and Google’s CEO, was an international student. So was Sergei Brin, the co-founder of Google.

President “TACO” sure is fitting and ironic for someone who is, amongst many, many, many other negative traits, a racist.

“The U.S. Republican president’s tendency to levy extremely high import taxes and then retreat has created what’s known as the “TACO” trade, an acronym coined by The Financial Times’ Robert Armstrong that stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out.” Markets generally sell off when Trump makes his tariff threats and then recover after he backs down.”

This is not to say that we are out of trouble. Far from that, we are in a deep, deep mess. I don’t think our democracy will survive. Yet, if it weren’t for our judges (not the sycophant ones), we would be in much much worse shape as a nation.

“On Wednesday, the Court of International Trade, the primary federal legal body overseeing such matters, found that Mr. Trump’s tariffs “exceed any authority granted” to the president by the emergency powers law. Ruling in separate cases brought by states and businesses, a bipartisan panel of three judges essentially declared many, but not all, of Mr. Trump’s tariffs to have been issued illegally.”

In the US we are now living in a Soviet era period of hypernormalisation, which “captures this juxtaposition of the dysfunctional and mundane”. Hypernormalisation describes life in a society where two main things are occurring.

“The first is people seeing that governing systems and institutions are broken. And the second is that, for reasons including a lack of effective leadership and an inability to imagine how to disrupt the status quo, people carry on with their lives as normal despite systemic dysfunction – give or take a heavy load of fear, dread, denial and dissociation.”

In other words, “this is fine”, while fire burns everything down meme.

Le président Macron devrait le savoir depuis le temps, qu’il ne faut pas chercher Brigitte Macron. Tout le monde le sait, pourquoi pas lui? 😂

“Eichorn and four other Minnesota Republican senators proposed legislation to the Health and Human Services committee that would label “Trump Derangement Syndrome” as a mental illness.

Their bill describes the faux “syndrome” as the “acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump.”

And on the same day he was arrested.

“Senator Justin Eichorn was arrested Monday night around 6 p.m. for allegedly soliciting a minor for prostitution, according to a statement from the Bloomington Police Department.” […] “Eichorn, 40, is married and a father to four children. Police found two iPhone, an unopened Trojan condom and $129 in cash upon his arrest, according to the Guardian.”

As expected, Trump wrote expressive, warm, candid, full of love, respect, and remembrance words for today’s Memorial Day on his Truth Social account. I am not going to link to it, nor repeat them here; you can find them easily if you use your search engine of choice.

Whatever you do, do not go to Fox News’s comment section for a matching or related headline. You will shed IQ points fast, and lose faith in humanity.

I know it is a complex relationship—just like any other big company CEO—that of Tim Cook and Trump. Yet, Tim should have never donated money to Trump’s inauguration, nor attended to it. If favours were what he was after, he failed. He should have known better.

“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s [sic] that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” he said. “If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.”

Since when does a US president have the rights to interfere with free commerce, without congressional oversight?

The US House of Representatives (controlled by the GOP) approved Trump’s “one, big beautiful bill”, which “will add about $3.8 trillion to the federal government’s $36.2 trillion in debt over the next decade”. In case it wasn’t noticed, that’s trillions.

“The bill also slashes spending in other areas, including hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), while rescinding a series of clean energy tax credits passed by Democrats in 2022. And it raises the debt ceiling by $4 trillion.”
— NBC News

Well, well, well. This just keeps getting “better”, eh? But “criticism of Waltz”, according to Trump, was “unfair”. 🙄

“A hacker who breached the communications service used by former Trump national security adviser Mike Waltz earlier this month intercepted messages from a broader swathe of American officials than has previously been reported, according to a Reuters review, potentially raising the stakes of a breach that has already drawn questions about data security in the Trump administration.”

Oh boy! Half a trillion dollars for a “Golden Dome” aimed to do precisely what, and why?

“The Golden Dome, however, would be many times larger [than Isreal’s Iron Dome] and designed to combat a wider range of threats, including hypersonic weapons able to move faster than the speed of sound and fractional orbital bombardment systems—also called Fobs—that could deliver warheads from space.”

I was under the impression that Xi Jinping, together with Vladimir Putin were Trump’s “friends”. With the countries those two represent out of worry—they are “friends”, right?—who has the threat capability this upcoming “golden” dome is mean to protect us from?

I am sure all republican Venezuelans, specially those American citizens with family amongst the 350,000, are ecstatic at this news. As I told George, “Those in the cult feel no regrets. They will justify and excuse, as they burn down.”

We really don’t want that. Alarmingly, we are so close to it becoming a reality!

“Your argument seems to turn our justice system, in my view at least, into a catch me if you can kind of regime … where everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people’s rights.”

Listening to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, and, more importantly, reading about his beliefs on medical-related conspiracy theories, is as jarring as seeing a medical doctor smoking—or worse.

On last night’s debate Trump didn’t answer any questions, didn’t outline any plans. He rambled, lied, and trolled, every single time. In case there was any doubt, and though my vote—living in a red state—might seem worthless, I am voting for Kamala Harris.

I forgot to come around yesterday to drop a note to mark a transgression, an indignity, handed over the American people by our own Justices. Never too late, though. Not for this. A brief excerpt from Justice Sotomayor’s opinion.

“The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”

American democracy is in real peril. It is not an exageration.

Where there is smoke, there is fire. Little sparks are starting to flare out on Clarence Thomas. There must be more transparency, Justices are not above the law.

“Justice Clarence Thomas disclosed Thursday that Republican megadonor Harlan Crow paid for private jet trips for Thomas in 2022 to attend a speech in Texas and a vacation at Crow’s luxurious New York estate, as ethics questions continue to rock the Supreme Court.”

But Clarence is not alone. Samuel Alito has also shed some light.

Having anyone from either side (Democrat, or Republican) covering expenses, or otherwise doing anything with the purpose of gaining favour, or swaying a Justice should be considered illegal, unethical, and disqualifying.

“Despite having lost, the defendant was determined to remain in power”, prosecutors wrote. The 6 January 2021 riot was “fueled by lies” — Mr. Trump’s lies. The gigantic ignoramus also known as Donald Trump has been indicted—yes, again!—on four criminal charges relating to his involvement on the 6 January 2021 revolt.

From The New York Times :

1. Conspiracy to defraud the United States (1 count)
   The charge against Mr. Trump details the various methods he and co-conspirators used to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
2. Related to efforts to obstruct the vote certification proceedings (2 counts)
   Mr. Trump faces two charges involving the vote certification proceedings at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021: one of obstructing that process and one of conspiring to do so.
3. Conspiracy to violate civil rights (1 count)
   Related to Mr. Trump’s attempts to reverse election results in states with close elections in 2020.

The wheels of justice move slow, but thank goodness they move. I also found interesting what Will Hurd (a Republican presidential candidate) said about Trump:

“Trump’s presidential bid is driven by an attempt to stay out of prison and scam his supporters into footing his legal bills…”

Mike Pence declaring his presidential candidacy is a joke, just like Ron DeSantis, and Trump before them. But hey, look back at the four years we had to endure. Anything is possible. Yes, even that remotely unbelievable absurdity.

The president of a nation that is waging a war on another (being the aggressor!) is saying that the Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow is “a clear sign of terrorist activity.” Allow me to pull out the tiniest of all violins in my collection, to play something for Putin.

Why would any associate justice on the US Supreme Court by exempt from the law? Why do they enjoy such impunity? Who watches the watchmen?