Rod's Comment: Can anyone say, "slow-walking"?
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Thursday, June 12, 2025
Eight months later, FBI investigation of GOP Congressman Andy Ogles still awaits federal judge's ruling
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — It’s been said that the wheels of justice grind slowly, and there may be no better example than the FBI’s investigation of Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles.
For more than eight months, FBI agents have been blocked from looking at evidence seized from the Maury County Republican while a federal magistrate decides what agents can see.
Attorneys for both sides gave Magistrate Judge Alistair E. Newbern everything she needed to make a decision in the case on Oct. 7, 2024, court records show.
Since then, Newbern has been silent on the matter. (read more)
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Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Regarding the Mostly Peaceful Riots in L. A.
Last night I watched a store being looting. It was some kind of clothing store. This was about 1:30 in the morning L.A. time. The store had one of those roll down metal doors that cover the front of the store. Vandals had pried it up, broke the front door down, and looters were entering the store and carrying away armfuls of clothes. This went on for several minutes before the police arrived. The looters fled and police only caught one of them. I don't know how looting this store helps poor innocent immigrants being persecuted by Donald Trump's ICE.
I suspect there are a lot of people who could care less about the cause and just enjoy thieving and vandalizing. During the BLM riots of 2020 we saw people topple statues of abolitionist and poets. I guess it is empowering to topple a statue, and one doesn't care who it is a statue of.
I think there are a certain segment of the population who find a riot a festive event. Looting, toppling, spray painting, setting police cars on fire and even beating up helpless people must be an adrenaline rush for some people. I am also not buying the excuse that it is poor oppressed people venting their rage. No! It is low lives, thieves, and thugs taking advantage of a situation to get free stuff and experience the enjoyment of violence and destruction.
Defender of protest do not like it when the violence is reported or featured. Sympathetic newscasters and pundits can stand in front of a burning police car and speak of the "mostly peaceful" demonstration. I am not buying it.
What does it mean that a demonstration was "mostly peaceful?
On January 6th, 2021, 53,000 people attended the "Stop the Steal" rally where President Trump spoke and is accused of inciting the violence. The FBI estimated that between 2,000 and 2,500 people entered the Capitol Building during the January 6th attack. Assuming the above numbers are correct and using the 2500 number as the number who trespassed into the capitol that is 4.7% trespassed. We know that many of those who trespassed entered after the door had already been opened and they just entered and loitered a while and left. 1,500 people were charged with federal crimes in connection with the January 6th United States Capitol attack. The number of charges includes a range of offenses from misdemeanor violations to felony offenses like assaulting police officers. So about 2.8% of those in attendance at the protest were charged with some sort of offence. I know some people who were at the Stop the Steal rally, and they said they were not close to the action and if not for watching the news on their cell phone they would have not known about the breach of the Capitol.
January 6th was a mostly peaceful demonstration.
If you have 10,000 people taking part in a demonstration and 97% are peaceful, you could still have 300 people who are setting police cars on fire, toppling statues, looting stores, and throwing chucks of concreate off of interstate overpasses and pulling people from cars and beating them. That is a "mostly peaceful" demonstrations.
If 5,001 of the 10,000 are not burning down a city, that is a "mostly peaceful" demonstration. After all, one more than half is most of the people. I don't find "mostly peaceful" a very compelling excuse for rioters. I don't think it is the most accurate and descriptive of terms for describing what is happening.
Having said what I have said above, this is not a commentary on the January 6th insurrection, Trump's immigration policy, or Trump's authority to use the military for domestic policing or crowd control. I am simply pointing out that when someone tells me an event is "mostly peaceful" that doesn't tell me a lot and sound like an excuse for the violence.
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The White House Marching Orders That Sparked the L.A. Migrant Crackdown
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| WH Bernstein |
Seems Trump was frustrated that his rate of deportations was lower than Biden's. Right, the same Biden Republicans claim had an open border policy and was flooding the country with illegals.
Turns out he had deported more people than Trump ever did.
