Last weeks bullshit:
America’s Stormtroopers aka ICE are using excessive force like Army tanks, pepper spray and flash bang grenades. Their faces are covered and they’re dressed in military gear while creating terror abducting victims and clashing with protesters in LA this weekend.
They’re there to provoke not pacify. It’s a presidential ordered attack and a pretext to declare martial law. No less than the LA police are on record saying the protests were “well managed and peaceful” prior to the Federal government’s fascist tactics.
The White House claimed “zero tolerance for criminal behavior and violence aimed at law enforcement” as the reason for federalizing the National Guard and deploying 4,000 Guardsmen and 700 Marines- a direct conflict with pardoning 1,500 convicted insurrectionists from Jan 6, nearly 300 of which were found guilty of assaulting police officers.
And by the way, Trump watched it on TV without calling in the troops.
Here in Chicago ICE tricked people into coming in for a “check-in” on their legal immigration status only to be arrested upon arrival. This new-to-us authoritarian overreach we’re experiencing is the pathway to fascism. Trump’s itching to declare martial law by framing demonstrations as migrant rebellions and in turn, soon will be using the Insurrection Act to deploy the military against American citizens.
“Create a crisis and use the crisis to consolidate power”is an oft described strategy on Steve Bannon’s podcast. They’re sowing chaos to have an excuse to escalate. It’s political theater for the script entitled Project 2025. It’s all been documented and is now in action. Governor Gavin Newsom of California said it best “This isn’t about immigration. It’s about authoritarianism.”
He’s been threatened with arrest.
What’s going on is a Nazi’s wet dream (Stephen Miller’s as well). This is all a distraction to take our eyes off the Republican agenda of passing the “Big Beautiful Bill” aka the largest transfer of wealth in our history, one that takes benefits from lower income to subsidize tax breaks for the already wealthy while 2 1/2 trillion dollars will be added to the deficit.
There’s also the collection of data by Palantir to centralize, control and
surveil every data point we create while aligning itself to law enforcement and the government, creating Orwellian dystopian visions. Think of it as the brain behind the surveillance state that tracks people, spots patterns and predicts behavior. While it can find bad guys, it can also be used to track immigrants or journalists or for that matter, any citizen’s medical records, tax info, social media or location data while you don’t even know it’s happening.
The Elon-Donald bromance we knew was destined to crash and burn has and is the equivalent to Mean Girls albeit with ketamine and pedophiles. Ego and power fuel it as we are held hostage and reduced to spectators.
In just over 6 months tourism has been crippled. The rest of the world views us as unsafe and unstable. From self inflicted economic catastrophes to banana republic grift and human rights abuses- we’re to be avoided and certainly not trusted.
11 countries are abandoning the dollar for trade and this is probably just the beginning. Trumps tariffs and sanctions have weakened the dollar and is pushing us out of the global financial structure as the world moves on without us while America’s financial dominance fades.
SCOTUS rules in a 6-3 decision that that we have no right to privacy any longer so a group of DOGE dudes with no congressional authority now has access to our Social Security info and RFK fired all 17 members of the CDC vaccine panel…
I could go on but I’m well over 500 words.
Chef/percussionist/writer/reprobate and lover of all things beautiful & delicious, Chef Alan Lake’s culinary career includes East Bank Club in Chicago; Sunset Marquis in W. Hollywood; Izakaya Hiwatta in Ichinomia Japan and legendary nightclub Purpur in Zurich, Switzerland. Working all around the world for over four decades, he's won numerous awards, professional competitions and distinctions. He’s the author of Home Cookin'- The Stories Behind The Food and The Garlic Manifesto- the history of garlic going back to 10,000-year-old Neolithic caves and contains facts, fiction, folklore, myths and legends (besides 100 recipes).
A lifelong musician that plays 70+ percussion instruments, he coined the term “Jazzfood” to describe his cooking style i.e. “solid technique coupled with tasteful improvisation.” He views his food as he does his music and writing and has been known to bust a pout if subpar in any way.