History is their Enemy

Mark Drnek was, until January 1, Mayor of Oneonta, and owns a business that welcomed our son as an intern in high school, and as an employee afterwards.  Our son has moved on, but Mark still speaks well of him.  

Mark spoke at the rally and march in Cooperstown on Saturday.  I thought that what he said was important enough to reprint here, and maybe spread around a little.

On behalf of everyone who shares our American values and subscribes to the notion that all men and women are created equal, and due the respect that we would expect for ourselves…

Thank you for being here today.

Thank you for standing up for what’s right.

There has never been an arc taken to dictatorship that has been so transparent or so easily compared to historical precedent as this.  And there can be no mistake… Fascism is the path Donald Trump has chosen.

History is their enemy, and they can’t erase it.  They’re trying. But they can’t succeed.  And the parallels are clear.  We’re on a trajectory that will carry us to a place that’s inescapably dark and a perversion of what it means to be an American.

This is not hyperbole.

We’re repeating history.  We can see where this is going.  We need to abort.  We need to shut this down. Now.

In April 1933, Goering rebranded the Prussian Police and turned its focus to the suppression of political opposition.  Just as Homeland Security and immigration and Customs Enforcement has been commandeered by the Trump administration, and specifically by the likes of Stephen Miller.  Career servants have been pushed out or enlisted to actions they never signed up for.  Whatever you may have considered ICE to be, that’s been irreparably corrupted.

ICE needs to be defunded.  And disbanded.  And our congress needs to rise to this occasion and show the backbone needed to meet this unprecedented challenge to the rule of law.

Trump is looking for the same excuse Hitler took to suspend civil liberties, make arrest without charge, sideline the courts, and label his perceived political opponents as “enemies of the state.”  We’re doing our best not to give him the excuse, but guess what?  He’s already doing that, and if that makes us enemies of the state… If that makes us enemies of Trump, and Vance, and Miller, and Noem, and Hegseth, and Patel…. I say that’s a badge of honor I’m proud to wear.

In 1934, Himmler seized control of the Gestapo and placed it under the SS.  And shortly after, they passed this law:

“The orders and affairs of the Gestapo are not subject to review by the administrative courts.”

That’s chilling.  No oversight, no legal appeal, and no accountability. It was the Gestapo that decided who was sent to concentration camps. In this moment, we have camps being constructed in America.

 I know that this may seem hysterical, and beyond possibility in the America we grew up in.  In the country we love.  But… we are witnessing the violence, the abuse, and the murder of those exercising their constitutional rights.  Bullies in masks and camouflage are terrorizing whole populations of Americans.  It’s happening now.  We are skidding down that bloody slope and there’s just one thing that can stop it.

We need courts and congress to act.

We need to shout it from the rooftops.

Defund ICE.  Disband ICE.  Defund ICE.  Disband ICE (crowd joins chant).

Thanks, Mark.  It's vital, I think, to understand how history works.  There is very clear evidence now that history is rhyming.*

Pay attention.

* - "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes."  Mark Twain

Cooperstown, NY 1/10/26

 

My sign

See You In the Streets

 

In Which I Am Kinder to Stephen Miller Than He Deserves

Asked by Jake Tapper yesterday about the invasion of Venezuela and the kidnap of its President and his wife, White House deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said, "“We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power... These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

No, you Nazi piece of lying shit, strength, force and power have not been the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.  Diplomacy has been used consistently for millennia, and especially since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.  Even Google AI is smarter than you, Stephen, you ignorant barbarian; the Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years War*, 

establishing the modern system of sovereign states by recognizing each state's right to govern its territory without outside interference, solidifying the nation-state, and granting religious freedom for Catholics and Protestants within the Holy Roman Empire. It formalized state sovereignty, territorial integrity, and mutual recognition, making it a cornerstone of international law...

The Thirty Years war was one of the most brutal and destructive wars in human history.  It ended partly because Europe was exhausted; strength, power and force wasn't working.  They tried cooperative problem solving, and the world was a different place.

The Cold War** lasted half my (long) lifetime, but it was called the Cold War because, in over forty years, no battles were fought, no missiles flew, no populations of civilians were destroyed.  No one kidnapped a sitting President.  In the end, it was economics and Gorbachev's reform policies which ended the Cold War.  Not power, strength and force.

No, Stephen, the real world is not the result of power, force and strength, it is the result of those things heavily moderated and, for the most part, kept in check, by diplomacy, calculation of mutual advantage, and an unwillingness to violate state sovereignty.  Sometimes that moderation has worked, sometimes it hasn't.

Grow up and read a book, you worthless, slobbering maniac.