So Steven Miller, cosplaying the role of Himmler in this administration, gave a speech basically saying "fuck the rules, get out there and grab Hispanic butt."
Instead of identifying illegals and targeting them the strategy now became to hone in on Home Depot parking lots (I'm not making this up, I swear) and other places illegals tended to gather and simply arrest people.
Incompetent people in administration make bad choices and this regime demonstrates it daily.
The White House Marching Orders That Sparked the
L.A. Migrant Crackdownby Elizabeth Findell, Ruth Simon, Michelle Hackman, and Tarini Parti, Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2025 - Even with the high-profile arrests of suspects by masked immigration agents and the plane loads of migrants swiftly ferried out of the U.S., President Trump was falling short of the number of daily deportations carried out by the Biden administration in its final year.
So in late May, Stephen Miller, a top White House aide and the architect of the president’s immigration agenda, addressed a meeting at the headquarters of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE. The message was clear: The president, who promised to deport millions of immigrants living in the country illegally, wasn’t pleased. The agency had better step it up.
Gang members and violent criminals, what Trump called the “worst of the worst,” weren’t the sole target of deportations. Federal agents needed to “just go out there and arrest illegal aliens,” Miller told top ICE officials, ... Agents didn’t need to develop target lists of immigrants suspected of being in the U.S. illegally, a longstanding practice, Miller said. Instead, he directed them to target Home Depot, where day laborers typically gather for hire, or 7-Eleven convenience stores. Miller bet that he and a handful of agents could go out on the streets of Washington, D.C., and arrest 30 people right away. “Who here thinks they can do it?” Miller said, asking for a show of hands.
ICE agents appeared to follow Miller’s tip and conducted an immigration sweep Friday at the Home Depot in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Westlake in Los Angeles,...
... “To do this in militaristic gear in L.A. is intended to notch up the image of deportations being in high gear,” said Muzaffar Chishti, senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. “But the actual deportations are paltry compared with the imagery.”
...There are no written directives, but officers have been told to “do what you need to do” to make more arrests, according to current and former ICE officials familiar with the directives.
The administration’s immigration enforcement is a sharp break with past government practices, according to attorneys, immigration advocates and officials from previous administrations.
Federal agents make warrantless arrests. Masked agents take people into custody without identifying themselves. Plainclothes agents in at least a dozen cities have arrested migrants who showed up to their court hearings. And across the U.S., people suspected of being in the country illegally are disappearing into the federal detention system without notice to families or lawyers, according to attorneys, witnesses and officials.
.... They were seeking a resident’s son who had allegedly posted fliers alerting neighbors to the presence of ICE agents. The raid alarmed the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, an organization that defends free speech, which requested a copy of the warrant. “Criticism of government officials is core protected speech, and to criticize them you have every right to identify them,” said Aaron Terr, the group’s director of public advocacy.
.... The Border Patrol’s El Centro sector in Southern California posted photos of a broken car window on Facebook: The caption said, “This illegal alien is listing his accomplishments for the past week: Refused to open window during an immigration inspection; Got his window shattered for an extraction.”
... ICE has stopped regularly publishing arrest data, and has been accused of overstating the numbers. The Trump administration arrested roughly 66,500 migrants living in the U.S. illegally and deported nearly 66,000 in its first 100 days, a higher pace of arrests compared with 2024, and a slightly slower pace for deportations.
Earlier this year, ICE officials set daily arrest quotas and deputized agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law-enforcement agencies. ICE officials eliminated a Biden-era policy that blocked officers from arresting people without proof of legal residency who happened to be in the vicinity of targeted suspects. Raids at schools, churches and hospitals are now allowed.
... Officials from the White House and the Department of Homeland Security have made clear there will be consequences for not hitting arrest targets. Top officials at DHS have pushed out one acting ICE director and are threatening a second.
