The Complicated Story Of MAGA Politics

The modern Democratic party operates to a great extent like politics is supposed to work in Civics 101, and follow on political theory says that it is supposed to. It has found policies, that its leaders believe are good ones for the nation, that can unite a diverse big tent coalition. Democrats believe that government can be a force for good and want to use it the implement policies that make the world a better place. They go to great lengths to demonstrate with evidence that their policies do indeed do so. They aren't saints, but they also view stupidity, bad character, and malice in their leaders negatively and are generally happy to cast out leaders who demonstrate those traits.

The Republican party, in living history, was a pretty similar organization and movement that assembled a different bundle of policies to unite a different, smaller tent coalition.

But, that Republican party is almost gone and rapidly dissolving, even though most of its top leaders got their political start in that party.

The MAGA Republican party and movement, in contrast, is something else entirely. It absolutely still has its roots in the pre-FDR solid south Democratic party, in the Dixiecrats, and in the post-Southern strategy anti-civil rights Republican party. But unlike the Republican party that preceded it, it doesn't fit the Civics 101 model.

MAGA Republicans don't accept a lot of the bipartisan consensus about many aspects of policy making and governing that preceded it. It is isolationist. It is anti-trade, anti-immigration, anti-NATO, and unconcerned about alliances with foreign dictators. It has no respect for expertise. It doesn't think that government does anything good (and is oblivious to the benefits that its members receive from government), so it isn't troubled by having the government run by incompetent fools. It has strong authoritarian leanings, no commitment to democratic ideals, and little concern for the rule of law. It sees power as a tool to utilize to fight culture wars and its political opponents, rather than as a means to advance the greater good

Republican political leaders know perfectly well that most of President Trump's executive branch appointees, like RFK, Jr., are incompetent idiots whose only redeeming quality is their momentary personal loyalty to Trump. Most of them are also well aware that many of the policies that Trump is pushing for are objectively bad ones.

Then why do these Republican leaders back Trump anyway?

They can read the room. They know that they face mafia style backlash from Trump if they cross him. They also know that their not terribly bright constituents in the MAGA base firmly support Trump (or at least have until very recently within Trump's second term when they've discovered personally, the hard way, how bad his policies really are) seeing any deviation from Trump's agenda as a betray of Trump's MAGA base including them. The MAGA base also sincerely believe in a lot of the misguided elements of Trump's agenda because unlike most Republican leaders, they don't know any better.

Billionaires and the political representatives of many big businesses also know personally well that Trump is a horrible person who supports mostly bad policies who is basically trying to destroy the federal government from the inside. But, for them, the immense tax cuts that Trump has delivered to them, and the dismantling of federal laws and regulations that cost them money have seemed worth it to them so far.

The conservative leaning members of the college educated upper middle class, who used to work in think tanks formulating conservative policies that they thought furthered the national interest on a basis similar to that of their liberal peers, who served as senior civil servants, and served as professionals in roles that either supported conservative economic and religious interests, or were at least apolitical, meanwhile, have abandoned the Grand Old Party in droves, some to be unaffiliated politically, some to be libertarians, and some to become "moderate" and "neo-liberal" Democrats. Fools loyal to MAGA and Trump's cult of personality, and powerful hypocrites, have rushed in to fill the vacuum that they upper middle class conservatives left behind.

The agenda of Trump and his MAGA cult of personality isn't sustainable. But it wasn't really meant to be. The objective of MAGA is to burn it all down, and to entrench far right cultural dominance and political power now, knowing that in the long run, the democratic process and respect for the rule of law and settled political norms, run fairly, will undermine those objectives.

Destruction can be accomplished more quickly than building something that works. So, it doesn't have to last long. And, if the MAGA base comes to realize that the face eating leopard they supported ate their faces once the damage done is irrevocable, that's their tough luck in the eyes of the billionaires and far-right cranks who actually benefit from its agenda. By then, if the MAGA agenda is successful, they will have dug the United States (and even the larger world) into a hole that will be very hard to get out of again.

The system struggles to stop them. Trump has installed enough people loyal to him that share his far from the mainstream agenda in key institutions like the U.S. Supreme Court, the military, and senior government offices that he wasn't supposed to be able to oust and oust, and key policies that he wasn't supposed to have the legal right to control, that the systems and people designed to stop him aren't doing their jobs. The system wasn't designed to to stop a President who had no respect for his oath of office, no commitment to the good of the nation, no respect for the rule of law, and immense political power arising from a base brainwashed by decades of lies from clergy, Republican political leaders, and cynically manipulative conservative mass media outlets that jettisoned their journalist ethics long ago.

Of course, the willingness of the MAGA base to be manipulated and accept these lies didn't come from nowhere. It isn't that information that reveals that these are lies isn't available. It isn't that members of the MAGA base unanimously agree that Trump has good character.

They are motivated to accept a false worldview because the last half century of American progress has left them behind and greatly diminished their socio-economic status in relative terms. They are willing to take the gamble of destroying the system because of they feel that it has done nothing for them, and that they have no prospects of improving their lot within it.

