ICE is still covering for its agents who’ve murdered people, but investigators were able to find Christian Castro, an ICE agent who merely shot someone without cause in Minnesota. Trouble is, they found him in Texas, and that state’s “law-and-order” Governor Greg Abbott refused to extradite him to Minnesota. A wingnut judge said they didn’t have to, so Texas set the ICE agent free.

This is seriously dire shit, a real rip in the tattered fabric holding the U S of A together. It’s in the Constitution, baby, Article IV, Section 2: “A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another state, shall on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime.”

And the New York Times waits until the next-to-last paragraph to mention that there’s video of the crime, and it proves that ICE lied from the start. But that’s hardly news; it’s what ICE has done in virtually every case.

Excerpt: Talwani wrote in her ruling: “Plaintiff states have neither time nor funds to design new mail ballots, seek approval of the new designs, order production of mail ballots, update their own election management systems, train election officials to use the USPS portal and upload citizen data to the portal, all before the midterms.”

Me again: That’s true, thanks, but also, no President has Constitutional authority to do any of this crap. Lock him up, lock him up, lock him up.

Excerpt: The federal election monitors arrived at a polling site in Cheyenne, Wyoming’s capital and its largest city, without advance notice around 7 a.m. last Tuesday, said the Laramie County clerk, Debra Lee. They asked to interview voters and inspect the machines, but were denied, officials said.

“It was aggressive, unexpected, disruptive — certainly didn’t seem to show respect for the state,” Gov. Mark Gordon of Wyoming said in an interview on Thursday. “We’re going to get to the bottom of it as best we can.”

Musk loudly, publicly, and illegally offered and paid a million dollars to two voters, pre-screened to be conservatives. This is, of course and obviously, illegal, but won’t be charged because he’s Elon Musk.

If there was far-left terrorism, there would at least be a bit of variety to interrupt the endless far-right terrorism.

Excerpt: The President of the United States is engaged in a conspiracy against the voting rights of the American people, which is to say that the President is engaged in a conspiracy against the Constitution itself. And this is part of a larger effort, spearheaded by the most fanatical of his allies, like Stephen Miller, to end the American republic and supplant it with an authoritarian regime in which President Trump holds sovereign authority over the whole nation.

It is important to say, as well, that this is all out in the open, as plain as day.

Excerpt: Throughout his ruling, Hittner, a Ronald Reagan appointee, repeatedly cited Texas Republicans’ own stated intentions to use SB 12 to ban drag shows in Texas, despite the final law never once using the word “drag.” Hittner’s opinion includes a tweet from Gov. Greg Abbott, who tweeted on June 24, 2023 a news article headlined “Texas Governor Signs Law Banning Drag Performances in Public.”

The continued fact of prisoners held in forever lock-up with torture instead of trials puts the lie to Everything we’ve always been told makes America great.

And that’s nice, but the wingnut Supreme Court will almost certainly overrule such sanity.

Of course he did and of course it’s illegal. The question is whether ‘illegal’ means anything when Trump & the Republicans are involved.

Excerpt: The deportees were clad in white, and many covered their faces out of safety concerns as journalists filmed their arrival. Nearly all declined to talk with the media, with some indicating they fear being targeted by gangs that control an estimated 70% of Port-au-Prince and swathes of land beyond.

The US Department of State’s travel advisory for US citizens is at the highest alert level, its website saying: “Do not travel to Haiti for any reason. US citizens are at risk due to crime, terrorism, kidnapping, unrest, and limited health care.”

Me again: These Haitians were living and working in America legally. They paid taxes, had jobs, had kids, had lives. Then Trump signed a piece of paper making them illegal, and began deporting them to Haiti, a dangerous place for Haitians, and double dangerous for Haitians coming from America in chains.

All I can say, over and over, is that this is illegal, unconstitutional, unconscionable, a shame America will never live down. And, of course, at least life in prison should await everyone involved, from Donald Trump to the pilots and agents shuttling these souls to Hell.

ICE needs to be abolished, everyone working there prosecuted and/or shunned by society, yadda yadda yadda, but first let’s a moment to savor the schadenfreude of a noted asswipe having his leopardface eaten.

Milo on Milo, on Twitter

Excerpt: Her husband jumped overboard on Aug. 3, she said, and was medically evacuated and returned to San Diego on Aug. 13, where he then spent five days at Naval Medical Center San Diego, known as Balboa. During that stay, she said medical staff monitored his vital signs, but he did not see a psychiatrist or a therapist. He was told to report back to work immediately after his release. His first therapy appointment came on Aug. 26, nearly two weeks after he arrived back in San Diego.

Excerpt: So far this year Mr. Hegseth has removed at least 45 officers, selected by boards made up of peers, from promotion lists. More than half of those officers have been female or Black.

Mr. Hegseth’s actions appear to violate the rules governing a promotion system that is meant to be apolitical and merit-based.

Me again: Our story so far is that a fascist running the US military for a fascist US President is purging military leadership to install politically reliable generals. Nah, I can’t see anything to worry about here.

I don’t know squat about Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. Sorry, I don’t do Twitch.

But according to widely-overrated pundit Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic, the crisis for Democrats in Michigan is that Dem candidate for Senate, Abdul El-Sayed, has palled around with Hasan Piker! And Piker is an anti-semite!

Well, I fucking read what Piker fucking wrote, and it isn’t antisemitic. He’s “scary-leftist,” though, enough that his speaking engagement at Seattle’s University of Washington was canceled by the university.

