DCUM Weblog

I am going to touch on a few different topics today as there is a lot happening. First, some good news for Democrats. Last night, Catelin Drey, a Democrat, defeated Republican Christopher Prosch in a special election for a seat in the Iowa State Senate. Cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump won this district by 11 points last November. Drey won by 10 points, making this a 21-point shift. This follows a similar special election victory in January when Democrat Mike Zimmer won another state Senate seat that Trump had carried by 21 points. Moreover, Drey's victory broke the Republican supermajority in the Senate. As a result, Republicans will no longer be able to confirm Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds' nominees without Democratic support.  That will allow Democrats to block her most extreme nominees.

Today's post is going to be a bit of a hodgepodge, I am afraid, because there are so many things that I want to address. The common theme is the increased authoritarianism of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump. Every day, he takes new actions to reinforce the perception that he views himself as a dictator, rather than a president. Trump even mused this week that "A lot of people are saying, ‘Maybe we’d like a dictator.’" The guardrails have been off of this presidency since Trump was sworn in for his second term. However, in recent days, Trump has abandoned almost any adherence to the rule of law. His is governance by whim, the rule of a mad king.

I had about five different topics about which I wanted to write today. But just as I sat down to start typing, I learned that Kilmar Ábrego García was taken into custody by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement service this morning. As a result, before getting to anything else, I want to provide an update on the horrific persecution of this man. With regard to Ábrego, the government has been duplicitous, overly zealous, and has demonstrated all the dictatorial tendencies for which the administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has become known. This is truly a black stain on America.

To refresh, Ábrego is an El Salvadoran national who came to the United States in either 2011 or 2012. He moved to Maryland to live with his brother, who is a U.S. citizen. In 2016, he married a woman who is an American citizen. They later had a son. In 2019, Ábrego was detained in the parking lot of a Home Depot and accused of being a member of MS-13. The evidence of such membership was very tenuous, and the police officer who wrote the report was later suspended for misconduct. Nevertheless, an immigration judge (again, a misnomer because such judges are executive branch employees, not members of the judicial branch) issued a removal order. At the same time, the judge granted a withholding of removal that prevented Ábrego from being deported to El Salvador where, the judge was convinced, Ábrego faced credible threats to his safety. In March 2025, Ábrego was working as a union apprentice in Maryland. After picking up his son, Ábrego's car was stopped by Department of Homeland Security agents and he was detained. He was transferred through a number of detention facilities, eventually ending up in Texas. On March 15, just three days after being detained, Ábrego was placed on an airplane taking Venezuelans accused of being gang members to the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador.

While I am tempted to write another post about the federal intervention in the District of Columbia, I will instead address a topic about which I've wanted to write for quite a while. Cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump desires to be a dictator. Unfortunately, a neutered Congress and a compliant Supreme Court are enabling him to fulfill this goal. Trump loves rule by Sharpie, issuing one executive action after another. While these documents cannot lawfully modify, create, or eliminate laws, for some reason they are treated like the edicts of a dictator, exactly as Trump expects. One example is Trump's treatment of tariffs. Congress gave Trump the authority to enact tariffs during an emergency. With Trump, everything is an emergency and, hence, he has essentially rewritten trade policy, repeatedly changing tariff rates on various whims. In Trump's hands, tariffs are not simply a tool for regulating trade. Rather, tariffs are a method of punishing enemies and rewarding friends. Tariffs are an instrument for control and a means of extortion. Trump has gone even further in multiple cases in his quest for control, demanding government payments or even partial ownership of corporations. In a world in which critics have reacted to Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York City Zohran Mamdani's proposal to create publicly-owned grocery stores in food deserts as if he is the second coming of Karl Marx, Trump is demanding partial government ownership of major corporations such as U.S. Steel and Intel. Trump, in effect, not only wants to be the dictator of the United States, but the CEO of any corporation that he can extort into accepting his demands.

I am going to continue focusing on the federal intervention in the District of Columbia. One message that I want to keep reiterating is that what is happening in D.C. should not be viewed as simply a D.C. problem. In many ways, D.C. is being used as a proving ground. Cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has already indicated that he would like to repeat the intervention in other cities. While those living in cities not targeted by Trump, or not living in cities at all, may feel that they are protected from federal occupation, history has shown that is not a sure thing. If Trump is successful in normalizing the use of federal forces, including National Guard units, in D.C., he will be free to do that wherever he likes.