... Elsewhere, Americans detained by ICE have said they were held for hours or longer before being allowed to prove their citizenship. ... Courthouse arrests have become a nationwide strategy, according to DHS officials and lawyers. They allow ICE to boost arrest numbers with fewer resources. It also puts migrants in a corner: Should they risk arrest by following the legal process and appearing in court? ... Other lawyers say clients have been denied access to legal counsel. Luis Campos, a Tucson-based attorney, said a Border Patrol agent physically blocked him from seeing a woman on the maternity ward who had just given birth. The woman and her family had requested that she have counsel, Campos said. ICE said all laws and procedures were followed. (read it all)
Bill Bernstein, formerly of Nashville where he was owner of Eastside Gun Shop, now lives in Sumter, South Carolina. He is a scholar with a BA degree from Vanderbilt University and degrees in Classics from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, UNC-Chapel Hill, and University of Pennsylvania.
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Monday, June 09, 2025
Rep. Mark Green Retires from the U.S. House of Representatives
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| Rep. Mark Green |
“It is with a heavy heart that I announce my retirement from Congress. Recently, I was offered an opportunity in the private sector that was too exciting to pass up. As a result, today I notified the Speaker and the House of Representatives that I will resign from Congress as soon as the House votes once again on the reconciliation package.
It was the honor of a lifetime to represent the people of Tennessee in Congress. They asked me to deliver on the conservative values and principles we all hold dear, and I did my level best to do so. Along the way, we passed historic tax cuts, worked with President Trump to secure the border, and defended innocent life. I am extremely proud of my work as Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and want to thank my staff, both in my seventh district office, as well as the professional staff on that committee.
I have now served the public for nearly four decades. The Army took me to Iraq and Afghanistan. The people sent me to the Tennessee legislature and the halls of Congress. Along the way, I have often remarked on the strength of the men and women I have served with. I know that the integrity, decency, and faith of the American people are what powered us for the first 250 years, and will power us for another 250 and beyond.
I can proudly look back at my time in Congress and the success that we have accomplished on behalf of Tennesseans and the American people. I am grateful to Speaker Johnson and House Leadership for placing their trust in me to chair the Committee on Homeland Security, lead the effort to impeach former Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and to pass H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act, the strongest border security legislation in history to ever pass the House. However, my time in Congress has come to an end.
Though I planned to retire at the end of the previous Congress, I stayed to ensure that President Trump’s border security measures and priorities make it through Congress. By overseeing the border security portion of the reconciliation package, I have done that. After that, I will retire, and there will be a special election to replace me.
I have no doubt that my colleagues in this Congress will continue to strengthen the cause of freedom. May God bless them, and the United States of America.”
Rep. Green served as the Freshman Class President in the 116th Congress following his election in 2018. At the beginning of the 118th Congress, Rep. Green was selected as Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, becoming the only member of Congress to be selected at the start of their third term to chair a major legislative committee in the 21st century. In 2024, Rep. Green led the effort to impeach former Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Nicolas Mayorkas for high crimes and misdemeanors. On February 13, 2024, the House of Representatives successfully impeached Secretary Mayorkas.
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Medicare Waste is Rightly Back on the Table
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Sunday, June 08, 2025
No Kings rally, June 14th
I plan on attending.
NO KINGS is a peaceful protest against authoritarianism, government overreach, and the erosion of our rights. This rally is organized by a group called Indivisible and is in response to Trump's planned military-style birthday parade.
Time: Saturday, June 14, 10am – 12pm CDT
Location: Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park,600 James Robertson Parkway Nashville, TN 37243, Amphitheater area, Nashville, TN 37243
There are also rallies across the nation including one in Murfreesboro and Gallatin here in middle Tennessee and all major Tennessee cities. For other locations follow this link.
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God Bless this Honorable Court!
One ruling was significant because it is a smackdown of DEI wokeness. That the ruling was 9-0 makes it hard for the woke folk to claim those mean old Trump appointed White racist and misogynist justices on the Court or perpetuating bigotry. This excerpt from a news report explains the case:
The case originated from a heterosexual woman, Marlean Ames, who sued the Ohio Department of Youth Services, which runs the state's juvenile correctional system, after she was passed over for a promotion and subsequently significantly demoted in favor of two gay candidates with less education and experience than herself. Two lower courts ruled against her, arguing that she had failed to clear a higher bar to prove discrimination set for plaintiffs from majority groups. Both courts found that she had not provided "background circumstances" showing that "the agency was the rare employer who discriminates against members of a majority group," according to the Supreme Court Opinion.
