Democratic Governors Are Gearing Up For A Fight Against Trump

(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To The Last Post Of The Week From The Blog’s Favourite Living Canadian)

From the Boston Globe:

Shots fired.

“Every tool in the toolbox has got to be used to protect our citizens, to protect our residents, and protect our states, and certainly to hold the line on democracy and the rule of law,” Healey said in comments on MSNBC this week, after Trump won the presidential election. When MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell asked Healey if the Massachusetts State Police would be enlisted in helping realize the deportation efforts, Healey said: “No. Absolutely not.” Healey said state officials here and across the country may have to use additional resources to keep their residents from harm, including their regulatory authority, executive powers, and state legislation.

In this, our governor is following the lead of other local elected officials who fought these battles alongside of her when she was the state’s attorney general during the first time around.

Healey’s defiant tone echoed that of then-Mayor Martin J. Walsh eight years ago after Trump had begun his first term as president. Walsh made national news by declaring he would shelter undocumented immigrants in Boston City Hall as a last resort, though that never happened. Boston was one of multiple municipalities that passed or strengthened laws that restrict local law enforcement from working with federal immigration enforcement. Other “sanctuary city” communities in the Boston area include Chelsea, Somerville, and Cambridge.

In 2017, the state’s highest court upheld those laws, stating that court officers should not hold someone solely on the basis of a federal immigration detainer request. The Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling was seen as the first by a state high court to forbid local authorities from enforcing federal immigration laws, and it’s what State Police cited this week in responding to the new questions over enforcement.

Expect to see more of this defiance in blue states across the country. California Governor Gavin Newsom has called a special session of the state legislature to plan strategies to protect his government’s policies against the coming onslaught from the second Trump administration. So we may have yet another modern iteration of the political brawl over the Fugitive Slave Act, Massachusetts famously resisted the original act. We’ve seen the same divisive dynamic playing out over reproductive freedom and, now, over mass deportation. It never ends well for anyone.

On April 4th 1961, agents of the United States Department of Justice at the direction of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, picked up Carlos Marcello, the head of the Mafia in New Orleans, stuck him on a plane, and flew him to Guatemala, whereupon the Guatemalan authorities dumped him and his sharp suit and fancy shoes on top of a mountain in the middle of a tropical jungle. Marcello and his lawyer stumbled through rough terrain until they came to a small mountain village just over the border in El Salvador. Marcello was furious and, depending on who you talk to today, had his revenge on November 22, 1963 in Dallas.

Now what RFK did to Marcello was extra-legal, profoundly unconstitutional, and harsh enough to make the ACLU scream bloody murder. Of course, President Kennedy didn’t have the blanket of immunity that the Supreme Court granted the president last July. Biden does, at least until the end of January.

As a naturalized citizen, Elon Musk swore to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. He clearly has violated that oath by consorting with Vladimir Putin and by his blatant attempts to monkey-wrench the 2024 election. He jumped on a call between the president-elect and Volodymyr Zelensky. In addition, he allegedly worked in this country illegally. And I, for one, wouldn’t complain too loudly if, say, Elon Musk were to be stuck on a plane, flown to a remote airstrip in his native South Africa, and dumped in some desolate corner of the veldt.

Just sayin’.

Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: “I Get The Blues When It Rains” (Sweet Emma Barrett) — Yeah, I pretty much still love New Orleans.

Weekly Visit To The Pathe Archives: Here, from 1920, if you weren’t depressed enough, is the newly elected President of the United States, Warren Gamaliel Harding. In close-up, we see the president-elect scoping out the chicks in the crowd while some guy in a uniform contributes his recommendations. History is so cool.

I have taken a firm position against cable TV news until after Christmas. The NFL is rolling toward the playoffs. So is big-time college football, for the first time. College basketball is underway. The NHL and NBA are at full boil. My Nottingham Forest Merrymen are surprising everyone in the EPL GAA football opens up in January. I have plenty to watch. If I want to watch autopsies, I’ll turn on ID TV, or, at least, NCIS.

However, when sheer babbling idiocy comes to call, the diligent blogger answers the door.

“It turns out that running on these extraordinarily niche issues like gender fluidity and defunding the police don’t actually matter—or, frankly feel out of touch with ordinary Americans.”

OK, first of all, that sentence is a grammatical fruitcake. Nothing can be “extraordinarily niche.” Niche is a noun, not an adjective, and therefore does not require an adverb as a modifier. Second of all, there are a couple of verbs in that sentence that desperately need to be introduced properly to their subjects. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t bring this up if Ms. Weiss were not a trustee, and media frontperson, for an alleged university. More to the point, does her description of the campaign just passed bear any resemblance to the positions of the actual Democratic candidate? Seems to me that it was the Republican candidate who kept bringing that swill to the forefront, largely to spook the rubes who watch the network that provided Ms. Weiss the opportunity to be stupid on TV. Hell with it. What’s the over on Iowa-UCLA tonight?

