Follow-Up

I write articles and stories for a wide variety of outlets. Sometimes when I fail to gain the attention of a publisher, I drop the article into my personal blog you’re reading now. I’ve written a few pieces on the on-going saga of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and as you can see in the comments, I have few supporters. The last article I posted here was rejected by the publisher of a blog site called AmericanThinker.com. In the editors rejection notes to me, we had a spirited back-and-forth that I thought you might enjoy reading so I have copied and pasted it below. Looks like I’m hitting nerves!

On Thu, Aug 28, 2025 at 8:15 AM Bob <hmrun123@aol.com> wrote:

You argued with me about this some months ago and come to find out you were wrong.  Maybe now this is timely?

Bob:

I’m afraid that pillorying the Trump administration on behalf of a gangster and human trafficker is not something that will play with AT readers. We’re going to pass. 

Best,

JR Dunn

On Fri, Aug 29, 2025 at 8:27 AM Bob <hmrun123@aol.com> wrote:

JR:

There is nothing in what I wrote that is incorrect factually.  Gangster?  Zero proof.  Human Trafficker, again zero proof, read what I wrote.  If you’re a Trump at all costs guy, you’re really not doing your readers any service feeding them only what they want to hear.  There a many flavors of ice cream, seems you’re hooked on plain vanilla. 

 “And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith”

In a message dated 8/30/2025 7:04:42 AM Eastern Daylight Time, jrdunn@americanthinker.com writes:

— JR Dunn 

Bob:

I’ll stick with plain vanilla rather than the Ben & Jerry’s Diesel Oil with Sea Slugs that’s being presented here. 

BTW, a colleague reminded me that we should add “wife beater” to “gangster” and “human trafficker.” 

JR:

Here it is in its simplest form:  Are you familiar with the legal concept known as the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine?  If not, Google it.  Had the administration not erred in grabbing Garcia up and unlawfully taking him to prison in the first place, (Which BTW they admitted doing) none of what followed would have taken place.  What followed was literally the fruit of the poisonous tree.

Don’t EVER declare in your writings that, “we are a nation of laws” or otherwise tout lawfulness when you approve of trampling all over civil and constitutional rights as a necessary casualty of getting to the outcome you have pretended to envision as the right one.  Your position in this case is one of a dogmatic ideologue suffering from cognitive dissonance.  (Thankfully, this can be treated.)  

Thank you for making my point so vividly in your tortured defense calling for crucifixion via the publics ignorance of due process and making your case only attractive in the public square of group-think low-information consumers of news. 

You and your colleague ought to sign up for a Constitutional Law course in order to elucidate yourselves.  I’ll take as convincingly persuasive, the quotes I reference from members of the judiciary over your tepid and unsupported utterances passing as authoritative.

If you had any creative courage at all, you would publish what I wrote with your 2-cent warning label about how full of crap you think I am, but reminding readers about how you are of a big enough mind to put what I wrote out there to see what others might think.  One would think you would relish watching me get flamed?  It seems to me that you’re all about reinforcing your opinions rather than exploring alternatives.  Not really so courageous.

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Conformational Bias in Action

The Kilmar Abrego Garcia situation is unlike the usual Liberal-Conservative kerfuffle.  For the Trump administration, this is the camels-nose-under-the-tent moment they fear will sap their momentum and undermines their agenda.

Please, put aside what you think you know about this story and consider the following.

The administration admitted that Garcia was mistakenly grabbed up and deported to a foreign prison.  When pressured to bring him back, the President said it was “out of his control” to do so when of course we know that was a lie and in proving that, as pressure grew, magically Garcia was returned.  Critics say he was here illegally.  This is false.  Although Garcia entered the country illegally, a federal immigration judge granted him  “withholding of removal” status, which allowed him to legally live and work in the U.S. indefinitely.

Now embarrassed by the power of the federal judiciary over the Executive branch, the administration mounted a full-on character assassination campaign against Garcia in order to divert the glare of scrutiny from their overall deportation schemes. 

Just give this next question a moment of your thought:

When is the last time you can recall the United State of America arresting people and then sending them off to foreign prisons?

