Notes from the US: This is what impunity looks like

There is increasing evidence that the MAGA cult was always prepared to break the law when it suits them

~ Louis Further ~

Last weekend saw the first such major loss of life whose severity was partially caused by the MAGA/Trump/DOGE cuts to public services: over 120 people died at a summer camp in Texas where forecasting agencies were insufficiently-resourced to warn of the flood when the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, Texas, rose eight metres in under 60 minutes. Even some local officials in Texas seemed briefly to realise that things were not right. But not that the climate catastrophe made such events more likely.

Indeed, Trump’s illegal action sacking tens of thousands of (such) government workers was sanctioned by the US Supreme Court last week. Cult senator for the state, Ted Cruz, for example, in supporting that same ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ (which slashed funding for forecasting still further) slipped text into the bill to eliminate US$150 (£110) million from a fund to ‘…accelerate advances and improvements in research, observation systems, modelling, forecasting, assessments, and dissemination of information to the public…’ in the area. Trump, of course, denied everything.

The MAGA/Trump cult is proving as dangerous for the Earth as feared. For instance, the Bureau of Land Management last month announced an expansion in fossil fuel extraction in Utah with attendant damaging infrastructure (transport, refineries, spoil etc). The days of the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which protects over 50 million acres of forest from logging and road-building, are also numbered.

Later that week, the ‘Big beautiful bill‘ included a last minute provision to remove incentives for wind and solar energy. That’s the same now law which will do so much harm—depriving, for example, tens of millions of residents of healthcare; which—the Vice President of the United States says—is a small price to pay for turning the country white.

Resolutions were signed into law which overturn mandates by the state of California to phase out the sale of new petrol-burning (passenger) vehicles by 2035. This effectively makes it illegal NOT to increase the percentage of fossil fuel-based vehicles. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has also told staff to stop enforcing violations by fossil fuel companies. Dissent at the Agency will no longer be tolerated.

Meanwhile, one Paul Ingrassia has been nominated to oversee the handling of government whistleblowers at the Office of Special Counsel (OSC). He is 30 with hardly a year’s relevant experience, having only been admitted to the bar last summer. But in a video marking the anniversary of 9/11, Ingrassia endorsed the discredited Alex Jones’s conspiracy theories about the event. He also reposted comments from such notorious white supremacists and Holocaust deniers as Nick Fuentes; he advocates that “…straight white men…” are the most intelligent, and so should be given priority in education. He’s also an apologist for those who invaded the Capitol on January 6 2021 and convicted of murder.

Oppression

MAGA/Trump will ignore the five million “Hey hey, Ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go” participants in the No Kings Day protests this time last month. At the end of June the (clearly divided) Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional acts could not be challenged in lower courts. This adds significantly to the MAGA cult’s dictatorial power.

Border patrols in California continue to assault immigrant workers with pepper spray and physical beatings, as deaths continue in what could almost be called ‘concentration’ camps operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Appalling descriptions continue to emerge of conditions in these camps into which kidnapped and trafficked non-whites have been thrown. These are coming from the very few officials successful in conducting the requisite visits to these prisons—while those organising the round-ups show callous indifference. Tom Homan, the leader of the MAGA cult’s kidnap-traffic-kill operation, made it plain that ICE is identifying those it seizes by their appearance and the way they speak—not by evidence of criminality.

Particularly sickening were cult members’ crowing at the squalor of the camps in one of the United States’ most inhospitable environments, in Florida. Head ghoul of the cult, Stephen Miller, could make millions because of his financial interests in one of the firms, Palantir, which is kidnapping and trafficking non-whites as part of the MAGA/Trump purge of guest-workers. In San Francisco, the EPA has dropped current and unresolved legal cases against GEO Group (a significant donor to Trump) for misusing harmful disinfectant in an ICE camp.

Ahead of the protests around kidnapping and trafficking of migrants to the US and the Trump birthday military parade –  Sheriff Wayne Ivey of Florida’s Brevard County told potential protesters that his staff would kill them if, for instance, they “…point[ed] a gun at one of our deputies…”. A gun was used to assassinate two Minnesota lawmakers; another survived. Utah Senator Mike Lee joked about the event. Trump did not attend the assassinated legislators’ funeral.

There is increasing evidence that the Trump/MAGA administration was always prepared—determined, even—not to follow the law when it didn’t suit them. And to go after judges of whom he disapproves, as happened in Maryland. The state of Washington is also being sued by the Trump/MAGA cult over a law designed to curb child abuse (he claims it is ‘anti-catholic’), as is Minnesota for its actions which recognise the rights of immigrants.

Cruelty

In contravention of the US constitution and laws separating church and state Texas governor, Greg Abbott last month signed a bill requiring all public schools to display the Christian Ten Commandments in their classrooms. Yet schools in Idaho must no longer show the message ‘Everyone is Welcome Here’ because that would be… “ideological”. In Pierce County Georgia, Lavonnia Moore, a Library Manager with 15 years experience, was sacked last month because a stand (part of a statewide “color our world” summer reading project) included a book with a transgender child.

LGBTQ+ youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers—over 40% actively considered suicide in the past year. For nearly three years they have been able to speak with trained specialists for help and counsel by dialling the National Suicide Hotline on ‘988’ and pressing ‘3’. In one of his most sadistic moves yet, Trump shut down the service in the middle of June’s Pride Month. The annual budget for this was US$102 million (just over £200,000 a day) – not far from what the US Department of ‘Defense’ spends every minute of every second around the clock.

Trump and the MAGA cult have made much of the pretence that they care about the rights of Jewish students during protests at universities against the Gazan genocide. Yet Trump used an anti-semitic slur at a rally this month. As for the Palestinian cause in the US, the cult has again defied a court order not to deport a young refugee originally from Gaza back to the hostilities.

Republican senator, Tommy Tuberville (Alabama) also has a record of racist comments. The latest came last month when he referred to Muslim-Americans moving to Alabama as “inner-city” rats who would “…bring that Communist, Islamic atmosphere with [them]…”.

Nor was there any shortage of racism when Zohran Mamdani, a professed democratic socialist, became the Democratic Party’s nominee for New York City mayor. Republican Representative Andy Ogles officially requested that Mamdani (a legal US citizen) be deported as non-white. Charlie Kirk, Trump ally and confidante, went further—suggesting that all immigrants by their very nature are bad and should be removed.

Photo: Jerry Glaser on rawpixel.com, CC0.

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