* - I've underlined the important parts, which you might have missed while you were beating up little kids in the boy's bathroom instead of learning history.

** - Which ended before you were in Kindergarten, Stephen, but you could always look it up.  Obviously, not.

34? 6-7

 In what feels like a coordinated attack by Republicans and the media on the state of Minnesota and its Democratic governor, Tim Walz, lately the Democratic candidate for Vice President, various programs and departments, and lately the agency which oversees child care centers, are being accused of fraud, without, apparently, any evidence.  Walz has been accused of being “a hands-off leader when it comes to seeking accountability for episodes of fraud and mismanagement on his watch.”  Walz had ended his re-election campaign in response to the accusations.

Let's put aside the question of whether this would have happened if Walz hadn't run as the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate.  Let's put aside whether there are any other states (Texas?  The deep south, especially Louisiana?) where this kind of case can be made, and which would benefit from this kind of attention.

Let's even assume it's true, which is a position we're a long way from arriving at.  Hurrah!  In a year,  Minnesota will no longer have a Governor whose hand-off leadership style might have allowed fraud to flourish.

But a year from now, we'll still have a President who was convicted in court of 34 counts of felony fraud, and who has experienced exactly no consequences.

Apparently, the penalties for fraud are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Trump's Rubicon, At Least for Us

Turns out that the invasion of Argentina and kidnapping of their elected leader and his wife is Trump's Rubicon. At least for us. As soon as our schedule clears up this late winter/early spring, we're booking a relocation tour in Costa Rica.

Too Old

In January of 2025 Donald Trump became, among other things, the oldest person to take the oath of office of President of the United States, ever.  Since then, he has been exhibiting, in public, many of the symptoms of aging.  This has, as I'm sure you know, been a high-profile topic for news reports and analysts.

This morning, the Wall Street Journal published an article called "As Signs of Aging Emerge, Trump Responds With Defiance."  The signs of aging have been emerging for a long time, so the headline is a bit timid, but points to the WSJ for bringing it out into the public forum.

The article is balanced - too balanced, in fact, since statements from Trump and those around him are taken at face value.  It does not provide much illumination regarding Trump's behavior, which we have all witnessed, during the last year.  He and his doctor (whose name, I must report, in a brief fit of adolescent snark, is Barbarella) report that everything is fine.  Trump has a story for every symptom, most of which boil down to "It's fine, I'm the healthiest of all Presidents."  He doesn't like to take his doctor's advice, he says, because it's inconvenient or uncomfortable.  There is more evidence - without comment - that his diet involves a lot of McDonald's products.

Dr. Oz, who has drawn significant criticism throughout his career for promoting pseudoscience and unproven remedies, says "He is just with it on some fairly complex topics... I can’t even think of a single time where he said something where I don’t think he understands the issue here.”  This is reported without comment or follow-up.

Regardless of what you think of the WSJ's incisive investigative journalism, it must be said that it is another piece of evidence that Trump's age - and its visible effects on his ability to function as the President - are a major issue for Americans only a year into his term.

And why exactly was it that we decided that Joe Biden couldn't run for a second term?  I've forgotten... I am an old guy, after all...

No I haven't forgotten.  The reason he couldn't run was because he was "too old."

We all thought he was too old.  Well.  Welcome to the Dementia Presidency.

How Bad Has 2025 Been? This Bad:

The 2025 color of the year is, basically, white.

The 2025 word of the year - "6 7", means, essentially, nothing.

The 2025 person of the year is (are?) "the architects of AI."

But we can take comfort in knowing that our President isn't in the Epstein files.

This One

Turns out it's a combination of #1 and #2:  "The files are released and they don't provide much more information than we have now.  Everyone argues and is outraged for a while, and slowly, the whole thing disappears."

Which Will it Be?

We're back.

You may remember that three months ago I suggested that the release of the Epstein files would not result in any consequences for Donald Trump.  Today they were "released," and the analysis begins.  It's too soon, apparently, to determine the full impact of what we now have.  Here are the possibilities I laid out then:

1. The files are never released.  Everyone argues and is outraged for a while, and slowly, the whole thing disappears.
2. The files are released and they don't provide much more information than we have now.
3. The files are released and they exonerate everyone.
4. The files are released and they make it clear that Trump committed felony sexual abuse on minors.
5. The files include actionable evidence that Donald Trump raped minors.
6. The files are released and, no matter what they say, everyone has had so long to calcify their opinions on Trump and underaged girls that no significant changes are observed.

I went on to say, "4 and 5 are not likely.  #s 1, 2, and 3, or some combination will no doubt be what happens."

We'll see.