Now after being embarrassed, the administration lied about supposed tattoos on Garcia’s hands signifying gang affiliation.  The images were digitally altered.  Playing on fear, the administration planted the label of   “GANG-MEMBER & MS-13” into the minds of Americans in the effort to vilify him and justify his mishandling.  No court or judge or and legal process has proven any gang affiliation to Garcia.  This is an accusation without proof.  A healthy dose of skepticism should raise a red flag when the administration knowingly offers up false information in order to make their case.  Trusting anything they say about this going forward should be weighed against the lies they have already told.

Next came the allegations of domestic violence which Garcia’s wife disputed, explaining that she had been a victim of abuse in a previous relationship.  Acting on an abundance of caution during a rough patch in her marriage to Garcia 6-years ago, she sought a civil protective order in anticipation of conflict which never materialized after successful couples counseling.  Since then, the couple’s relationship improved and the matter was put behind them, but not before the continued character assassination in the media, pillorying and convicting this man in the public square.  Now in the minds of many American’s who consume main-stream-media, Garcia is not only a gang-member, but a wife beater as well.

This is how an authoritarian administration paves the path to justify their actions by demonizing and dehumanizing.  Once the targeted subject is sufficiently despised in the public’s eye, any means are justified as deserved.

And finally, when all of these schemes failed, the now infamous traffic stop in Tennessee 3-years ago becomes the secret sauce fed to a secretly convened Grand Jury that belches up the federal indictment for transporting aliens for financial gain.  Garcia was stopped for speeding in Tennessee.  He had 8-men in his vehicle, transporting them to a job site.  Go to any Lowe’s or Home Depot parking lot at 6AM and you will find legions of central and South Americans eager for construction work.  This was what was likely happening.   The key to understanding this “Hail-Mary” indictment, some 3-years after it happened, is to know that the Tennessee State Police that made the traffic stop released Garcia and the men without any charges.  The only reason this was elevated to presentation to a Grand Jury is obvious.  The administration was out of accusations.  After scouring the federal courts for similar examples of seeking indictments 3-years after the fact, this looks more and more like an act of malicious prosecution.  Add to this the threat of facing a Ugandan prison and you can see just how desperate and vile this administration is acting.

Here are excerpts from the various federal and state courts about this case.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes ordered Abrego Garcia’s release on bail.  In her order, Judge Holmes questioned the strength of the human smuggling case, noting that some of the allegations “approach physical impossibility”. She also criticized the government’s lack of proof for its claims of MS-13 gang affiliation, writing that concluding such “would border on fanciful.”

 The Supreme Court ordered the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. and ensure his case was handled properly.  In a concurring statement, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, with whom Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined, criticized the government’s position, writing that it “implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene”. 

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis issued multiple temporary restraining orders, blocking the government from deporting Abrego Garcia to Uganda.  Judge Xinis told government attorneys that they were “absolutely forbidden” from removing Garcia from the continental U.S. She also set an evidentiary hearing for October 6, where she will consider whether his removal to Uganda would violate his due process rights by placing him in danger of persecution or torture. 

This is just what it looks like; a vindictive, hateful and malicious witch hunt that has taken on proportions far beyond the reasonable scope of legal reasoning.  The most logical and likely explanation for this is to nip in the bud any possibilities of examining these radical processes in a much larger scope.

It may surprise you to know that I am a staunch Conservative and that I support President Trump in many, many ways, but not in this case.  It stuns and alarms me that those fellow Conservatives that I in general have admired and followed for years are in near total unison in seeing this matter in the opposite way as I do.  I write what I write generally because I tend to see things a bit different than do most people and I share those insights, hoping to add a different perspective to the dialogue of thinking people, but in this case and in this instance, I am completely baffled by the inability of otherwise smart and thinking people to see this for what it really is.  Let history guide us.

“First the came for the Socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.  Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.  Then the came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew and then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Pastor Martin Niemoller

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Disconnected

NYS Governor Hochul (of all the unlikely people) demonstrated long over-due leadership by banning student cell phone use in public schools.  This begs the question of why local leaders controlling the 731 school districts throughout NYS failed to do so on their own?  Who in God’s name thought it wise to provide kids with another distraction or way to cheat?  Maybe with test scores being so abysmal, school officials hoped that the cell phone induced cheating would improve their numbers?

