FAST TRACK

When the President of the United States runs the party that holds the majority in both houses of Congress, I think we can go ahead and call the situation "dictatorship by proxy."

And when the party that's in control has taken an oath to maintain their careers in Congress, no matter what, the deal is sealed.

(Talk of an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution can go on the trash heap of quaint and forgotten history. Political reality has entered the premises. Job One is sucking up to the man who can ruin your career by backing somebody else in the next primary election.)

When a President rules by kingly edict (executive order) and is himself a convicted felon, it's reasonable to assume that many (if not most) of his orders will be illegal.

When that information reaches a federal judge (by way of legal suit) and the judge is of reasonable mind and possesses basic common knowledge, that judge will quickly rule the President's executive order is defective and needs to be vacated.

Such a ruling should be applied as widely as the original executive order was intended to go. If nationwide, then nationwide.

The Supreme Court seems to disagree. Wrong again, boys and girls!

The President can always appeal the judge's decision (right quickly, too, if the President's name is Donald Trump, the man of a thousand lawyers). If the judgment is upheld by an appeals court, the President can pester SCOTUS for relief.

There is no harm to the nation if the judge's decision to derail the executive order is applied nationwide. If the President disagrees, says the matter is super-duper urgent, some sort of accelerated appeals process can be instigated.

Fast track the sucker!

After all, the original timing is entirely up the President. Nothing is on the table until he scrawls his name on the document in question.

When you're dealing with a dictator-by-proxy, everything has to run faster. If the Supreme Court doesn't want to work the whole year round, maybe some sort of penultimate court could pull that duty, ever ready to step in and stuff the President back into his fetid hole.

Let the crime-addled President cool his heels waiting for some final-final decision coming out of Big Time SCOTUS world. I'm sure he'll have lots of other fun criminal activities to fill out his schedule.

Plus, there's always golf, right?

ONE AND UNDONE

Donald Trump is currently considering the use of our bunker-buster bomb to take out Iran's uranium enrichment facility at Fordow, which is buried 300 feet beneath a mountain near Qom. (I believe this is an updated version of the weapon referred to as the MOAB [Mother Of All Bombs] during the search for Osama Bin Laden, when the caves of Tora Bora were clobbered.)

The mission would be a difficult one, involving B2 stealth bombers, fighter jets for cover, AWACS, and refueling aircraft, and would probably require multiple sorties to deliver enough of the big-ass bombs to get the job done.

But could that be it? One and done? Over? Complete? No comeback?

Very unlikely.

Iran would almost certainly launch missiles at US troops in Iraq, no doubt killing hundreds of them. The only way to achieve "one and done" status would be to not respond to that attack. Just let it go. Tell the Iranians they were getting a free one.

But remind them that any further aggression against our forces (in the region or around the world) would result in massive retaliatory attacks all over Iran.

Would that work?

Maybe, but what are the chances Trump could stay the course? Grit his teeth and take the hit? Approximately nil. The allure of tit for tat would be overwhelming. I mean, come on: He would look weak for not hitting back. And looking weak is not his favorite look. (I think he'd almost rather look bald.)

Trump says he's giving Iran two weeks to come to the bargaining table.

Will they respond favorably?

Unlikely. Iran says it won't engage in talks as long as Israel is bombing their country. If Israel wants the US to help out by supplying the big bombs, all it has to do is keep on hitting Iran until time runs out.

I'm pretty sure they'd be willing to do that.

So, is there any way forward?

Hardly. In fact, things may be even more complicated.

It's been reported Iran thinks having a nuclear weapon could be an effective deterrent to keep Israel from attacking their country.

Unfortunately, Israel will continue to attack as long as it looks like Iran is close to getting that nuclear deterrent.

Loggerheads!

Crazy solution: We could guarantee Iran that if they are willing to give up the dream of the magic device, any future attacks from Israel would be answered with force by the US. Or, more likely, Israel would be informed of such an eventuality and be warned away from strikes in Iran.

Sounds pretty shaky.

But hey, consider this even crazier solution: We give the Iranians thirty or forty nukes.

(Israel is thought to have 300 warheads.)

That way, both sides would have the bomb: Mutually Assured Destruction, baby!

It would be too late for Israel to head off the development of an Iranian nuke. Both countries would be forced to let cooler heads prevail.

One problem: Iran may be sitting on divine permission to obliterate Israel.

Too bad, really: Among the humans, the supply of cooler heads is dangerously limited.

(Seriously, people. How the hell did we get this far?)

[Obviously, events have trespassed on the validity of this post, Trump having made his decision to deploy bunker busters in Iran. We now await the Iranian response.]

UPPING THE STAKES

On the tarmac a few days ago, before tripping his way up the stairs to Air Force One, Donald Trump said: "We're going to have troops everywhere. We can't let this happen to our country."

Not realizing, I suppose, that the second half of his statement could be seen as blow-back from the first half.

Whatever nonsense the man screeched out in front of a howling mass of supporters at a one of his campaign rallies, Trump took as a contract to be performed in the event he won the election. Well, somehow or other, he won.

He said he would remove eleven million undocumented people from the country, starting with the "worst of the worst."

In order to perform this task in the four years of a single presidential term, Trump would have to deport more than 7500 a day.

In the last year of the Biden administration, ICE deported 271,484 people. That's 744 individuals a day, on average. It's been reported that Trump's numbers are currently below that rate, let alone ten times the Biden number, which is the level the president needs to be hitting. As a consequence, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told ICE commanders to up their game or be fired.

What better location to up their game than Los Angeles County, where an estimated one million undocumented critters make their homes.

ICE agents raided the garment district in LA, and a Home Depot in Paramount, chasing a handful of would-be day workers out of the parking lot.

Folks protested, saying these people were not criminals, not the "worst of the worst" they were promised would be Trump's target.

Of course not. Because the really bad boys are a lot harder to grab up.

I don't have the exact numbers, but I would estimate that of the eleven million people ultimately pursued by ICE, approximately none of them belong in the category of worst of the worst.

But for the average (legal) citizen of LA, what ICE is doing is a violation of the mandate they think Trump is operating under.

It's not, of course. And folks ought to know it.

But folks are folks: stupid and crazy and unaware of it. It's how we humans roll. We misunderstand the rules. Important details fall under the table and are lost.

Protesting the actions of ICE is protected under the Constitution, but does it make sense? That depends on a lot of stuff nobody is talking about right now. Will removing the eleven million help or hurt the economy? On the other hand, should the economy even be considered when determining the right path?

Is there still such a thing as political asylum in this country? And if so, should there be? How many people around the world ought to be absorbed into this country? One percent? Ten percent? Any of them who want to be?

All questions that need to be pondered.

But now the emphasis in LA has shifted.

How many have moved on to protesting the presidential deployment of the California National Guard? Or the presence of Marines in the city? How many are protesting presidential overreach?

Trump says if he hadn't sent in the National Guard, LA would have burned to the ground by now. Is this the delusion of a power-mad would-be dictator? Maybe.

(Okay: probably.)

Are Trump's actions making things better or worse? I think we know his answer. And unfortunately, his answer is the only one that counts.

Will the courts undo his actions? I guess they might try. Not that it's likely to have much sway over Donald Trump. When courts shoot him down, he simply declares victory and sends in a phalanx of new lawyers. He's got millions of 'em.

Trump promises to have troops everywhere. Oh, boy. Going to be a long, hot summer.

Starting with Saturday the fourteenth, with freshly-painted Army tanks rolling through the streets of DC.

Now we have to worry: Is the big man setting the stage for his big move?

Stay tuned.