The Life in My Years

The 47-America’s Nightmare series of posts is winding down. There will be one more post to follow this one that will be focused on my own personal thoughts (Okay, possibly two). Parting Thoughts and Parting Shots is the title I have in mind.
I’m bringing these posts to a close for a number of reasons, the two most important being:
Writing about Donald Trump has taken the joy out of writing.
I’ve become more involved with the resistance movement and I feel my time is better spent doing that work, rather than preaching to the dwindling choir that reads these posts.

---

One million.
It’s the number that must be keeping Donald J. Trump awake at night. One million is the number of undocumented immigrants that Trump promised he would deport per year.

Why one million?

It’s round, easy to remember, sounds very big and is a figure that a rash, unconsidered narcissist would pull out of thin air. One has to doubt that there was any real thought or analysis given to the number one million. Thought, analysis, and Donald J. Trump rarely cross paths.

One could reasonably assume that the only thought that went into Trump’s deportation goal is that it has to be greater than 438421.

Why?

Because in 2013 it was President Obama who set the deportation record, having shown the exit door to 438421 undocumented immigrants. Not only does Trump always want to be the biggest and the best and the greatest, but he most definitely does not want to be in second place behind another president – and a Black one to boot.

Trump most certainly pulled the quixotic seemingly unachievable one million from his ass and now he owns it.

Twenty
is the number of years that Carol Hui has lived in the United States. And now Carol is soon going to be leaving for Hong Kong; but it isn’t for business or pleasure. Carol, who until a few days ago lived in Trumpy, Kennett, Missouri, has now taken up temporary residence in the Greene County Jail in Springfield, MO.

A church going, hard working (two jobs), soccer mom of two children, beloved by most of the town’s citizens, Carol is by no means the hardened criminal that Trump promised to deport. And yet there she is

in the Greene County Jail.

A large number of Kennett’s citizens, including those who voted for Trump, are upset about Hui’s pending deportation. That’s not what they voted for, they’ll tell you. They’ll say that it was all about getting rid of the bad seeds.

One resident said, “no one voted to deport moms. We were all under the impression we were just getting rid of the gangs, the people who came here in droves.” The fact is, the resident didn’t have the foggiest idea of what she was voting for. How could she when her candidate is a pathological liar?

Who would deport a soccer mom? The same people who would deport high school students.

Twenty
is the age of Dylan, a student at Ellis Prep High School in New York. He entered the United States from Venezuela, seeking asylum and is in the United States legally under policies in effect under the Biden administration. He has no criminal record.

Dylan was playing the immigration game by the rules when he showed up for a court hearing regarding his asylum status. Unfortunately for Dylan, ICE now plays by a different set of rules, rules that are apparently made up as circumstances, and Trump’s one million deportation fever dream number dictate.

The old rules don’t matter and what was legal a year ago has been arbitrarily deemed immaterial. So when Dylan showed up at the courthouse, ICE agents, like vipers laying in wait for prey, were waiting to ambush the young man. Dylan is now slated for

“immediate removal.”

That’s the term they use. It’s like

taking out the trash.

I-751
is the form number that Danish citizen and U.S. green card holder, Kasper Eriksen failed to fill out ten years ago around the time that his American citizen wife suffered a stillbirth. Seems like a reasonable excuse.

Since then Eriksen, who is a welder by trade, has done everything right, even down to the point of showing up at his immigration hearing in April. Well, that was a mistake, because ICE was waiting for him and hauled him off to the LaSalle Detention Center, in Jena, Louisiana.

For ten years Eriksen did everything right in his relationship with immigration officials. The only glitch was that Eriksen and immigration apparently had overlooked the missing I-751. It was a clerical error that could easily have been corrected with a ‘you’ve been a bad boy’ admonishment and a completion of the form.

But no, Eriksen is now sitting in the calaboose with other “detainees” (a nice word for prisoners).

Eriksen’s case is somewhat unique in that he’s white and while he’s not an American citizen he’s a sympathetic citizen of MAGA world; a Trump supporting, anti-vaxxer.

I could be smug and say that he’s being fed his just deserts. Just like many of his fellow Trumpers, Eriksen probably thought that Trump was talking about deporting gangsters, murderers and rapists of white women. Probably never occurred to him, or the immigration officials he was dealing with, that he would be a target of ICE.

Of his fellow prisoners, Eriksen said, “ I would say that some of these people (are victims) of miscommunication.”

It will be interesting to see if Eriksen gets special dispensation due to his political leanings. However his case turns out, I hope that his perspective has gone through an adjustment.