Did any of the geniuses that manage our schools really believe cell phones would have no negative effect?  As it stands, kids are completely intoxicated by their phones.  For many, their social skills suck, they can’t carry on a reasonable conversation and their attitudes, well they suck as well.

History is a fine teacher and I’m old enough to have a historical perspective based on my own experience and I can tell you this, with certainty.  The overwhelming majority of school leaders from 50+ years ago would have banned cell phones from day one.  This is because back then, leaders actually led.  They didn’t  wait for legislation, regulation or questionnaires to know what was smart and what was stupid and allowing cell phones in schools is on its face stupid.  What passes for leadership in schools today is little more than cowardly custodianship.

Waiting to be told what anyone with a pulse knew was a problem and then applauding the effort demonstrates how leaderless our schools actually are.  You see, the youngest members of the educational establishment just coming aboard are also from the cell phone dynasty and have the same social issues and screen addictions as their students.

And to cap off what is already a colossal joke, the governor allots $13.5 for phone storage bags.

Seriously?

Again, common sense goes something like this.  Kids, you have 3 choices when it comes to your phones.  1.  Leave them home, (best choice.)  2.  If you drive, leave it in your car.  3.  Leave it in your locker with the ringer off.  There you go, common sense solution and $13 million saved.

What the hell is wrong with these people?  This is the best we’ve got?  Talk about phoning it in….  

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NIG***

I didn’t finish it, but you saw and heard it.  Literary suicide by keyboard, but for three letters.  A symbolic stick of dynamite discharging a plethora of problems, dilemmas, social questions while poking at pop culture.  No other word has such irrational influence.  A declaration with no sense, but a thousand meanings.  Dictionary.com calls it, “…the most offensive word in English.”

A force that has the power to end a white career and start a black one.  Kryptonite in the classroom, “street-cred” in the clubs.  Six letters that can destroy a white comedian while popularizing and venerating the black one.  A remark so dangerous that it was renamed, “THE N WORD”, just so it could be discussed without actually saying or hearing it.  A reverberation so sinister that apparently ears can no longer tolerate its very sound.  Two syllables forming an expression so despised that the NAACP declared it dead, held a funeral and buried it, (apparently while still alive.)

A term of endearment in the “hood”, sufficient reason to murder somewhere else.  Hate speech if I say it, a reason to laugh from Chris Rock.  Instantly and permanently ruining the comic Michael Richards while qualifying Samuel Jackson for an Oscar nomination in Pulp Fiction.

In his 1996 groundbreaking live HBO comedy show, “Bring the Pain”, Chris Rock’s Niggas Vs. Black People routine, starts off the 12-minute rant like this:  “There’s like a civil war going on with black people and there’s two sides; there’s black people and there’s niggas and niggas have got to go.”  He goes on to say, “I love black people, but I hate niggas.” 

Rap “artist”  Bobnlarry’s hit, “Nigga,Nigga,Niggga”, has well over 8-million downloads and says, “Nigga”, 98-times in one-minute and eighteen seconds.

Could any white performer succeed doing Rock’s routine or Bobnlarry’s rap piece?

“Nigga” as opposed to “Nigger” is alive and well because its slurred deviation indicates to the black insiders the absence of malice, a term of endearment.  The hard R of nigger:  White hate speech.  The soft “A” of Nigga, the secret signal of acceptance, peace, “keeping it real”…, yea, “real dumb” according to Rock.

Without that word as a sacrosanct sunspot, would intolerance or racism end?  Without a focal point for the, “I’m empowered by my outrage” reaction this word engenders, might there be less opportunity to blame others and wouldn’t that necessitate a hard look inward?

The content of ones character rests not in our syntax, but in our souls and that word affords for many a convenient divergence from any real self-examination, a justification for being outrageous, an open “dare” to whites to repeat it.  Holding that one card over the heads of all white people, as if it magically induces some kind of super-power?  Nigga; please.

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