Most of them made a bad bet. Trump's agenda will leave them worse off and reveal to them that they actually did have something to lose in the system that they are trying to destroy. The policies that they thought were the problem aren't the source of their dismay. Their future prospects within the system that they support destroying were better than they believed them to be. But, now that they've made that bet, a psychological unwillingness to admit that they've been duped and made a mistake, and the fact that much of the damage to both the system and the political process has already been done, makes remedying their mistake difficult.

The situation could still be turned around: If enough of the MAGA base is disillusioned fast enough. If enough old guard Republicans and conservative judges who are hypocrites wake up to the fact that the end game isn't a good one before it is too late. If Trump dies or implodes (which is a bet the left is trying to make by pushing the Epstein files issue) and no successor to Trump as the leader of the MAGA movement arises. 

But if it is turned around, the most likely failure mode for MAGA will be a dramatic collapse of the entire political movement. It will look like an economic bubble popping. It will look like the sudden death of the Whig party in favor of the new Republican party shortly before the Civil War. It will look like the collapse of Naziism at the end of World War II, or the collapse of the Soviet Union. It will look like the post-Herbert Hoover Republican Party of the 1930s. It might even look like the French Revolution with guillotines and all.

There isn't much room for a middle ground business as usual alternation of power at the margins at this point.

Context For The Latest Episode Of The Cambodia-Thailand Conflict

Not so long ago, international wars were viewed as a thing of the past, after a long lull at the end of the 20th century (with the brief, but notable exception of the Gulf War in 1992, which was prompted by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait), leaving only insurgencies and cross-border fights with military forces not sponsored by recognized sovereign countries. 

But, the 21st century has proved that this lull was only temporary. We've seen the Russia-Ukraine War (in 2014 and 2022 to the present), there have been military clashes as recently as this year between India and Pakistan, Israel and the U.S. have attacked Iran (which has also struck Israel), the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have recently engage the Houthi regime that is the de facto ruler of Southern Yemen after it attacked merchant ships off its coast, and there have been low intensity naval clashes between China and the Philippines in the past couple of years. A six day war between Cambodia and Thailand this month has added to that roster.

The latest round in a 118 year old border dispute related to a historic Hindu temple built by the Khmer Empire during what were the Middle Ages in Europe, near the current border between Cambodia and Thailand, led to a six day military conflict between the two countries that left at least 38 people dead and displaced at least 310,000 people, until a cease fire took hold yesterday. The two nations have had military clashes for hundreds of years, even before the ambiguous 1907 map that is at the root of this particular border dispute took hold. 

Shots were heard early on Thursday morning near Prasat Ta Muen Thom, an ancient temple on the disputed border between the two countries. Senior commanders from the Thai and Cambodian militaries agreed to de-escalate one of the bloodiest border conflicts between their nations in decades on Tuesday.The deal seemed to end, at least for now, [six] days of fighting that killed at least 38 people. More than 180,000 people in Thailand have evacuated from areas along the border, while in Cambodia, more than 130,000 people have fled their homes.

Each nation accused the other of firing first.

The Thai Army said on July 24 that Cambodia had fired rockets into civilian areas in four Thai provinces, prompting Thailand to send F-16 fighter jets to strike targets in Cambodia.

Cambodian officials said that Thai soldiers had opened fire on Cambodian troops first, at a temple claimed by both nations, called Prasat Ta Moan Thom by the Cambodians and Prasat Ta Muen Thom by the Thais. They said Cambodian forces returned fire some 15 minutes later.

The ownership of Prasat Ta Muen Thom / Prasat Ta Moan Thom is disputed by the two countries. Cambodia’s de facto leader, Hun Sen, claimed in a social media post that a Thai military commander had “started this war” by ordering the closure of the temple on Wednesday, and opening fire on Cambodian troops the next day. Thailand has accused Cambodia of starting the conflict.

The temple is in disputed territory, and people there speak Khmer, the official language of Cambodia, as well as Thai — highlighting the cultural overlap. The area is known for ruins from the Khmer Empire, which lasted from the ninth to the 15th century.

Arguments about where the border should be, and who owns the temples in the region, have led to decades of disputes. In 1962, the International Court of Justice awarded Cambodia sovereignty over the Preah Vihear Temple (known as Phra Viharn in Thailand), another temple about 95 miles away. In 2013, the court, the top judicial body of the United Nations, tried to clarify the 1962 decision. It said that Cambodia had sovereignty over the immediate area around that temple, but it left unresolved who controlled a larger disputed area. The border disputes can be traced to a 1907 map created during French colonial rule in Cambodia. The two countries interpret the map differently. Military fighting has broken out intermittently since 2008, but the last time that a major clash turned deadly was in 2011.

The two countries have had occasional military clashes and nationalist rivalries for hundreds of years.

The quoted material above (and below) is all from today's New York Times, but I have reordered the quoted material to be more readable, in this particularly poorly structured and edited article (which also includes duplicated sentences), and as a result, have not specifically noted where I omitted parts of the story. 

The cease fire was negotiated by Malaysian diplomats, with input from the U.S. and China.