Two and a half
is the number of months in Trump’s term that he’s had fewer deportations than Biden did in a similar period. Well, being behind “Sleepy Joe,” must’ve been embarrassing.

Biden notwithstanding, the administration is well behind the pace to achieve Trump’s magic million, and the prez is not happy. And everyone knows what they say about shit.

It

rolls

down

hill.

Now it’s all hands on deck, and do whatever you can to speed up the pace because the Don is ramping up the pressure, and to not hit the one million mark would signify another defeat for Trump. And his defeats are

multiplying like rabbits.

Do whatever you can means, well, just what it implies. Damn the Constitution, damn the law, damn the courts, damn it all. Just

get it the fuck done.

After all, if someone goes beyond the law, who’s going to press charges?

Attorney General Pamela Jo Bondi, who acts more as Trump’s personal lawyer than an independent AG?

And if by some mistake, someone does get arrested and jailed for all of this goonery, there’s always Trump and his

pardons.

ICE agents are getting crafty. They’re not pounding the pavement looking for gangsters, murderers and rapists of white women. You know, the dregs that Trump said would be the first to go. That takes too much time.

Agents are cruising more bountiful fishing grounds, like courthouses, where immigrants who are trying to abide by the law show up to their immigration status hearings. People like Dylan and Carol Hui, and Kasper Eriksen; high schoolers, soccer moms, welders, restaurant workers, mechanics and roofers. It’s kind of an immigration form of gill netting to snatch innocent people who thought they had an agreement with the government. Certainly there are no gangsters, murderers and rapists of white women voluntarily showing up at a courthouse. They’re all still out on the streets.

Trumpy America is shocked that soccer moms and high school kids are being shown the door for having committed minor infractions (and paid their debt), or failed to fill out a form. They all heard the part about gangsters, and murderers and rapists of white women. They must’ve stopped listening when Trump said he would deport one million immigrants in one year. And they certainly didn’t stop to think that deporting one million immigrants in a year would be a logistical

Mount Everest.

Trumpy Americans had the same racist wet dream as Trump. They envisioned dirty, American job stealing, brown scofflaws getting their just deserts. They never stopped to realize that the face of the deportee might be that of the kind waitress that served them biscuits and gravy every Saturday morning, pausing to ask how the kids were doing in school (and my, she asked it in that cute little accent); or the face (with just a little fuzz of a mustache starting to appear) of the star running back for the local high school; or the grease smudged face of the man at the local garage who changes the oil and rotates the tires every 6,000 miles. And most certainly they didn’t imagine that a white MAGA guy from Denmark and living in Louisiana would get arrested.

The administration isn’t hiding the fact that it’s all a numbers game. “I’m not satisfied with the numbers,” said Tom Homan, America’s version of a Stazi goon. “We need to increase.”

Stephen Miller, our very own ferret faced Heinrich Himmler, said, “We are looking to set a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day, and President Trump is going to keep pushing to get that number up higher each and every single day.

Let’s put the notion of gangsters, murderers and rapists of white women to bed. There’s a number that the boss wants hit and everyone is (un)fair game.

Even citizens.

---

128
is a number that feels far too miniscule. It’s the number of days that Elon Musk spent as a “special government employee.” Those 128 days have seemed like

fucking eternity.

So from the perspective of the average (sane) American, there was nothing “special” about his employment.

Yes, Elon has left the building. But he will never be forgotten. Hopefully history will drag him across still molten asphalt. And even, then he deserves worse.

$2 trillion
was a laughable fantasy. It’s the amount of so-called waste, fraud and abuse that Musk promised to cut from the federal budget.

Let’s clear something up. Elon Musk does not determine what fraud is. He can stand in front of the press, dressed in his black SS tank commander’s costume, and call something fraud but it isn’t so until

a charge has been filed

a trial proceeding completed

a sentence pronounced.

Until then it’s just Adderall charged rhetoric spewed by a sociopathic billionaire, all dressed up in his black SS tank commander’s costume.

$1 trillion
was the revised (down) number that Musk promised to cut, after it became clear that 2 trillion was a fantasy. A ketamine fueled hallucination?

$140 billion.
is what DOGE has claimed to have saved the federal government on its “wall of receipts” which has become notorious for being anything from exaggeration to utter bullshit.

6%
is the increase in government spending over the same period last year. Well, there went the DOGE savings.

20,000
is the number of employees that, because of DOGE, the Internal Revenue Service has fired/laid off/kicked to the curb.

Who likes the IRS?

Right, almost nobody.

