Happy Friday the 13th

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Every day feels like Friday the 13th these days, but now it really is.

Item One: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals put a temporary hold on yesterday’s order to de-federalize the California National Guard in Los Angeles and put them back under Governor Newsom’s control. The Ninth Circuit Court will hold a hearing on Tuesday.

Item Two: There are thunderstorms predicted for the Washington DC area tomorrow, which could force the cancellation of Trump’s $45 million Soviet-style vanity parade.

Item Three: Israel v. Iran. It sounds as if Israel’s assault did a number on Iran, damaging a key nuclear facility and wiping out its military chain of command.  Some top Iranian officials and nuclear scientists were killed also. Axios reports the assault had been in the works for months.

Did Trump know this was going to happen? The New Republic says he did, although he’s pretending he didn’t. His Administration went to great lengths yesterday to let the world know the U.S. played no part in the assault.

Some background: Trump appointed a real estate executive pal named Steve Witkoff as Special Enjoy to the Middle East. Among the projects assigned to Witkoff is getting a deal to curb nuclear weapons development in Iran. And you might remember that once upon a time there was such a deal, negotiated among several nations during the Obama Administration.  After taking office in 2017 Trump badmouthed the deal, which he managed to blow up entirely in 2018. He claimed it was a terrible deal and he could make a better one, but he never did. I don’t think he even tried, in his first term.

But for the Trump 2.0 Administration, Trump decided to repackage himself as a peacemaker. He promised to end the war between Russia and Ukraine immediately. Before he took office, even. He was going to straighten out whatever was going on with Israel and Hamas.  And, of course, as soon as he realized accomplishing these things would be really hard, he walked away. But he was still working on getting a deal with Iran.

As usual, Juan Cole gets what’s going on.

Netanyahu launched the strikes to thwart the peace negotiations being conducted with Iran by President Donald J. Trump’s administration via Oman, striking a day before the next talks were scheduled to take place. Trump had signaled repeatedly that he did not want the Israelis to attack, but Netanyahu appears to hold to the TACO (Trump always chickens out) theory of the president’s behavior. He pointedly thanked Trump in his address to the nation, clearly hoping that Iran might take some action against America in response and so draw Trump into a war he clearly does not want.

I understand Iran has pulled out of further talks with the U.S. Trump probably didn’t help matters much when he praised the Israeli attack as “excellent” and “very successful.” Tucker Carlson, of all people, is now saying Trump is “complicit” in an “act of war.” Some media outlets are saying that Israel used the “peace talks” as cover for what they were doing.

See also How Iran Strikes Put Trump’s Impotence on Full Embarrassing Display by David Rothkopf at The Daily Beast.

Item Four: It must have been brought to Trump’s attention that the agriculture and hospitality industries depend a whole lot on migrant workers. Indeed, Trump has been using migrant workers at his properties for years, so one might assume he already knew this. But dots don’t always connect for him. Anyway, some time maybe yesterday or the day before he commented that farmers and the hospitality industry needed some protections to keep their migrant workers, which suggested he was going to lay off raiding farms and hotels. But as of today, there have been no new directives about this coming out of the White House.

13 thoughts on “Happy Friday the 13th”

  1. Thank DOG for the potential nuclear holocaust.  Given what I see on my TEE-VEE, nonstop tRUMP worship and repeated oral media-gratification that would choke Stormy Daniels, ending it all as instant vaporization and ash are increasingly better life options for all.

    What can we all shove down donnie’s pie hole to elicit squeals of ¡Happy, Happy; Joy, Joy!

  2. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, writing yesterday –

    …Ominously, Department of Homeland Security head Kristi Noem used the language of coups and foreign occupations in describing the government’s ultimate goal for its “operations” in Los Angeles. "We are not going away," Noem said. "We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country," referring to Newsom and Bass.
    State propaganda is now coalescing around this rhetoric of occupation and liberation, as though Los Angeles were a foreign country like Iraq, targeted by the United States for regime change —an operation Noem’s comment about Newsom and Bass evokes.

    That makes the choice of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine division for deployment on the streets of Los Angeles especially telling. This infantry battalion served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as many other operations. According to a U.S. Northern Command press release that reads like a war bulletin, the battalion will supplement “soldiers from the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, a California National Guard unit in a Title 10 status, in the greater Los Angeles Area.”

    …All of these choices tell us how important the ICE operations are to the identity of this nascent regime. The government is willing to do anything –arrest judges and elected officials, and even bring in an entire infantry Marines battalion –to remove any obstructions to mass deportations from state and local officials, the law, and the population protesting in the streets.

    This shows us how dependent this administration is on its fiction of an immigrant invasion. It needs this manufactured crisis to frame its power grabs as saving the nation and to pursue mass deportation as part of its racist population engineering schemes.

    Mr. Trump may have campaigned on ending “forever wars” abroad, but he is likely starting a new “forever war” at home, and so it is fitting that a battalion with experience in the “Global War on Terrorism” would be there at the inception.

    We can expect this constructed crisis will continue, because authoritarian history teaches that the emergency must never be over, the adversary is never defeated, and the number of enemies is always expanding.

