By Bob Gaydos

Deepak Chopra, friend of Jeffrey Epstein?

When the world starts to run away from me and there’s too much to comment on but I know more is coming fast, I turn to the late, great Jimmy Cannon’s approach. So,

• Maybe it’s just me, but: A president who has said, “We are not looking for regime change. We’ve learned that lesson a long time ago.“ And, “We must abandon the failed policy of nation building and regime change.“ And, just in June of last year when asked about regime change said it “leads to chaos,” but has now said in a space of a few months, “We are in charge“ with regard to Venezuela and “regime change in Iran seems like the best possible outcome“ and, noting that he’s still a little busy with Iran, did say that the fall of the Cuban regime was just “a question of time,” is basically dangerous, power-hungry and not to be believed any time he opens his mouth.
• Maybe it’s just me, but: I get a little worried when one mega corporation starts buying up all kinds of media outlets, threatening the diversity of opinion and trustworthy newsgathering. So, I’m not happy that Paramount, which is in the process of turning CBS into a clone of Fox News, is reportedly ready to do the same with CNN and also owns Paramount Pictures, Skydance Media, HBO, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, HGTV, TLC, Discovery, Paramount+, Pluto TV, Oracle (which owns 15% of TikTok) CBS Sports and the Cartoon Network, outbid (with a big nudge from the White House) Netflix to buy Warner Brothers Discovery. This has monopoly written all over it and the FCC should carefully review this deal. But this is Trump’s FCC and it’s Trump’s buddy who owns Paramount, which means Congress should really look at this closely. Which is why it’s really nice to have a true two-party system. Remember?
• Maybe it’s just me, but: I’ve become somewhat numbed to the steady release of names of prominent, influential or just plain rich people in the Epstein files. I mean, the man formally known as Prince Andrew was not a surprise, nor was Woody Allen, Bill Clinton or even Bill Gates. Their names had been out there a while. But I have to admit Deepak Chopra stopped me in my tracks. Is this a construct? Or did the wellness guru have something else in mind when he e-mailed Jeffrey to “bring your girls” and commented on the sounds young girls make? Something to meditate on.
• Maybe it’s just me, but: I’m only mildly surprised that the inevitable Trump purge of disposable sycophants has begun with the kiss off of Kristi Noem from Homeland Security to some other phony organization with a fancy name Trump has cooked up. You can only embarrass the Donald … well, actually you cannot embarrass the Donald and run a scam funding operation that doesn’t include him and get caught doing it. Eventually, Noem needs to be held accountable for her criminal behavior running Homeland Security. And lose those hair extensions.

By Bob Gaydos

Kaitlin Collins and Donald Trump

   There’s something that’s been baffling me for years and it was brought to my attention again this morning by two unrelated news stories: Donald Trump and the women who support him.

   I don’t get it. I admit it. And I would welcome any women readers’ attempts to explain it to me.

    One story, the one getting all the headlines, concerned an exchange between Trump and CNN reporter Kaitlin Collins at a press conference in the Oval Office. Collins was pressing Trump about what he might say to survivors of the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking operation who feel they have not received justice.

    Trump, whose name appears thousands of times in the recently released Epstein files, did what he typically does with a female reporter — he insulted her.

    He called her the “worst reporter” and then said, “l don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile. You know why you’re not smiling? Because you know you’re not telling the truth.”

     Collins didn’t take the bait, but kept pressing for an answer that never came. Trump, of course, had previously called a female reporter “piggy“ for daring to bring up the same subject.

    The other story I just happened to come upon while glancing over old copies of the New York Times that I was preparing to toss in the recycling can. It was the typical overlong Times profile of a young woman, Andrea Lucas, whom Trump has made chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

   Her job, as with practically everyone else Trump named to head a government agency or department appears to be to make it unnecessary.

   In a nutshell, she says she wants to remake the image of the commission in Trump’s vision of workplace discrimination. No diversity, no equity, no inclusion for those discriminated against in the past, because young white males are having difficulty finding jobs and, if that’s the case, they should report it to her because they might be entitled to some compensation. (That might also explain the surge of interest for jobs in ICE.)

    How can she do this? I asked myself. How can she support this man? Is she not aware of the struggle women have fought for decades to gain respect in the business world? To even have the right to vote? To have the right to make decisions about their own bodies? Heck, for her to even hold the job she has.