The real problem, unstated by Chait, is that El-Sayed is too lefty for Chait and Dem leadership. The well-coordinated hysteria, from Chait and echoed by establishment Democrats everywhere, is an excuse for Dems to distance themselves from El-Sayed.

Nope. El-Sayed is a refreshingly good candidate for Senate, Piker is a harmless loudmouth, and that’s all I’ll say about this boring teapot tempest.

Meanwhile, El-Sayed’s Republican opponent campaigns with and employs actual Nazis

Excerpt: The US constitution’s fourth amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures and law enforcement generally must show a judge or a grand jury they have probable cause to believe the materials they want to search will produce evidence of a crime.

But over the last few months, the Department of Homeland Security has undertaken a brazen effort to get around that fundamental safeguard.

Excerpt: At a time when no American celebrity seems immune from the country’s many divisions, Dolly Parton was a crossover icon who stayed neutral in the culture wars while still speaking her mind.

Me again: Dolly was outspokenly pro-gay when that was wildly controversial. She was supportive to AIDS patients while the world thought they were radioactive. She was pro-trans to the day she died, and hung out with drag queens. She was pro-vaccine to the tune of a million bucks from her bank account and taunting antivaxxers while she got the shot. She was pro-labor, pro-education for the poorest, etc. Dolly was absolutely not neutral, and was often criticized by the haters for it. To say she was “neutral in the culture wars” is fresh, hot shit from CNN.

Excerpt: During the first Trump administration, adviser Steve Bannon infamously said the strategy was to “flood the zone” by pumping out so much sewage that no one could focus on any one outrage for long. There is a sort of emotional and intellectual version of that, too.

There are so many odious characteristics of the second coming of Donald Trump – the hostility, the shakedowns, the corruption, the belligerence, the economic self-immolation – that it’s easy to overlook the sticky, suffocating, ankle-deep stupidity animating so much of this.

And here, I’m not lobbing “stupid” as an insulting epithet about Mr. Trump’s intelligence (though there is that saying about what you should do if the shoe fits, and this Florsheim slips on like a glove), but as a more specific description. Stupid means lacking intelligence or logic, senseless, unreasonable, pointless and exasperating. Stupidity is driving your car through the front window of a fast-food restaurant because you’re a little hungry.

For all my life, we’ve been told the commies are poised to attack America, so trillions and gazillions must be spent on defense. If there’s ever been half an ounce of truth in that endless fear, then right now would be the perfect time for America’s enemies to attack. The USA has never been less defended.

Excerpt: “I will say very frankly that the bad taste that this mission left in my mouth, it actually embarrasses me to be involved in any way,” one guard member who was part of the deployment for several months recently told NPR.

World Central Kitchen serves more than 15,000 meals in Gary, Indiana after storms knock out power

And the federal government didn’t do squat.

Do you think Trump could find Lake Ontario on an unlabeled map?

MapQuest: We’re not changing it.

Thank you, MapQuest.

Quick reminder: The Gulf of Mexico still shows as “Gulf of America” on Google Maps, for anyone from an American IP address. Utter capitulation.

Word of the Day: hydronym

In addition to all the surface-level outrage — milking this family’s tragedy to crank up fear and hatred against illegal immigrants, without even asking the family — most of what’s in the attack ad is bullshit anyway.

I’ll just add the obvious, that everything Dean Ball says is bogus. Social Security is an absolutely sustainable way to provide income security for old folks.

This is the Trump regime, making fraud easier.

In a sane society, Kalshi could not exist.

Here’s a fairly major brand announcing it’s only interested in doing business in conservative states.

Damned disappointing — any settlement Meta agrees to is a settlement Meta can afford, which means it isn’t enough. Meta and its competitors need to be near-literally nuked into nonexistence.

Excerpt: Twenty-one universities in Canada announced on Thursday the hiring of dozens of researchers to join their top academic ranks, poaching the majority of the recruits from the United States.

Of the incoming 64 researchers, 48 will leave American campuses including Harvard, Yale and M.I.T., and the remainder are from Europe, Asia and Australia.

Me again: The era when America was seen as leading the world is so very, very over.

This is amusing because it’s Larry David, and he’s usually amusing. Bigger picture, though, fascism is eating America, and if that bugs you, a valid and sane response is to break contact with people who support the fascism.

If I was a better man, I would cease all contact with the Trump faction in my family, but being a wuss, all I do is tell them loudly that they’re ridiculously wrong and then change the subject.

How come, no matter how bad the economy’s going, you never hear about layoffs at the Police Department?

Do I have to say it? No car is worth someone’s life.

Excerpt: Authorities have said that Tyrin Johnson turned toward guard members with a gun while running from them in the early morning hours after the Fourth of July holiday in Memphis when he was fatally shot in the chest.

But according to an autopsy report shared by Johnson’s family, a single bullet went in the right side of his back and exited through his upper right chest. The autopsy findings, reported earlier by The Commercial Appeal, were prepared by the West Tennessee Regional Forensic Center Office of the Medical Examiner, which did not respond to a request for comment.

Meaning, it was caused by climate change. Meaning, it was caused by fossil fuels.

Baseball has an interesting history of being intertwined with gamblers — you may have heard of the Black Sox scandal. For several decades after that, big league baseball was opposed to gambling, but that changed when the gambling concerns offered baseball a cut.