bigtree
bigtree's JournalThis chickenshit president always comes to a point where he feels the need to shield himself from Americans
...hiding in the WH bunker in his first term; putting up barricades and fencing around the White House.
Now he's begging Americans to let him closet himself in a ritzy ballroom, like he already does in his Mar-a-lago hideout; living his days out in the presidency like a cosplay king with a contingency of courtiers, retinue, and sycophants in perpetual attendance to fill out his imperial fantasy.
For the times when Trump's forced to go out among the people, he's being fitted with 'new armor' to deflect anticipated attacks from the myriad sectors of the country that he, himself, has chosen to attack with often violent and vicious rhetoric and imagery; including against his Democratic party opponents and supporters.
The suggestion from the WH that journalists would hold their public functions which include the president in his fortified building invites comparisons to royal courts where, undoubtedly, Trump would appear each day on some elevated platform and entertain pleas and other supplication to his petty reign from the peasantry he allows to be graced with his imperial presence and attention.
More monarch than man-of-the-people.
Trump's demand following the mostly thwarted attempted assault made on an entrance to the venue where the ballroom is located, downstairs, is a contradictory one from a president and party which still insists that 'locks on doors' and 'arming teachers' is the best way to prevent the continuing gun violence and mass killing of our children in schools.
His ballroom has the look and feel of elitists prepping for an end-of-the-world event where they and their privileged friends and associates all have their own special invitation to a Mars flight on a dying planet; or a mega ocean liner to float a select, connected community to their own private harbor after the world is flooded; or a nuclear-proof bunker after a maniac president has unleashed hell-on-earth.
There's no escape plan for unconnected Americans, citizens, taxpayers who the president openly reviles and curses for our insistence he and his ilk respect and adhere to the same laws that the rest of us are expected to follow without presidential pardons, and directing of the DOJ to let perps dodge accountability because of how much they paid the president or his family members.
Trump is already in a bubble of his own making, full of yes-men and con-men looking to maintain their place on his political and social pyramid. In his addled and decrepit mind, he envisions a less challenging presidency where he's not only shielded from the public he openly despises; but one in which he can rule in a controlled space without the pestering distractions of dissenters, or reporters asking pesky questions about accountability for this or that.
Forget the democratic process, this man can't be compelled to make himself available to the people because, he's afraid of us.
More pointedly, Trump is already alienated from the American people, by choice, right from the start of his presidency as he declared our levers of participation in our government to be his own domain; when he declared war on entire communities; when he allowed and encourage his government agents to attack our citizens with impunity from prosecution; as he declared that his political opponents and the press are enemies of the state in which he practiced autocratic control behind dubious and assumed authority.
No modern American president has isolated themselves from the people as thoroughly and reflexively as Donald Trump; none have felt or experienced the need, much less the desire to lock themselves in their own insulated bubble. His insistence on layering and multiplying his defenses against us is the surest indication that this president is engaged in a war with the people of this nation.
Some might say he can't be blamed for fearing us, but what he's really hiding from is his anticipation of blowback for his repeated and continued assaults against innocent people just trying to survive and find a place in their country; both migrant and native.
That's the one thing he's probably right about.
Kamala Harris: 'This is a direct result of Trump's war of choice in Iran, and the American people are paying the price.'
Kamala Harris @KamalaHarrisHere in North Carolina and around the country, gas prices are too high. This is a direct result of Donald Trump's war of choice in Iran, and the American people are paying the price.
9:28 PM · Apr 15, 2026
x.com/KamalaHarris/status/2044588680166174941
Kamala Harris Blasts Trump on Iran War, Speaks on 2028 Run, ICE Raids, NATO
Miami Beach unveiled their relocated rainbow crosswalk, now in city-owned Lummus Park just feet from the original spot
Joel Franco @OfficialJoelF 21hMiami Beach unveiled their relocated rainbow crosswalk this morning.
It’s now in city-owned Lummus Park just feet from the original location (Ocean Drive & 12 St) where the state had it removed last year
reports:
...love the resiliency of this community.
NK protest in my relatively small town a couple times larger than the last one
...ours began as a rally at the local music pavilion grounds and spilled out to the street in front and beyond.
Many thanks to everyone who rallied today! 
..slideshow: (wait for it)
Trump: "Fire, boom, fire boom"
Headquarters @HQNewsNow 5mTrump: People think you can take those big rockets and throw them out your window like when you were a child with the paper airplanes, it doesn't work that way
Headquarters @HQNewsNow 8m
Trump: You have to see it. It's very cool. Missiles launched, missiles launched, missiles launching. They're launching. Then at 7 seconds, fire, fire, fire. Fire, boom, fire boom
https://x.com/HQNewsNow/status/2037651167400829271
Rick Steves: "Know people before you bomb them"
Even though travel writer Rick Steves is best known for his guide books about Europe, he's no stranger to the Middle East. He first traveled to the region in 1978, when he was 23, and then returned to Iran in 2009 for an episode of his PBS show.
