When the government violates anyone’s Constitutional rights in order to protect oppressive policy decisions, citizens must object even if we personally are not yet targeted. To cave in only encourages police state enthusiasts. Martin Niemoller addressed this danger when speaking about the complacency of himself and prominent church élites in Germany during the 1930s cult takeover of German minds and institutions. “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Socialist, then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist, they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew, then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil was recently arrested and forced from his campus home by ICE agents ostensibly for advocating the university stop investing in Israeli companies as a protest for the Jewish government’s apartheid policies. He was whisked away from his family to locations unknown — maybe a prison in Louisiana.
A Tufts University grad student, Rumeysa Ozturk, was accosted, cuffed, and pulled off the street by six masked government agents to an unknown location. It is speculated that her offense was writing an Op-Ed about the Israeli atrocities committed against the Gaza civilians and petitioning the university to divest from Israeli companies in protest of Israel’s land theft and genocidal war practices.
These incidents are prime examples of the government jack-booting our First Amendment right to free speech. Alarmingly these arrests represent only the tip of the iceberg. The Trump-Bondi “Department of Justice” uses the fake anti-Semitism card as a favorite weapon against college students and administrators. In advocating a boycott to fight against dispossessing Palestinians of their property and human rights, Trump-Rubio construes this as supporting terrorism. The new administration now cancels green cards, arrests, and deports foreign students without providing legal recourse.
Citizens and noncitizens have basic protections from arbitrary arrest aside from the commission of violent crimes or a warrant specifying charges. Now they have stripped away the trappings of due process, with Trump-Rubio serving as prosecutor, judge, and jury.
In this Orwellian world, not being a Trump yes-man can be criminal. Palestinians are considered less than human and killed by the thousands, using the overwhelming force of U.S. bombs, drones, snipers, and missiles. The carnage from Israeli air strikes is particularly deadly on children. Those not killed or maimed directly by the blasts and shrapnel are crushed by collapsing walls. Utilizing starvation tactics, denying clean water deliveries, and sabotaging their medical establishment is another favored tactic. It seems that IDF targeted Palestinians are thought of in less regard by the American public than the terribly abused dogs and cats we frequently see aired on the ASPCA funding ads.
Most Americans would empathize if able to hear and see the conditions in the occupied Palestinian territories; yet few speak about the brutal treatments in Gaza and the West Bank. Money corrupts our U.S. information networks, and Israel assassinates Gaza reporters (over 200 killed). Insiders also know that investing in IDF ordinance supply vendors is a sure winner. The news-entertainment industry, spiritual leadership, and most lawyers and politicians in our country follow the profit motive. Americans receive mostly biased narratives of the conflict, spun to paint Israel as an innocent victim of bloodthirsty savages. Despite genocide, land seizure, apartheid policies, ceasefire violations, targeting journalists and aid workers, and a rabidly radical government, the U.S. always protects Israel from U.N. sanctions and World Court condemnations. Every administration and congress dutifully violates our own policies prohibiting sending weapons to countries that demonstrate wanton disregard for civilian lives, humanitarian restrictions, and treaties. Terrorism and high-tech arms are effectively erasing the occupied territory’s Palestinian presence.
Our inalienable rights now look optional, by the degrading way accused Venezuelan gang members are portrayed on TV. The Nazi SS-style roundup by hooded guards, chains, and the plane ride to a dreadful foreign prison is the Trump-Rubio version of eye candy. We are giving up our liberty bit by bit for short term satisfaction, provided with no proof of guilt.
Now the guys with masks and hoods are coming for students who dare to insinuate that this President and his friends enable Middle East injustice and inhumanity. Advocating boycotts to leverage a Two-State Solution is apparently something some of his wealthy campaign donors hate. Defunding universities is Trump-Rubio’s next ploy to crush the noncompliant campus speech that airs Israel’s dirty laundry.
We are already amidst the third phase of Niemoller’s warning. Staying quiet and voting for the same Democratic and Republican collaborators is an important step in the growth of our new Russian Style police state.
David Chye
Hesperia
Nothing familiar about this America
I feel as if I fell asleep and slept a long, long while and then awoke, Rip Van Winkle-ish, to a new United States America. It wasn’t a pleasant sleep and it is a brutal awakening. Never did I think that our nation would start an effort to “rid” ourselves of immigrants, to “rid” ourselves of compassion, to “rid” ourselves of constitutional rights, to”rid” ourselves of friendships and loyalty to our allies and to “rid” ourselves of common decency toward people who may speak, act and live differently than what this political administration has deemed “normal”.
Never did I think that an America would elect, worship and idolize a convicted felon, misogynist, vengeful manipulator and hateful oligarch who is in bed with dictators, billionaires and porn stars. How the hell long did I sleep? And, shame on me for sleeping during a time of upheaval and disregard for American ideals; namely equality, individualism, liberty, justice, human rights and, yes, democracy.
And, is it possible, that while I slept, millions of others were in a state of torpor as well?