There was a jailbreak—or, more precisely—a lab break in South Cackalacky. From NBC News:

Police in Yemassee, Beaufort County, confirmed Thursday night that the primates were in the wooded region surrounding the Alpha Genesis facility, in a rural area on the edge of Yamassee. Locals were urged to lock windows and doors and not to interact with the monkeys and instead call 911 immediately upon spotting any of the escaped primates. “These animals are highly sensitive and easily startled, we recommend the public avoid the area to prevent frightening them further,” police said. “The staff at Alpha Genesis are currently attempting to entice the animals back using food in order to ensure their safe capture,” the police statement said. The company hopes that one-way traps containing apples will entice the animals.

I would urge the monkeys not to interact with the humans. It hasn’t been our best week.

Discovery Corner: Hey, look what we found! From Smithsonian:

Unearthed near the city of Luxor, the Egyptian site dates back to the Middle Kingdom, a period of prosperity between roughly 2030 and 1650 B.C.E. It contains the remains of 11 individuals, who could have been members of the same family across several generations. “This is the first Middle Kingdom tomb found in the area,” writes the South Asasif Conservation Project, which led the excavation, in a statement. “Among the finds are beautiful necklaces, bracelets, armlets, scarab rings and girdles made of amethyst, carnelian, garnet, blue-green glazed faience and feldspar.”

Feldspar is a girl’s best friend, after all. Although girdles made of semi-precious stones—or stones of any kind, truth be told—sound uncomfortable.

Hey, Gadgets360, Is it a good day for dinosaur news? It’s always a good day for dinosaur news!

Holy hadrosaurs, Batman. This is the coolest dino ever!

The research, led by biomechanical paleontologist Dr. Michael Habib from UCLA, revealed that the keratin sheaths covering the nodosaur’s bony spikes were significantly thicker than originally thought. The thickness of the keratin layer on the fossil was measured at nearly 16 centimetres in some areas, much thicker than the keratin found in modern-day animals like cattle horns. This keratin, combined with bony spikes, provided an exceptionally strong defense. According to Dr. Habib, the strength of the nodosaur’s armor was such that it could withstand over 125,000 joules of energy per square metre—equivalent to the force from a high-speed car collision. The research highlighted that this armor was a defense against predators but it also likely played a role in combat between males of the same species.

Geez, ya think?

The study further suggested that the nodosaur’s armour, consisting of a flexible keratin layer, allowed for greater mobility and protection. If the keratin was damaged, it could be shed, offering a quick recovery mechanism compared to brittle bone armour that could crack under impact. The presence of keratin would also have allowed the dinosaur to fight effectively with its rivals, which could have been crucial in mating battles.

If that asteroid had hit a couple of nodosaurs, instead of the Gulf of Mexico, they’d be living now to make us happy now.

I’ll be back next week for whatever fresh hell awaits. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line and wear the damn masks, and take the damn shots, especially the boosters and The New One. In your spare time, spare a thought for all the folks visited by Milton and by Helene. And those people in Japan coming out from under Typhoon Shanshan, and those living through the aftermath of Hurricane Ernesto, and in Morocco, and Colombia, and in the flood zones in France, India and Bangla Desh, Libya, and the flood zones all across the Ohio Valley, and on the Horn of Africa, and in Tanzania and Kenya, and Sudan. and in the English midlands, and in Virginia, and in Texas and Louisiana, and in California, and the flood zones of Indonesia, and in the storm-battered south of Georgia, and in Kenya, and in the flood areas in Dubai (!) and in Pakistan, and Brazil, and in the flood zones in Russia and Kazakhstan, and in the flood zones in Iran, where loose crocodiles became a problem, and in the flood zones on Oahu, and in the fire zones in 10 states, including the area in northern California and the area around Los Angeles, and in Wyoming, Utah, Oregon, and western Canada, and Australia, and in north Texas, and in Lahaina, where they’re still trying to recover their lives, and under the volcano in Iceland, and for the gun-traumatized folks in Austin and at UNLV, and in Philadelphia, and in Perry, Iowa, and for the good Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, who didn’t deserve this, and especially for our fellow citizens in the LGBTQ+ community, who deserve so much better from their country than they’ve been getting.

And for all of us, who will be getting exactly what we deserve.