    And even more to the point here, how can she do this when every sane person of reasonable intelligence in the entire world knows that Trump was fully immersed in the Epstein sex-trafficking of young teenage girls? Rape.

     How can she — and I look at the history here — fully support a man who cheated on his first wife with his second wife and cheated on his second wife with his third wife? Who cheated on his third wife while she was taking care of their newly born son? Who tried to cover up that cheating (with a porn star) and was subsequently convicted of four felony counts? Who, in a civil trial, was adjudicated liable and ordered to pay millions of dollars for sexual assault and defamation of character in what a judge called rape for his attack on a female journalist, yes, in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

   How? How do you look at a man like this, smile, nod and say, yes sir, never heard of Jeffrey Epstein, when you’re a woman?

    How does Pam Bondi do it? Kristi Noem? Karoline Leavitt? Tulsi Gabbard? Linda McMahon (Education), Brooke Rollins (Agriculture), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Labor), and Susie Wiles, chief of staff?

      I’m stumped, angry and saddened by this allegiance to a man who the recently released trove of files show Epstein referring to him as “the worst person” he’s ever known.

       That’s it. That’s what I don’t get. Maybe it’s as simple as being a man and not a woman, but I’d really appreciate it if some women readers could share some thoughts with me on this.

By Bob Gaydos

A protestor in Minneapolis. AP photo

 Catching up after snowmageddon with a cautious sense of optimism that America has finally awakened to the moral rot festering at the core of its existence. The sad thing is it took the murder of two innocent American citizens in broad daylight on the streets of one of the nation’s leading cities by agents of the federal government — and the subsequent clumsy attempt by government officials to place blame for their deaths on the victims themselves — to arouse this awakening.   

   That to me is the real problem. The malaise, the laziness, the apathy, the entitlement, the irresponsibility, the selfishness, the fear, the lack of awareness and, bluntly, sometimes the utter stupidity on the part of millions of Americans that has allowed the likes of Donald Trump and his coterie of greedy, amoral, bigoted, lying vermin to turn this nation into a festering pool of anger and violence that keeps putting money in their bank accounts.

   Too harsh? It’s not for nothing that Trump once said, “I love the poorly educated.”

    The truth is, without the votes of millions of Americans who know and care nothing about how government works and were enthralled by the phony persona of a TV pitchman and the millions of non-votes by Americans who think that “all politicians are alike“ and don’t understand that the freedom and other benefits they enjoy by living in this country depends on their participation, Trump and his mob would not be in power. He’d probably be in prison.

    And Renee Good and Alex Pretti would likely be alive.

    The shooting deaths of the two Minneapolis residents by ICE agents were captured on video by bystanders. They showed clearly that neither one of the victims did anything to provoke or threaten the ICE goons. Yet the Trump administration immediately targeted both victims as terrorists and threats to their killers.

    This time, however, the lies backfired. Thanks to cell phones and social media, people, even the true Trump believers, could see for themselves what happened. Heck, even the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post could see it. Two American citizens were shot dead in the streets by federal agents who are poorly trained at best and were likely lured to apply for the job by a $50,000 signing bonus and the opportunity to wear all kinds of military gear, a mask and a badge and the freedom to shove and threaten, kidnap and beat people at will without regard to their safety, much less the law. Even a couple of Republican lawmakers noticed.

   So things are calmed down in Minneapolis for now, Democrats are threatening to cut off funding for ICE and a lot of Americans suddenly realized it wasn’t only “immigrants“ who should be wary of the government.

   But as Trump typically backpedals when his bluster and BS don’t work, what happens now? Will demonstrations against ICE continue around the country? Will Republican lawmakers be held accountable for allowing a clearly cognitively declining Trump to continue his assault on America? Will ICE be abolished? Will Kristi Noem be fired? 

     A few years back another Minneapolis resident, George Floyd, was killed by agents of the government – Minneapolis police. The Black Lives Matter movement came and went, but not before prompting a Blue Lives Matter reaction. Unlike the thousands of non-white, Spanish-speaking immigrants and those of other nationalities who are lawfully in this country or at least leading a productive, law-abiding life and have been kidnapped and locked up by ICE, Renee Good and Alex Pretti were white, non-immigrant, English-speaking American citizens. Americans are in revolt.

     Coincidence?

     We’ll find out soon enough if this is a true moment of moral clarity for America or just more of the same selective attitude towards that “All men are created equal” line we like to brag about.