    Yet as tyranny spreads, so does its opposite, and each action they take gives us information that can inform targeted protest strategies against them. This is already happening, from the Hands Off! Actions of April, to the anti-Tesla protests, to the upcoming No Kings demonstrations.

    The power and moral force of collective action, as seen on the streets of Los Angeles and countless other cities, has already forced the government into extreme actions. This is not a sign of their strength, but a revelation of their weakness.

    With each arrest, new heroes are created for our movement and our moment, with new visibility. Slowly, more eyes will be opened to the gravity of the situation and the preciousness of our rights and our freedoms. We are just getting started.

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    • When Franklin announced the birth of the Constitution he said, "A Republic, if you can keep it."

      The "you" was not the legislative branch or the judicial branch countering the abuses of the dictator in the executive branch. "YOU" means the citizens, the foundation of power in the Constitution.

      This is the fulcrum on which democracy teeters – the character of the people who may or may not show up over the next four years.

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  3. It was inevitable that the 9th would stay the order. Next week they will decide. My prediction is that they will sustain the lower court. No matter what, it goes to the USSC. The question is whether the 9th will stay their own decision pending the USSC, If they do not stay their own decision, the USSC may decide to do it, or let Newsome have the National Guard back. For Trump to be creating crisis after crisis for the USSC has to be tiresome. Or does the majority relish the idea of ending the Republic?

    Item Two: I'm praying for rain. This may shock Gid as she has not heard from me for a while. (I was planning to go to DC but car problems delayed my departure.) So I'm gonna show up for "No Kings" in Sarasota.

    Item Three: Trump was totally out of the loop. Agree with Juan Cole. Trump has been talking out both sides of his mouth about who he's for but MAGA is locked into the idea os Palestinian genocide. 

    Item Four is an illustration of Trump trying to play to everyone simultaneously. Somebody with clout got to Trump for the cheap labor migrants supply. So Trump said what somebody wants to hear. Millet won't even consider it. So whoever Trump lied to will find out pretty soon that Trump's rhetoric was empty words. It's worth noting that the Saudis, UAE and Qatar are mostly Sunni and Iraq mostly Shei. So the crowd Trump was hanging out with last month would love to see Iraq de-fanged. But both sects of Islam resent Israel. If Trump's assignment (in exchange for a 747) was to make a no-nuke deal with Iran, he failed. Let's see if they take back the plane. But Trump is trying to please everybody in the mid-east. Quite possibly he will piss everyone off.

    As I said about item three, Trump lied about policy (picking up all migrants) to somebody who can hurt Trump. Will that come back to haunt him?

  4. We turned an ugly corner that leads on the road to fascism. This is an element the 4tth Reich needs to take power – murder of the opposition. This is the first. I fear it will not be the last. I don't think it will work as well for MAGA is it did for Nazis. The press is reporting this as a "probable" political hit. 

    Progressives must not respond in kind, even with angry threats. Anyone on the outside has to be able to make a distinction. MAGA and the media will try to "both sides" this. We must have clean hands where theirs are dripping blood.

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    • I'm in FL and I will attend the demonstration in Sarasota. If we don't show up to demonstrate peaceful opposition, they win. There will be more fatalities. We stand under the parched Tree of Liberty,

    • Bloody or not, your/our government now wants to have 2 categories of people: people with the woke mind virus and the Purity of Essence people. Watch today as the victims become the perpetrators in official communiques from all levels of government.  

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  6. I'm in FL and I will attend the demonstration in Sarasota. If we don't show up to demonstrate peaceful opposition, they win. There will be more fatalities. We stand under the parched Tree of Liberty,

  7. A wolf in sheep's clothing driving a sheep mobile murdered with political motivation.  A new level of horror.  

    Terror tactics employed by a terrorist with hit list and a manifesto.  Crazy people are at large and dangerous.  Propogandists and public officials enable them and even pardon them.  This, like the holocaust, and Sandy Hook, will be denied.  Denied by professionals at spreading lies.  

    June 14th, 2025.  Textbook horror.  

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  8. US Gov't – including Trump – knew about Israel's attack on Iran beforehand, and assisted, at least with Intel:

    "U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has confirmed that Washington provided “exquisite” intelligence to Israel, which will have helped ensure the success of its airstrikes. Rubio reiterated that the United States did not play a military role in the Israeli attack. However, the U.S. military will be ready to help defend Israel if needed — especially against ballistic missiles and drones launched from Iran" 

    Israel’s Operation To Destroy Iran’s Nuclear Program Enters New Phase (Updated)

    I'd guess that Trump thinks that he's working the Good Cop/Bad Cop routine, letting Israel 'rough up' Iran so they'll accept some deal with Trump.

    • I sure don't get the inside memos but if I was in charge of security for ANY country in the world and I had details of an upcoming strike the LAST person I would show that intel to is DJT or anyone in the administration. They leak like the Titanic after hitting the 'berg. 

      Netanyahu is counting on military aid from the US when real war breaks out, so he lied when he said Trump was consulted. (My opinion.) The strike totally blew negotiations the US had going with Tehran. (Trump’s other shot at a Nobel Prize.) The war is overshadowing Trumps b-day parade. (Trump would have demanded a delay of three days,) 

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