Now, as I awake and look around I can’t help but feel like a stranger in a new land. We have a President who prefers dictators to democratic leaders, who prefers to threaten allies rather than defend allies, who disregards justice, who violates freedom of the press and who ignores our constitution to his own money-grabbing benefit.
In this new America there are 13 billionaires in Donald Trump’s cabinet (for reasons of comparison, it is estimated that there are 11 billionaires living in Michigan). The cabinet includes a former professional wrestling promoter charged with eliminating the Education Department, a software entrepreneur who is named Interior Secretary, the leader of the Small Business Administration who was the target of many ethics complaints centered around insider trading, a credit card processing CEO to lead NASA, and a pharmaceutical executive to lead the DOGE whose role, according to Trump, “is to cut the federal government down to size”. Multi-millionaires make up most of the rest other positions.
As Trump pledged to fight for “forgotten men and women” he hired a cabinet full of wealthy people who have never really seen the “poor side of town”. As Robert Reich, a former Labor Secretary, said, “It’s hard to conceive how the wealthiest set of Cabinet nominees and White House appointments in history will understand what average working people are going through”.
I have to ask, what do I have in common with any of the people in charge in this administration and why would I have any faith that any of these super rich oligarchs have my interests in mind? Ask yourself the same question. Does Linda McMahon care about you? Does non-elected government official Elon Musk care about you? Does Robert F. Kennedy Jr. care about you as he ignores science and science-based medicine over his own push to discredit vaccines?
These wealthy Cabinet designees stand to benefit personally from Trump’s tax ideas. Unless you are wealthy, you stand to lose and are poised to feel the hurt very soon. The market is crashing while your “Golf Club Champion” President has spent an estimated $27 million of taxpayer money this year playing golf and says between strokes, “The Market doesn’t concern me”! If that isn’t proof of the apathy in this administration toward you and your family, I’m thinking you are still asleep and oblivious to the changes that are steam rolling on.
I have used the term Oligarch several times and feel a definition is needed. According to Oxford Languages an oligarch is a “very rich business leader with a great deal of political influence”. Oligarchy is about the ability of an ultra-wealthy elite to shape political decision-making in ways to increase their own wealth. I have a hard time believing that Trump supporters are at ease with Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Linda McMahon, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos making decisions that put the average American on the back shelf as they work toward increasing their own wealth and power. Don’t agree? We’ve witnessed 150 billionaire families spend a total of $1.9 billion in support of presidential and congressional candidates in 2024. I’m guessing most of them were not concerned with your struggle to keep a grocery budget under control to feed your family.
These oligarchs are moving to Washington DC en masse in the past year. Mark Zuckerberg recently purchased a $23 million home in DC. Jeff Bezos now owns two mansions in DC. Jacqueline Mars, heiress of the Mars candy fortunes has a palace in DC. Peter Thiel, former CEO of Paypal, has bought a mansion in DC. The list goes on and on. There are currently 12 billionaires with homes in Washington DC. There are 88 centi-millionaires (or those with an excess of $100 million in wealth) living in DC.
They ain’t there for the fresh air and spacious natural beauty! They are there for influence and Trump is the Pez dispenser of favors for the rich.
It’s time to wake up and drink enough coffee to stay awake before we lose our country, freedom, democracy and voice. Join protests, call your legislators and vote, vote, vote. From now on, no more over-sleeping.
Jon J. Erickson
Ludington
What has happened to the foundations?
Make America Great? When did the United States become a nation where a man could be arrested and put in jail without due process? That is what happened to a Maryland man by the name of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. This young man of Hispanic decent with tattoos wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a Chicago Bulls hat was arrested, put on a plane and taken to a prison in El Salvador. That prison is subsidized by the US government. When did the United States of America suspend the rights of individuals to due process? When did our nation suspend basic civil rights that made our country great? The answer to that question is when Donald Trump became president.
If you do not know the story of Abrego Garcia, please take the time to look it up. He is a father from Maryland who was deported to El Salvador because of alleged ties to MS-13 gangs. His case was reviewed by a judge in 2019 and was granted protected status prohibiting the federal government from sending him back to El Salvador. He has never been convicted of any ties to MS-13 or any other gang, and yet he was arrested, given a plane ride, and thrown in jail for an indefinite period of time. His fate was determined by allegations and his appearance. How does this happen in the United States of America? The answer to this riddle is because Donald Trump became president.
Of all the dumb things we have seen this president do in the last three months, this is by far the most dangerous. From laying off air traffic controllers after a fatal collision of a military helicopter and a commercial jet, to laying off staff at the CDC during a measles outbreak in Texas. Cutting staff at the IRS during tax season. A breach of classified military information by his secretary of defense, to cutting staff to serve the veterans that served our country. Proposed cuts to social security, Medicare and Medicaid. The list goes on and on, and I have not even mentioned tariffs. Donald Trump campaigned on the slogan “Make America Great Again”, he and the buffoons he calls a cabinet are sending this great country down a path to make America garbage.
Paul Drewry
Custer