While the Supreme Court did not rule on the merits of Ames' discrimination claim, they did rule that the lower courts' "background circumstances" standard was unconstitutional and inconsistent with federal civil rights law, which protects all individuals equally, regardless of whether they belong to majority or minority groups. (link)
Since Trump has returned to office, he has been on a campaign to purge DEI policies from the Federal government. While I disagree with much that Trump does and especially the way he goes about it, I support the effort to rollback DEI and other aspects of wokeness. Unfortunately, most of the Trump attacks on DEI are simply departmental policies or executive orders. An executive order can simply be overturned by the next administration, but a Supreme Court ruling has more lasting impact and a 9-0 Supreme Court order means that the advocates of reverse discrimination might as well give up. The next president cannot simply go back to things the way they were. This ruling is expected to trigger a slew of "reverse discrimination" lawsuits which will roll back DEI across the country. This will have more lasting impact than all of that the Trump administration has done to fight DEI.
Another 9-0 decision was a blow for religious liberty. The Court ruled that Catholic Charities is entitled to tax relief it was denied because its operations were not primarily religious. This decision could expand eligibility for religious tax exemptions.
Another 9-0 decision was a victory for gun rights. The Court threw out a lawsuit brought on by the Mexican government against Smith & Wesson. Mexico argued that the gun manufacturer was worsening violence in the country. The justices upheld a law that shields gun companies from legal liability.
Not only are these rulings gratifying for the policy positions they advanced but because the liberal justices ignored policy implications and ruled on the law. Maybe, we really are all originalist now.
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Friday, June 06, 2025
FACT CHECK: Is Ford Moving Four of Its Factories Back to the US As a Result of Trump Tariffs?
There is no basis in fact to this claim. Check Your Facts says the claim is false. They go on to say:
The claim is false and originally stems from a March 26 post shared by “America’s Last Line of Defense,” which is a satirical Facebook page. The Facebook page describes itself as “the flagship of the ALLOD network of trollery and propaganda for cash” before reiterating “nothing on this page is real.”
Likewise, Check Your Fact did not find a press release on Ford’s website or a statement shared on its verified social media accounts repeating the claim. Trump also does not appear to have publicly commented on the claim via his personal or government X accounts, his TRUTH Social account, or his verified social media accounts. (RELATED: Viral X Image Does Not Show Authentic Truth Social Post From Trump About ‘Ending Tariffs’)In addition, Check Your Fact did not find any credible news reports to support the claim. If Ford had truly decided to move four of its factories back to the U.S. as the Threads post claims, multiple media outlets would’ve covered it, yet none have.Actually, the opposite is true. On March 31, Snopes debunked the claim, tracing its origin to the same satirical Facebook page.
I know this will not influence the diehard super MAGA crowd. If Trump told them, it was midnight in the noon of the day, they would find a way to believe him. Faith can be hard to shake. Remember all the people who drank the Jim Jones Kool-Aid. What we are seeing with the Trump phenomena is not much different. However, not everyone who voted for Trump parked their brain at the door and we need to continue to counter falsehood with the truth.
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Homeland Security’s list of ‘sanctuary cities’ pulled down after sheriffs object
On Saturday, National Sheriffs’ Association President Sheriff Kieran Donahue slammed the list as an “unnecessary erosion of unity and collaboration with law enforcement.”
“As we have previously stated, the list is being constantly reviewed and can be changed at any time and will be updated regularly,” according to a DHS spokesperson. “Designation of a sanctuary jurisdiction is based on the evaluation of numerous factors, including self-identification as a Sanctuary Jurisdiction, noncompliance with Federal law enforcement in enforcing immigration laws, restrictions on information sharing, and legal protections for illegal aliens.” ...