In a conversation with Death, Sex & Money host Anna Sale, Rick explains why he made that episode and why it's important get an up-close look at a country the U.S. is attacking: "It's real people, and if 150 little school girls were killed in our country, life would grind to a halt, but if we do it in their country it's just collateral damage."
watch:
(excerpt)
When I was in Iran, people (in the U.S.) were singing bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran like it was a a Beach Boy song, you know, and they were talking about a regime change, like it was a game. Um, we don't know the political baggage. We don't know the the mindset of our enemies a lot of times. Um, and I strive to know what is there. What are their 911s? You know, what what makes them respond to the rest of the world? And in Iran, it's incursions from the West...
Um, and I was almost I was traumatized as a TV producer at the great museum in Tehran with how skimpy the artifacts were. Where are all of your treasures? Where's Xerxes? You know, where's Cyrus? Where's the the great empires of Persia? And they go, all of our finest artifacts are in Europe in great museums in Europe. So, you can go there to see them. And they've been taken elsewhere.
And uh what's going on in Iran right now? They've got a a theocratic dictatorship. Why was that?Because in 1953 they elected a charismatic local leader um Mosedc to to run their country and nationalize their oil.
Can you imagine that? They they took control of their own oil and that person was thrown out by the United States and Britain because we needed access to their oil. And we put in a puppet, a guy who played ball with us on our terms and that was the Shah.
And uh the shah was great if you're a cosmopolitan big city Iranian with lots of money and and uh and connections with Europe, but that was the worst thing that could happen for a lot of Iranians because he was an affront to their values. They were bragging the miniskirts were shorter in Tehran than they were in Paris. Imagine that. We've got shorter miniskirts in Thran. We're so western. We're so hip. What is that? How does that resonate with the small town less educated fundamentalists?
The base, you know, and the base of Iran is the same of the base in our country right now. And they're good people, but they're they're riddled with fear and they're motivated by love and they've got a worldview and they've got baggage and uh their baggage is the shah and and they don't want another sha. So they've chosen this um m Muslim revolution, this Islamic lack of democracy because it's an alternative to the shah.
And we got to understand that. I can't fully understand that, but I know that mothers voted for the the religious takeover because they didn't want the alternative. And if an Americans were putting a person on the throne in Tehran, their girls would be hijacked from a moral point of view. They would be boy toys, crash materialists, and drug addicts. That's what they're worried about.
Uh I had a woman, I I've talked about it in my writing quite a bit, came up to me and said, "Are you an American journalist?" I said, "Yes." She said, "I want you to go home and tell the truth. We're strong. We're united, and we just don't want our little girls to be raised like Britney Spears.
And I thought, whoa, I've I've hit on something here. They're not worried about the the price of oil. They're worried about the ethics and the morality of their children. And they don't want this western hedonism. They want this very conservative, beautiful in their mind Muslim um lifestyle. And um it's a different world and we don't appreciate that and and we need to.
Rick Steves' Iran (2009)
Join Rick as he explores the most surprising and fascinating land he's ever visited: Iran. In this one-hour, ground-breaking travel special, you'll discover the splendid monuments of Iran's rich and glorious past, learn more about the 20th-century story of this perplexing nation, and experience Iranian life today in its historic capital and in a countryside village. Most important, you'll meet the people of this nation whose government so exasperates our own.
watch:
After weeks of refusing, Republicans caved to Dem demands to fund DHS without a blank check for ICE and CBP.
Chuck Schumer @SenSchumer 1hAfter weeks of negotiations, Republicans caved to our demands to fund DHS without a blank check for ICE and CBP.
My full statement below:
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries appeared on MS NOW’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, where he emphasized that while the Trump administration is brutalizing American citizens and entering a reckless war of choice, House Democrats remain committed to making life more affordable for the American people.
LEADER JEFFRIES: Yes, you know, what’s interesting, Lawrence, in their One Big Ugly Bill, which, of course, ripped away Medicaid from at least 14 million Americans and literally took food from the mouths of hungry children, seniors and veterans because of the fact that they enacted the largest cut to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance in American history. They gave $191 billion to DHS. 10 billion of that can be used any way that Donald Trump and the Department of Homeland Security wants. And so over the last 41 days, effectively, Donald Trump has chosen not to pay TSA when ordering Republicans to shut down the Department of Homeland Security. And so he’s always had this ability, but clearly he wanted to hold TSA agents and the American people hostage across the country while creating chaos at airports, trying to get Democrats to back away from our position.
House and Senate Democrats over the last several weeks have repeatedly made clear that we need to reopen every other aspect of the Department of Homeland Security, TSA and FEMA and the Coast Guard and our cybersecurity professionals, every other aspect of the Department of Homeland Security, other than, of course, ICE, which needs to be brought under control. And we’ve also made clear we are not going to fund Donald Trump’s extreme and violent mass deportation machine. But Republicans who control the House, the Senate and the presidency made the determination that they want to hold TSA agents hostage and forced them for weeks now to work without pay when Donald Trump at any point over the last 41 days could have made clear that they need to get paid. Thankfully, we’ve now compelled him to do just that.
