I Don't Always Want To Write About Him, But...

America is a mess. America is in deep, deep trouble. America is losing itself.

The Schloss-Blog is watching America slip away, all its rights disappearing:

**Freedom of speech, fading;

**Journalists arrested, for doing their jobs;

**Healthcare premiums soaring;

**Citizens' rights to protest freely under attack;

**Thugs disguised as ICE/CPB officers, masked, no ID, randomly arresting, beating, killing legitimate citizens;

**Anti-semitism sprouting;

**Gun rights under attack if you're a liberal, preserved if you're a conservative MAGA-head;

We're becoming an autocracy right before our eyes and we're not doing enough about it.

***

Until now, perhaps, but too little, too late?

Americans protesting ICE and CPB actions around the country, especially in what Trump would like to see become war-torn Minnesota, are beating and even killing citizens, with no remorse, in cold blood.

Where's the outrage? Protest in Congress, from public officials, is too mild too often. They run to court and hope. Where's CNN, MSNOW, the NY Times, the Washington Post ... no, wait, especially on the latter.

Where is the media? Suppressed, cowardly, fearing a lawsuit or a visit from DOJ, or perhaps an arrest. Records seized, with DOJ seeking identities of confidential sources, as was the case for Hannah Natanson of the Washington Post, who has covered the administration's attempts to fire so many government workers, a paper published by Trump friend Jeff Bezos.

Bezos is a reporting-restrictive, right-wing story, a blogpost, unto himself. Staff cuts, elimination of endorsements, limitations on opinion columns, have become de rigueur for the once Pulitzer-proud Post, as Bezos seeks Trump's ongoing favor (see documentary, "Melania").

DEI and academia are suffering too, as at Texas A&M, which is ending its women's studies program. Colleges and universities across the country are being forced to choose between fairness and equality or loss of government research grants and the prestige that goes with them.

Oh yes, anti-semitism, is on the rise, per the Anti-Defamation League.: 

• "Post-Oct 7 Surge: The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, acted as a major catalyst, with a 360% increase in incidents in the three months following the attack compared to the same period the previous year.
• Record Highs: The ADL reported 8,873 incidents in 2023, followed by 9,354 in 2024."

Fun, huh?

The United States is not itself anymore, and we're all paying the price for it. NY Times, where are you? Instead of just reporting on the United States becoming a autocracy, you should turn your stellar, journalistic aim at the outrage going on and express it as powerfully as the citizens putting themselves at risk around the country protesting it.

But you're not. You're reporting on it, but not expressing the outrage required to help mitigate against it. An occasional column. But not everyday outrage. When your ability to even report on it is squelched, who can we turn to? Stop being so cautious, just because Trump filed a suit against you for reporting on your surveys with Siena that show Trump's approval ratings in the toilet.

Not the Washington Post though. See documentary, "Melania."

***

**TikTok, having been sold now to Trump allies, is said to be deleting and/or prohibiting posts that are anti-Trump. Wonder how that's gonna' sit with its young audience, once faithfully dedicated to it as a news source (yikes!). Will they abandon it?

**Analytically speaking, if you keep going for it on 4th-and-short instead of kicking the field goal, instead of taking the 3, you lose the F_CKING game, Sean McDermott; you lose the F_CKING game, Sean McVay; you lose the F_CKING game, Sean Payton, and some gamblers lose their F_CKING shirts.

***

Bill Belichick didn't get into the Hall of Fame. Speculation is, out of the 40 votes (of 50) needed to make it, he didn't get 11.

Deflate-GATE, Spy-GATE and "On to Cincinnati" may have had something to do with it.

By the way, Eli didn't make it either. And if Belichick had, Eli would've been the story everyone would've been talking about.

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Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Alex Pretti.

More Sunday nioght on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show.

Olympics? Or Super Bowl?