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on Fox News Sunday did not acknowledge that the list was taken down, but said some localities had “pushed back.”
“They think because they don’t have one law or another on the books that they don’t qualify, but they do qualify,” Noem said. “They are giving sanctuary to criminals.”
... The creation of the list stems from Donald Trump’s executive order in April that required DHS to produce a list of cities that do not cooperate with federal immigration officials in enforcement matters, in order to strip federal funding from those local governments.
Those jurisdictions are often dubbed “sanctuary cities,” but immigration enforcement still occurs in the city — there’s just no coordination between the local government and the federal government.
The jurisdictions are often a target for the Trump administration and Republicans, who support the President Donald Trump campaign promise of mass deportations of people without permanent legal status.
... Local officials were puzzled by the list. One law enforcement association in North Dakota questioned why several counties — Billings, Golden Valley, Grant, Morton, Ramsey, Sioux, and Slope — were listed as sanctuary jurisdictions because those areas cooperate with federal immigration officials.
In a statement, the North Dakota Sheriff’s and Deputies Association said the “methodology and criteria used to compile this list is unknown,” and there has been no communication from DHS “on how to rectify this finding.”
Local advocacy groups also noted the problems with the DHS list.
According to the Internet Archive website Wayback Machine, the states, as well as the District of Columbia, that were on the list included Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington state and Wisconsin. (read more)
Rod's Comment: I think I have figured it out. The sanctuary city list is simply Trump's "shit list." It is all dependent on Trump's mood. There are no criteria for being on the list or not on the list. If Trump wakes up in a good mood, he may take you off the list; a foul mood and you may go on the list. This is the way authoritarians rule; all of the rules are subject to the mood of the dear leader. The dear leader knows best and we just must trust his judgement and don't question his wisdom. There is no appeal to rationality; the best one can do is try to flatter the dear leader and hope he gets in a better mood.
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Thursday, June 05, 2025
Out-of -State Leftist Organizations Working to Influence Metro Council
Similar to the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition and Stand Up Nashville, whose funding sources we previously reviewed, the Southern Movement Committee receives much of its funding from large, out-of-state NGOs.
In 2022, SMC raised a flat $400,000, $125,000 of which came from the CCP-linked Chinese Progressive Association. In addition to the lavish grant from the CPA for “black organizing innovations,” the so-called local nonprofit received $60,000 from Borealis Philanthropy in Minneapolis, $100,000 from New Profit Inc in Boston, and $50,000 from the New Venture Fund in Washington D.C. among others.
In total, for the year 2022, 86 percent of the group’s funding came from large, out-of-state NGOs.
In 2023, they raised $572,000. Borealis Philanthropy upped its grant to $200,000, and the Public Welfare Foundation out of D.C. chipped in $132,000 among others.
In total for 2023, 69 percent of the group’s funding came from large, out-of-state NGOs.
What makes SMC different from TIRRC and Stand Up is that they came to the meeting on Tuesday with a specific ask: $10 million for expenditures related to restorative justice, which they call the “Varsity Spending Plan.”
NewsChannel 5 produced a glowing profile of the group after Tuesday’s meeting. "We want to see those that program and that restorative justice, conflict resolution increase throughout Nashville," Erica Perry, executive director of the Southern Movement Committee, told the station.
Last year, the council granted SMC’s request for $1 million to create the Office of Youth Safety. The office is tasked with “taking a proactive, evidence-based, people-informed approach to youth safety and well-being.” In the mayor’s statement on the creation of the new office, he explicitly thanked the Southern Movement Committee and councilmember Delishia Porterfield, among others.
Over the past four years, we’ve witnessed the rapid growth of supposedly local nonprofits that receive lavish funding from groups like the Bay Area-based Tides Foundation, the D.C.-based New Venture Fund, and most interestingly, the CCP-linked Chinese Progressive Association. Who do these groups represent? What do they want for the city?
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