     Honestly, sticking with my cautious optimism and acknowledging the law of unintended consequences, sometimes it takes the wrong motivation to realize the right outcome. In this case, I can live with that. It’s a lesson America would be much better off for learning. 

By Bob Gaydos

   I’ve watched the video countless times. Masked ICE agents rush up to a woman in a car in a residential area of Minneapolis and start screaming at her. The woman backs up to avoid the agent in front of her car. She then turns right to further avoid him and drive away. He steps clear of the car and fires his gun several times through the windshield. Someone yells, “What the f:;&k!?” The car crashes a short way from the shooting. The agent leaves the scene quickly and his buddies keep someone who says he’s a doctor from attending to the driver. End of story.

    The woman, who died at the hospital, was a 37-year-old mother of three, a poet, not a terrorist, an American citizen minding her own business.

    The next day, Kristi Noem, the fake-faced woman head of Homeland Security, blamed the woman for her death, said she tried to run over the agent. Said the agent was resting with his family after the ordeal. Trump said it was a miracle the guy was still walking around after the traumatic incident at the hands of a raging leftwing terrorist.

     They lied. We all saw the video. They lied. JD Vance took his turn. He lied. Blamed the victim whose children now have no mother. He lied. They lied. They lied. They lied. They lied. They lied. They lied. They lied. It’s what they do. They lied.

    Pam Bondi, the Attorney General who lies for Trump, says the FBI will investigate. It will not allow Minnesota police officials to be part of the investigation. Why? She is handing the job to Kash Patel, YouTube host turned FBI director. He has lied every day since he has held that title.

    They lie. They lie, they lie, they lie, they lie, they lie, they lie, they lie. They have always lied because enough people believed them. And so they will continue to lie. Trump lies, Noem lies, Bondi lies, Vance lies, Patel lies, they all lie.

    Her name was Renee Nicole Good. She died and your government killed her, then they lied.

    They lied, they lied, they lied, they lied, they lied, they lied, they lied. It’s all they ever do. We saw the video. They lied.

     At this point, it gives me no joy to say if you still believe them, you’re either a fool or you are them. There is simply no other choice. That’s no lie.

By Bob Gaydos

Donald Trump at Texas flood site.

Writing about how the nuts and bolts of federal government work, or are supposed to work, is often an exercise in trying to make the boring readable, if not necessarily interesting.

Not this time. This time, with nuts and bolts falling off the MAGA truck at seemingly every turn, I trust the reading will be not only interesting, but likely, infuriating.

Let’s start with the news that Dan Bongino, Deputy FBI director, may be on the verge of quitting in a major rift with Attorney General Pam Bondi over the suddenly disappearing  Epstein files.

Bongino is a conspiracy theorist who built a career as a podcaster in large part by demanding release of sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein’s client list and accusing unnamed government officials of concealing it. This podcast popularity probably played a large part in him getting the job as assistant FBI director since he has no other real qualifications for the job.

Bongino expressed his anger with Bondi loudly in a meeting after a memo was leaked saying the FBI found no client list and also that Epstein did indeed commit suicide in his prison cell. That development came shortly after Bondi publicly said she had the files on her desk and she was waiting to review them.

To his credit here, Bongino is at least sticking to his guns and insisting there’s a list and demanding that the government release the files, whatever and whomever they include. Bondi, a Grade A Trump bootlicker, obviously feels otherwise.

There’s been speculation that FBI Director Kash Patel, whose qualifications for his job are also sketchy, is also unhappy with the way Bondi handled the situation. There have been rumors that both Patel and Bongino may step down. Nuts and bolts falling everywhere.

This is clearly not how government is supposed to operate. It would also be a unique development in a Trump administration. Two high ranking individuals resigning on a seeming matter of moral principle that could possibly implicate Trump.

The other major story, of course, is the flash flood in Texas that has claimed more than 100 lives so far, many of them young girls at a summer camp. Tragic. And even more wheels falling off the MAGA truck.

In addition to the well-reported fact that Trump ordered major cuts in the National Weather Service staff, thereby increasing the likelihood of weakened forecasting abilities, it turns out that National Security Director Kristi Noem, who oversees FEMA, required that requests for more than $100,000 in aid come to her desk, but ignored such requests from Texas for three days. Noem also unbelievably said that the federal government doesn’t handle state emergencies.