Donald Trump has said, don’t do anything. We’re dealing with an affordability crisis in the United States of America. We’ve got this reckless war of choice that we’ve got to end, that Donald Trump has gotten into. They’re spending billions of dollars to drop bombs in the Middle East, but are unwilling to spend a dime to actually make life more affordable for the American people. And then on top of all of that, he’s trying to jam the so-called SAVE America Act down the throats of the American people. This is voter suppression on steroids, and it doesn’t have the pass—votes to pass the Senate, and of course, in the House, was strongly opposed by Democrats, and we will continue to do so. We’re going to do everything we need to do to make sure, Lawrence, that there’s a free and fair election in November. And when that happens, Democrats are taking back control of the House of Representatives, and Senate Democrats are on a path to do the same thing.
Effectively, he was saying, I don’t really care about the hardship that is being inflicted on the American people. We’ve seen gas prices are skyrocketing out of control in an environment where people are already struggling to live paycheck to paycheck. Many Americans can’t thrive and can barely survive. Donald Trump could care less about it, and he said that in his own words today from the White House. At the same period of time, apparently, he could care less about the fact that thousands of troops are being put into harm’s way in this reckless war of choice. And American lives, heroes, patriots, have already lost their lives up until this point. And yet, Donald Trump doesn’t care.
https://jeffries.house.gov/2026/03/26/leader-jeffries-on-ms-now-donald-trump-at-any-point-over-the-last41-days-could-have-made-clearthat-tsa-needs-to-get-paid/
18 U.S. Code § 592
x.com/CREWcrew/status/2037266054007734657
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/592
___Deployment is only lawful if it is necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States. Routine law enforcement or maintaining order is not a valid justification.
This is what tinpot dictatorships do. Trump and his cohorts have packed DOJ to obstruct justice
...having successfully blocked ongoing prosecutions of Donald Trump in his term, at his direction, they've now taken to bragging about it.
Acyn @Acyn
Blanche: When it comes to the FBI… Director Patel has cleaned house there too. There is not a single man or woman with a gun, federal agent, still in that organization that had anything to do with the prosecution of President Trump.
President Trump for the first time in modern history has said I am the president and if you work in the executive branch, you work for me. And guess what? We can all read the constitution. He's right. And unfortunately, past administrations, Republican included, have just resigned themselves to putting up with partisan actors within the DOJ. We do not.
https://x.com/Acyn/status/2037219967779955144
SC Jack Smith made this clear:
"The throughline of all of Mr. Trump's criminal efforts was deceit — knowingly false claims of election fraud — and the evidence shows that Mr. Trump used these lies as a weapon to defeat a federal government function foundational to the United States' democratic process," the report states.
Though Smith sought to salvage the indictment, the team dismissed it in November because of longstanding Justice Department policy that says sitting presidents cannot face federal prosecution.
"The Department's view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a President is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government's proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Office stands fully behind," the report states. "Indeed, but for Mr. Trump's election and imminent return to the Presidency, the Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial."
The report is unsparing in its details about schemes undertaken by Trump to undo the presidential contest, accusing him of an "unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power."
It recounts his role in trying to force the Justice Department to use its law enforcement authorities to advance his personal interests, participating in a scheme to enlist fake electors in battleground states won by Biden and having directed "an angry mob to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification of the presidential election and then leverage rioters' violence to further delay it."
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-the-full-special-counsel-report-on-trumps-jan-6-actions
Former Jan. 6 prosecutor and ex-DOJ employees sue Trump administration over firings
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/former-jan-6-prosecutor-doj-employees-sue-trump-administration-firing-rcna220386
'Psychological terrorism': Ex-DOJ officials sue the Trump administration, claiming they were fired for their work on Jan. 6 cases
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/i-knew-why-fired-jan-6-doj-officials-sue-trump-administration-over-terminations-with-no-explanation/
House GOP grumbling for the cameras about today's DoD Iran briefing
"...what I conveyed to them at the end of this hearing, is this has consequences if you don't remedy it," Mike Rogers told reporters.
Politico:
Top Republican attacks Pentagon for not providing details on Iran
The House Armed Services Committee chair said the department owes lawmakers more information about the administration’s plans for U.S. troops in the Middle East.
House Armed Services Committee chair Rep. Mike Rogers said members warned defense officials that troop movements in the region should be “thoughtful and deliberate.” They also made it clear the administration isn’t offering details on American efforts in the U.S. campaign, dubbed Operation Epic Fury.
“We want to know more about what’s going on, what the options are, and why they’re being considered,” the Alabama lawmaker said. “And we’re just not getting enough answers on those questions.”
It’s a notable rebuke from a senior GOP defense hawk who has backed President Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iran — and a warning that the administration could lose support for the nearly month-old war if it can’t adequately make the case to Congress.
“That’s what I conveyed to them at the end of this hearing, is this has consequences if you don’t remedy it,” Rogers told reporters.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/25/rogers-attacks-pentagon-iran-troops-00844639
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