But what most of America’s (sane) citizens do like are the services and nice things that the government funds, and provides. Taxes are a necessary discomfort. Sort of like getting cavities filled so that when you bite into a nice pork rib your front teeth don’t fall into your plate. (and after RFK is done poisoning the minds of health officials about Fluoride, there will be plenty more cavities to be filled)

Some of the IRS staff that was let go includes forensic accountants who were tasked with solving the Rubik’s Cube tax returns of businesses and the wealthy who attempt to avoid paying their fair share.

$1 trillion
is the estimated net amount of lost revenue over the next ten years due to IRS staffing cuts. In fact it was found that not only did the new IRS agents literally pay for themselves by compelling tax cheats to pay up, their enforcement efforts also thwarted future attempts to cheat the government.

0 (ZERO)
is the amount of efficiency that was garnered by firing specialized experts in rooting out tax cheats.

---

Musk’s task was to weed out “waste, fraud and corruption.”

Meanwhile, right in front of God, Musk, and all of the American people.

One billion
is the number of dollars to upgrade Trump’s Qatari jet to Air Force One specs. But the deal is, pardon the expression,

up in the air.

That’s because someone is lying. Trump says the Qataris gifted the plane

just because.

The twist to the story is that Trump coveted the 747 and asked for it. Now, according to reporting, the deal can go through but the Qataris want it stipulated that it was the administration that initiated the discussions about acquiring the plane. In an apparent attempt to distance himself from accusations of corruptly wanting the plane for his own use, Trump told reporters that the plane is

“much too big” ( three words that Trump has never heard come from Melania’s mouth).

Fifty million
is the number of dollars requested for the purchase of a new jet for the Botox overdosed, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem – presumably so she can flit around the hemisphere to continue her ridiculous and insulting cosplay.

Two hundred million
is the number of dollars spent to fund Noem’s anti-immigrant/Trump stroking ad campaign.

Six hundred and twenty four million
is the estimated number of dollars to fund Trump’s golf trips over the course of his term.

Five million
is the number of dollars spent for Trump to attend the Daytona 500 and ride around the speedway.

One million
is the number of dollars spent for Trump to make a quick visit to the Super Bowl.

Forty-five million
is the (low) estimate for the number of dollars it will require to fund a military parade on the president’s birthday.

16 million
is the estimated number of dollars to repair the streets of Washington D.C. after they’ve been ravaged by the tanks in Trump’s military parade.

Calculating cruelty

66,000
is the tonnage of food that is rotting in storage after the Trump regime decided to cut off foreign aid.

$98 million
is the money already spent for the 66,000 tons of rotting food. To put it in personal terms, think of it as buying a prime rib and leaving it out in the sun for a week.

3,300,000
is the estimated number of people who will perish from starvation due to the cutting of U.S. foreign aid.

1.6 million
is the number of people who may die from HIV/AIDS due to the suspension of U.S. foreign aid.

8 million or more
is the number of Americans who could lose their health insurance if Trump’s, “big beautiful bill” is passed, which lends proof to the old adage that, “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.”

43
is the age of a woman who is dying of advanced cancer and not getting treatment because of cuts to the National Institutes of Health (HIH) and

2
is the number of children the 43 year-old woman has.

0
is the sum total of compassion that resides in the soul of the GOP. At a recent town hall when Republican Senator Joni Kay Ernst of Iowa was confronted with the notion that people will die due to Medicaid cuts in the “big beautiful bill.” Her response, which she delivered with a grin, was, “We all are going to die.”

Oh, but she wasn’t done. In a sorry/not sorry “apology” Ernst said, “I apologize, and I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well. But for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.”How very “Christian” of her to compare people’s concerns with the myth of a tooth fairy while encouraging them to believe in her own personal mythology (apologies from an atheist).

Butchering the cash cow

275,000
is the number of Chinese students studying in America. An unknown number of those students will have their visas revoked by “Little” Marco Rubio. Meanwhile J.D. Vance complains that American universities are discriminating against White and Asian students in their admissions policies. The last time I checked

Chinese.

=

Asian

44 billion
is the number of dollars that international students contributed to the U.S. economy in the academic year 2023/2024. Foreign students, as a rule, pay more in tuition and fees than American students. Foreign students are sort of like ATMs when it comes to the American economy (both as students, and, as shown below, after graduation). So in the interest of “efficiency” let’s throw a brick through the ATM.

378,000
is the number of American jobs supported by international students.

Since the Trump regime is replacing the “Welcome” sign with the “No Trespassing,” sign, those students and all of their potential contributions will be going elsewhere.