In addition, a downsized FEMA staff failed to answer thousands of phone calls from residents of Texas in the aftermath of the deadly flood. And David Richardson, FEMA director, who rarely even talks to staff, never showed up in Texas during or after the tragic flood. Instead, he was at a conference somewhere else where he didn’t even participate. Not a word from the FEMA director. Not even a presence. Nuts and bolts all over the ground.

For his part, Trump showed up in Texas more than a week late and rambled on in some kind of speech about rain. Nuts. He also muttered something about maybe not cutting so much FEMA funding after all. That convenient suggestion of change in policy probably didn’t soothe the pain of residents of Texas, especially parents who lost their young daughters to a raging river. Bolts.

And what the heck, while we’re at it, there’s that lingering nuts and bolts how-does-government-work question about who ordered the cancellation of weapons shipments to Ukraine. Trump, when asked about it at a press conference, said, “I don’t know.”

If that didn’t freeze the blood in every American citizen, I don’t know what will. The man with the power to authorize or reject military action, the man who ordered a bombing of Iran, didn’t know who ordered the cutoff of weapons to Ukraine.

He actually whispered to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, “Do you know?”

Hegseth said, “No.”

Even scarier. No how-things-work here to even talk about, but I’ll take a stab. For what it’s worth, I have some friends in recovery who tell me they learned that they did some pretty scary things when they were in alcoholic blackouts and today still have no memory of it. Zilch.

Nuts and bolts, anyone?

By Bob Gaydos 

Senator Alex Padilla is grabbed by federal security agents and removed from a public meeting.

Trying to monitor how the No Kings protests are going but a thought prompted by social media posts the past couple of days keeps bugging me: The utter hypocrisy of the MAGA crowd.

No, it’s not a new thought. I’ve been thinking and saying it for years, but it just struck me again in seeing MAGA reaction to two separate events.

The first was the outrageous and unlawful treatment of Senator Alex Padilla at a public event in Los Angeles. Padilla, a Democrat and the son of Mexican immigrants, represents California. He went, escorted by Trump-ordered National Guardsmen, to hear a public statement by Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem about the handling of immigration protests in Los Angeles.

When he identified himself as a senator (he was actually wearing a shirt with the US Senate logo on it) and said he had a question for Noem, he was immediately grabbed by her security detail, manhandled, dragged into a hallway, forced down to his knees and handcuffed behind his back. A United States Senator. Representing his constituents.

When video of the incident appeared on social media, there was immediate outrage among non-MAGA cultists. How dare they!? Noem could’ve stopped the manhandling at any time since Padilla is the ranking Democrat on the Senate committee which oversees issues regarding the border. She has to know who he is. Instead, her office first tried to claim Padilla was lunging at her. The video shows otherwise.

The point here, though, is that when that video showed up on social media, many MAGAnuts were quick to throw likes on it, indicating approval of the rough treatment of Padilla, regardless of the facts. Hey, it wasn’t their senator. It was California’s Senator. Shut him up. Rough him up.

For his part, their leader, Trump, when told of the incident, said, “He looks like an illegal.” Case closed.

The second “event” was a statement from Trump signaling a change in immigration policy: “Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace. …

“Our farmers are being hurt badly by, you know, they have very good workers, they have worked for them for 20 years. They’re not citizens, but they’ve turned out to be, you know, great. And we’re going to have to do something about that. We can’t take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don’t have maybe what they’re supposed to have, maybe.

“We can’t do that to our farmers and leisure, too, hotels. We’re going to have to use a lot of common sense on that.”

Sensible Americans simply saw this as a reasonable and inevitable change in policy, whenever it actually comes about.

It’s also a very un-Trump-like comment demonstrating common sense, compassion and a grasp of reality. Since he’s big in the hospitality business, however, there’s also some self-serving. Still, it’s a significant change from the current process. Go after actual criminals. Yet his staff hates it and so do many non-farmer MAGAnuts who like the unwarranted roundups of “illegal” looking people. They said so on social media.

But my point here is that  farmers, hotel and hospitality business people, many of whom are Trump supporters, were also fine with grabbing “illegals” off the street and sending them away somewhere. But when it came to their own bread and butter, it was a different story. They didn’t vote for that, they said. They didn’t like it and, coincidentally, the polls showed it and Trump needs their support. So much for common sense and compassion.

Apparently it does matter whose ox is being gored.

By Bob Gaydos

Hades … too much to pray for?

