Tip of the hat to http://all-hat-no-cattle.blogspot.com

Just a short reminder of why we are protesting today. Donald J. Trump was placed into the presidency of our country twice now. In both instances both he and his party have done and are doing all they can to turn Trump into a King with all the powers that accrues. 

Besides the fact that Trump is a miserable excuse for a human being, the government set up by our founders and improved upon by each generation is a complex government designed specifically to limit the power of any individual or group. When all else fails, the people are the ultimate source of power and must at times exert their power.

The most recent example of Trump’s plan to make himself King comes from a statement uttered by his minion DHS Secretary Kristi Noem just before Senator Alex Padilla was accosted by her security guards as reported by Heather Cox Richardson in her daily newsletter of Friday:

While much focus has been on the assault itself, what Noem was saying before Padilla spoke out is crucially important. “We are not going away,” she said. “We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.”{my bolding}

In other words, the Trump administration is vowing to get rid of the democratically elected government of California by using military force. That threat is the definition of a coup. It suggests MAGA considers any political victory but their own to be illegitimate and considers themselves justified in removing those governmental officials with violence: a continuation of the attempt of January 6, 2021, to overturn the results of a presidential election.

Priscilla Alvarez and Natasha Bertrand of CNN reported today that, although the Trump administration said its federalization of the National Guard and mobilization of Marines into Los Angeles was an emergency response to rioting, in fact White House officials began talking about using the National Guard and the military as support for immigration enforcement as early as February. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and officials from the Department of Homeland Security led the talks. They also want to use military facilities to hold detainees.

Tip of the hat to http://all-hat-no-cattle.blogspot.com

The crimes of wannabe King Donald I go back to his teen years. Recently they include such crimes as stealing Top Secret documents from our government to do who knows what with and taking bribes from foreign governments (a huge plane for instance) and from foreign citizens through the purchase of crypto coins.

For a recount of Trump’s previous crimes you can go here. Remember that while Trump is the current propagator of the attempt to end our democracy, we want no King of any party or stripe. 

Today may well be one of the turning points of history. It brings to mind the words of President Lincoln’s Gettysburg address in November of 1863:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. 

Here is a list of the locations around Iowa where protests are taking place today:

Be peaceful and be aware that your actions will be historic.