The outline of Trump's apparent plan seems to be becoming clear. As I have in each of these posts, I want to reiterate that fighting crime is not Trump's goal. That is a pretext. Day by day, it becomes more obvious that the real goal is the deportation of migrants. While Trump is cognitively impaired and can be easily satisfied with flashy videos and dramatic photo ops, some of those working for him are hard and cynical people. They are after power, and for them, Trump is a means to that end. Stephen Miller, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, clearly sees this as his opportunity to remove as many migrants from the United States as possible. To do this, Miller needs personnel to hunt migrants down and detain them. He needs places to house them prior to deportation, and he needs a means of transporting them out of the country. The money provided for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, and other immigration-related federal organizations, in the One Big Beautiful Bill will provide for most of this.

I am going to stick with the topic of the federal intervention in Washington, D.C. This is a topic that affects me personally and, depending on how things go, could be an important harbinger of America's future. The big question that I have is, "what is the end game?" Even while additional National Guard units arrive from red states, cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump is already declaring victory. If he has already made the city safe, as he says, then what is the need for additional troops? What are Trump's goals and when will this operation end? It is really remarkable that there are no answers for such basic questions.

Trump, perhaps more than any other figure, is the perfect personification of the joke, "How do you know that he is lying? Because his lips are moving." Trump lives in his own reality — another indication of his cognitive impairment that I feel is necessary to continually mention. One of the biggest giveaways that he is going to tell a lie is when he begins a story by describing someone who approaches him and addresses him as "sir". Often this is a big, strong man who is in tears, but not always. In Trump's latest imaginary conversation, it was actually Democrats. During a press availability with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump claimed that "Democrats are calling me up and they're saying 'sir, I want to thank you. My wife and I went out to dinner last night for the first time in four years and Washington, D.C. is safe." Appearing on Fox News, Trump claimed, "I have friends that say they're going out to dinner. Did you see what's happening with the restaurants? They're bursting."

Yesterday, three more states announced that they would send members of their National Guard units to the District of Columbia. With announcements by Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee, a total of six states are now providing troops. The others are West Virginia, South Carolina, and Ohio. While the Confederacy was not able to occupy Washington, DC during the Civil War, cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump seems to be providing that opportunity now. As I mentioned in yesterday's blog post, National Guard troops will also begin carrying weapons during their deployment. Documented activities by the federal agencies active in D.C. continue to suggest that the operation is not primarily aimed at fighting crime. Rather, the emphasis continues to be on immigration arrests and removing tent encampments.

Today I am going to address a few topics that came up over the weekend. First, I will update developments regarding the federal intervention in the District of Columbia. I made a late update to my post on Friday that dealt with the attempt by cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump to appoint a new head of the Metropolitan Police Department. As I had discussed in that post, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwab had sued Trump in order to stop that effort. After the judge in the case showed strong skepticism of the federal government's actions, Department of Justice lawyers asked for time to modify the directive that had been issued by Attorney General Pam Bondi. Subsequently, Bondi rescinded her initial directive and provided a replacement. The new directive did not include a change of MPD leadership but, instead, concentrated on the MPD providing assistance with immigration arrests and removing the unhoused population from tent encampments. Not surprisingly, therefore, that over the weekend, federal activities heavily concentrated on immigration arrests and tent clearing.

There have been some important developments regarding the steps that cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has taken with regard to the District of Columbia. When I wrote about this on Tuesday, I noted that Trump had taken three steps that were legally within his power: increase the number of federal agents assigned to the District; deploy members of the D.C. National Guard, and; invoke emergency power to direct services from the Metropolitan Police Department for federal purposes. I also noted that there was a wide gulf between the stated aspirations indicated by Trump in his press conference the previous day and the legal authority available to him. As a result, I foresaw the possibility of conflict between D.C. and federal officials and predicted that Attorney General Brian Schwab would be spending time in federal court contesting future Trump actions. Late yesterday, that conflict arrived, and Schwab has already filed his first court case. Now, home rule in D.C. is facing a grave threat.

I am going to keep hammering on the fact that cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump is cognitively impaired. I know that former President Joe Biden struggled with his own cognitive challenges, and there has since been considerable focus on an alleged cover-up of his issues. But whatever happened or did not happen with Biden in no way justifies ignoring Trump's clear mental deterioration. Simply put, Trump's cognitive impairment is leading to policies that reflect that impairment. I am not talking about simple policy disagreements such as different positions regarding tax brackets. Rather, I am referring to policies that are based on the irrational thinking of a man whose brain no longer functions as it should. Not surprisingly, such policies have poor outcomes. Today, I will focus on Trump's energy policy, specifically with regard to renewable energy, and how that policy is largely grounded in Trump's bizarre hatred of windmills.