     Had breakfast with a friend the other day, trying out a new coffee shop in town. Nice addition.

      The conversation touched on the usual stuff. Too much rain. What’s planted in the garden, the hummingbird count, the challenges in living in a house with another person. Living on a planet with certain other people.

      That last proved provocative. With regard to those certain other people, my friend offered that, if he were a praying man, he would pray for The Rapture.

      I got his intent, but I suggested that I thought he had it backwards. Having read “Left Behind,“ I knew it was the good, caring, kind, faithful humans who were transported off the planet to Heaven, I believe, leaving their clothing and loved ones behind.

      The others, the nasty ones, the ones my friend wanted to be rid of, stayed and, through a series of books, fended for and against themselves and other non-believers. So I suggested that, assuming we wanted to remain in whatever state this is for a while longer, what we needed was a Reverse Rapture.

   We needed someplace we could pray for all those You Know Whats to be sent to, without any get-out-of-jail card in the form of an Orpheus, if I may be allowed to mix my miracles.

     Hades. Yes, Hades. The Underworld would do.

     So, who would we want to go? Personally, I’d start with Trump and his immediate family. The whole crew. Every member of his Cabinet and White House staff. Every lawyer who ever worked for him, except for Michael Cohen. Elon Musk. J.D.Vance. Every current Republican member of Congress, except for Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. The authors of Project 2025. Anyone who wears a Maga T-shirt or hat. Anyone who identifies as a journalist but works and lies for Fox News. Putin. Kim. Hamas and all the other terrorists. The pushers of fentanyl. Laura Loomer. (Speaking of Loomer and Kristi Noem and the Barbi press contact and the attorney general and all the other Trumpettes, Hades will come with no cosmetic amenities, including plastic surgeons. Zero. Just saying.)

    Also, all those mask-wearing ICE employees who’ve been enjoying grabbing people off the street, out of their homes, wherever, with no warrants or concern for the people or the law. And Clarence Thomas, to fulfill Hades’ DEI requirements.

     And, really, anyone who voted for Trump three times. What were they thinking? They get a special wing in Hades where The Apprentice plays on big screens constantly. In Spanish. And they have to use their bitcoin to buy English subtitles, but they already gave it all to Trump, who gave it all to the Saudi royal family (they’re there, too), who promised to build a Hades Trump Tower using white South African immigrants for labor. It could take a while, but who really cares?

     Now, all that cosmic deportation would obviously leave behind a whole lot of room, especially in this big, beautiful country, and a lot of available work for good, caring, reliable, nice, talented, decent, tolerant human beings, maybe from Venezuela or Mexico or Greenland or Panama or El Salvador.

      Too much to ask for, you say? Especially over breakfast? Hell, if you’re going to pray for anything, especially a Reverse Rapture, I say why not go all in?

       Besides, checks and balances seems to be broken.

                                     ***

Additions to the prayer chain are welcome.

Pope Francis

By Bob Gaydos

  While millions of Americans marched to protest Trump policies on Saturday, millions more paused and prayed around the world on Easter Sunday, gathering with family and, perhaps, pondering the meaning of life.

   The weekend over, Monday brought some sad news and “Can you believe it?” news featuring familiar names.

    — Pope Francis died Monday of a cerebral stroke. The 88-year-old pontiff had recently been released from a hospital and had just avoided a meeting with J.D. Vance, the putative vice president, who apparently wanted to try to convince the pope on Easter weekend that the way America was treating immigrants was, well, what Jesus would do.

      Francis wasn’t buying it. An Argentinian, who in his 12 years as pope spoke out relentlessly in support of migrants and marginalized people, he altered the focus of the Catholic Church, not to the liking of many conservative Catholics, including bishops and cardinals. How that will affect the selection of a new pope is uncertain. There is no doubt, however, that his voice of courage, compassion and humility will not be easy to replace. And no, that’s not something that can be said about all popes. Francis asked that his tomb be inscribed simply with: “Franciscus.”

     — Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem, taking a break from posing as an ICE agent, took her family out for Easter dinner at a restaurant in downtown Washington, D.C. While she and her family were eating dinner, a thief stole her purse, which contained Noem’s driver’s license, medication, apartment keys, passport, DHS access badge, makeup bag, blank checks, and about $3,000 in cash.