Hello, U.K? You might want to start beefing up your universities’ faculties.

A pair of final numbers in this category

Twofer
is what the administration is garnering from its bizarre war on universities. It’s fluffing up the number of foreigners in America being shown the door, while taking another swipe at entire segment of American society that offends the MAGA world, as Karoline Leavitt explained,

“Electricians, plumbers. We need more of those in our country and less L-G-B-T-Q graduate majors from Harvard University,” said Karoline Leavitt, whose vast number of lies since January 20, are, as yet, unknown.

4
is the number of questions Leavitt’s statement begs.
What exactly is an L-G-B-T-Q major?
Is that a course of study listed in college catalogs?
Is she saying we can’t have L-G-B-T-Q plumbers and electricians?

And finally

Before she goes to sleep at night does she ever look up at the ceiling and sigh and ask herself, ‘God, why am I such a fucking asshole”?

---

I beg buy your pardon

30 million
is the number of tax dollars that Trump supporting reality TV stars, Todd and Julie Chrisley were convicted of evading.

75,000
is the number of dollars in bags of cash that a Trump supporting sheriff in Virginia received in bribes from businessmen. In exchange the businessmen were deputized without receiving any training. The payoffs were caught on video.

And no, I don’t know why a businessman would want to be deputized by a crooked sheriff.

Six
is the number of life sentences that Larry Hoover Sr. was serving for crimes that included, murder, conspiracy, extortion, and engaging in criminal enterprises while in jail.

$10 million
is the amount of money that Paul Walczak pocketed from his nursing home employees’ withholding. With that money, Walczak bought a $2 million yacht, traveled a bit (a bit more than a bit, actually), and went on shopping sprees to Bergdorf Goodman, and Cartier.

What do all of these people have in common?

Donald Trump either pardoned these criminals or commuted their sentences.

$1 million
is the amount of money that Paul Walczak’s mommy, Elizabeth “Betsy” Fago, paid in order to attend a fundraising dinner for Trump at Mar-a-Lago. In her application for clemency for her baby boy, Fago made sure to add that she was a major donor to Trump.

$4.4 million
is the amount of money that Walczak should have paid in restitution. But that all went away with the pardon.

So, while Donald J. Trump has been pushing his minions, “little” Marco Rubio, and Kristi Noem to kidnap and deport innocent, non-violent people in order to make American streets “safe,” Donald J. Trump pardoned a murderer. Makes perfect sense in MAGA America.

---

“Yesterday’s Price Is Not Today’s Price” ~ Fat Joe

$15 million
is the amount of money that Paramount, the parent company of CBS, offered to Trump in order to settle Trump’s frivolous lawsuit that he filed against 60 Minutes, for editing its own interview with Kamala Harris. The editing was not to Trump’s liking. So when he was offered the $15 million, Trump essentially told Paramount to kick rocks and come up with $25 million – plus a public apology. Trump’s lawyers have been arguing that Trump has suffered “mental anguish.” Paramount is trying to settle the lawsuit and get in Trump’s good graces because Paramount has a merger with Skydance pending before Trump’s FTC. Call it extortion, call it a bribe, call it tribute. Call it what you want, but don’t forget to call it

autocratic.

---

“There’s a sucker born every minute.”

is a quotation often misattributed to P.T. Barnum. It’s more likely that the passage originated from the larcenous lips of Joseph “Paper Collar Joe” Bessimer, a notorious con man.

$148 million
is the total dollar amount that was paid by the top 220 purchasers of Trump’s meme coin for the opportunity to attend a reception hosted by Trump at one of his golf courses. According to one guest,

“The food sucked.”

The choice of drinks was water or Trump wine. Nicholas Pinto doesn’t drink so he went with water. “My glass was only filled once,” said Pinto who explained that he went home

still hungry.

Trump arrived in a helicopter, spent 23 minutes pumping his meme coin – and then left. No interaction, and no pressing of the flesh and

no selfies for you!

---

This has been just a small sampling of the MAGA numbers game.

But it isn’t a game.

And numbers? They’re

Cold

Stark

Unfeeling

No spreadsheet, graph or diagram can capture

Heartache

Suffering

Pain

Despair

Fear

Broken dreams

Shattered families

Donald Trump just might achieve his precious goal of one million deportations. And then he’ll puff out his chest, jut his chin like a bloated orange Mussolini, and brag about a “promise kept.” And he and the ghouls who helped in the inhumane enterprise will congratulate themselves and not give a second thought to the heartbreak and the damage they caused.