    The Secret Service, which provides security for Noem, reviewed security camera footage at the Capital Burger restaurant and saw an unknown white male wearing a medical mask steal her bag. The key words here are “National Security Director” and “Secret Service.” Don’t you feel more secure? Noem said the cash was to pay for dinner and Easter gifts. Really? A burger restaurant? Easter dinner? Nobody’s watching her purse? You’re not in South Dakota anymore, Madam Secretary.

    — Pete Hegseth (yup, him again), was reported to have shared details of that surprise March 15 military strike against Houthis in Yemen on a second group chat on Signal, a group including his wife, brother and personal lawyer. The details were reportedly the same as those contained in another group chat on the same day over the same unsecure site. This group, unlike the first group, which was created by the White House security advisor and mistakenly included the editor of the Atlantic magazine, was created by Hegseth himself. In addition to his wife, it included about a dozen other people from his personal and professional inner circle in January, before his confirmation as defense secretary and was named “Defense | Team Huddle,” according to a report in The New York Times.

     The Defense Secretary reportedly used his private phone to set up the chat. No, his wife, a former producer for Fox News who has also accompanied Hegseth in meetings with foreign officials, does not work for the Defense Department. His brother and lawyer do, but not in jobs that require them to know about surprise attacks against Houthis in Yemen.

   Trump, of course, immediately attacked the source of the information. Not denying it, or expressing concern about a possible security leak that could jeopardize a military operation, just railing about leaks. However, there were some reports that Trump was wearying of mistakes by his fun-loving Defense Secretary. And Trump is well-known to be only too happy to tell those who cause him embarrassment or require him to do his actual job, “You’re fired.“ Hegseth’s career may soon be where he apparently likes it — on the rocks.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

Kristi Noem, Homeland Security secretary, posing as an ICE agent.

  Item: Sept. 9, 2016. “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. (Applause. Laughter.) Right? They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people – now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks – they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America.” — Statement by Hillary Clinton, Democratic Party candidate for president. Thought by many to have cost Clinton the presidency.

  Item: March 27, 2025. Kristi Noem, Trump’s secretary of Homeland Security, wearing long hair extensions and a $50,000 watch, delivers a video declaring how tough the U.S. will be on immigrants while standing in front of imprisoned immigrants rounded up and shipped to a hellhole prison in El Salvador without any charges being placed against them or any due process offered as required under the law. She says they should “stay there forever.”

   Item: April 7, 2025. Wearing full combat gear and carelessly pointing a rifle at the head of an ICE agent standing next to her, Noem declares she’s joining an immigrant roundup in Arizona. Boem is not an ICE agent, she is a government bureaucrat. When she was governor of South Dakota she shot and killed her dog just because.

    Item: Attorney General Pam Bondi fires a Justice Department lawyer because he couldn’t provide a federal judge some legal justification for the U.S. mistakenly deporting an El Salvadoran immigrant legally here to a hellhole prison in El Salvador or evidence of steps being taken to return the man to the U.S., as ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court. This, even though she admits the man’s deportation was a “bureaucratic  error” and no one in the Justice Department has yet to provide any proof of attempts made to return the man that a Justice Department lawyer could actually present in court in response to the judge’s order.

    Item: Bondi accuses another federal judge, presiding over the case challenging whether any of the several hundred Venezuelan immigrants sent to that prison in El Salvador received due process (you know, proof of crimes, etc.), of “meddling in our government” because the judge asked for proof.

     Item: Too many to list. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt merely lies or makes stuff up at every press briefing in defense of her boss. Leavitt, 27, is married to Nicholas Riccio, a 59-year-old multi-millionaire real estate developer who helped finance her unsuccessful campaign for Congress in New Hampshire in 2022. They have a nine-month-old son. Riccio also is a contributor to the Project 2025 manual for expanding presidential power. Leavitt still has not paid back more than a quarter million dollars in campaign contributions that were ruled to have exceeded legal limits. She is alleged to have altered every filing with the Federal Elections Commission. 

     Item: Laura Loomer, right-wing conspiracy theorist, has a 30-minute meeting with Trump in the Oval Office in which she bad mouths six officials of the National Security Council, by name, accusing them of being disloyal to Trump. Trump fires all six after the meeting. Trump later says the meeting had nothing to do with the firings and calls Loomer a “great patriot.”

       … So, I’ve often said that when one writes editorials or columns on various issues, a primary function is to help readers connect the dots. Anybody want to help me connect these?

                                    ***

PS: I deny ever saying anything about bad nose jobs.