The U.S. does not have particularly strong ties to either party in the conflict and wasn't directly involved in it, even though it claims to have participated in the peace negotiations, so news coverage of the conflict was relatively modest. But, the U.S. has historically favored Thailand, a constitutional monarchy which was one of the few countries never to fall to colonial powers, since it generally speaking sided with the West in the Cold War, over Cambodia, with its history of one of the most violent communist revolutions in history, which China has tended to favor.

An equally interesting aspect of the latest conflict is that Thailand's prime minister was suspended from office by a Thai court for controversial statements made not long before the shooting broke out, which is a political tactic that would be unavailable in most countries (but might be desirable if the grounds for it were suitably defined), in which the status of the prime minister would be primarily an issue for the parliament. Also, relatively few countries recognize the intermediate sanction of suspending a head of government without actually removing the head of government from office.

The border tensions have already contributed to a political crisis in Thailand: On July 1, a Thai court suspended the prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, because of comments she made about the dispute.

In June, Ms. Paetongtarn spoke by phone to Hun Sen, who is . . . Mr. Hun Manet’s father [Hun Manet has been the prime minister of Cambodia since 2023], to discuss the escalating border tensions. Mr. Hun Sen has had close ties to [Ms. Paetongtarn's] father, Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister of Thailand and the leader of a powerful political dynasty, as well as one of the country’s richest men.

Mr. Hun Sen posted a recording of their call, in which Ms. Paetongtarn seemed to disparage Thailand’s powerful military and take a deferential tone. She called Mr. Hun Sen “uncle” and told him that she would “arrange” anything he wanted.

In response, thousands of protesters took to the streets of Bangkok to express their outrage. Although Ms. Paetongtarn apologized, she has faced pressure to resign.

Ghibli v. Disney Villains

In a nutshell, this video makes the case that Disney villains are inherently evil and must be defeated and punished, while Ghibli villains are redeemable and have understandable motives but have suffered and are misunderstood. To a lesser extent DC Comics follows the Disney model and Marvel Comics follows the Ghibli model. The video argues that Ghibli villains are more realistic and creatively interesting, but acknowledges that Disney villains are cathartic, efficient, and satisfying. The video attributes the difference to a Judeo-Christian American culture compared to Japanese values rooted in Shinto religious roots (although much of that is really Confucian).

Honestly, I disagree that Ghibli villains are "more realistic".  Ghibli style villains may be more common, but Disney style villains are out there too. We call them "psychopaths" and some key distinctions in criminal law, like the distinction between 1st degree murder and 2nd degree murder, are attempts to distinguish irredeemable psychopaths from misguided or impulsive or environmentally pressured individuals who are capable of being reformed.

Musings

* Will we someday reach a point where computer software is routinely bug-free, routine software updates are a thing of the past, and there is a single standard of cables for everything? If not, why not?

* One of the main things that I want AI to do is figure out my habits and patterns and suggest ways to automate them. 

Do I always put emails from a certain sender in a particular folder? Suggest a rule to automate that task. 

Do I go through a certain set of steps to create a citation from an academic journal or preprint webite in a blog post along with its citation? Suggest creating a button in my UI to do that. 

Have I never used a word processing font ever? Suggest putting that font somewhere other than the main dropdown menu in my word processor. 

Do I adhere to certain style standards when drafting legal documents? Suggest making that an MS Word style. 

Do I usually bookmark certain kind of webpages in certain bookmark folders? Make those folders the default choice when I hit the bookmark button. 

Does a webpage or file seem to be in the wrong folder? Confirm that this is where I really want to put it in a pop up question.

* How can we disrupt the systems that create flat Earthers, young Earth creationists, evolution deniers, anti-vaxxers, the sovereign citizen's movement, and similar anti-scientific and conspiracy theory thinking?

* If there a better way to restrain bad actors like Fox News that consistently spread misinformation without doing unnecessary harm to free speech?

* Can courts devise better remedies for administrations like Trump's that consistently ignore or defy the law and court orders?

* Somehow, before today, I managed to run my household without owning an ax or hatchet. A need to get branches I'd trimmed from the tree in front of my house down to under four feet in length and four inches in diameter in order to be eligible to put in my compost bin was the final straw.

* Lawful permanent residency is just second class citizenship. It would be better if that category were abolished and everyone who has or would be eligible for a green card immediately becomes a citizen.

* How much of Japan's reasonable housing prices is due to policy, and how much is due to its shrinking population and unfriendliness to long term immigration?

* People are happier and more productive in countries with higher taxes. Low taxes are a sign of economic underdevelopment. They aren't pro-growth.

Anime Seasons

Japanese anime fit themselves into a rather rigid formula. 

There are four anime seasons a year: January to March, April to June, July to September, and October to December. All anime seasons run in parallel to each other. There are 12-13 episodes per season unless something went horribly wrong in the production process. Some shows that are received well will received additional seasons (although sometimes two consecutive seasons are called a single twenty-four to twenty-six episode season).

Each episode to 23-24 minutes long, including a minute and a half long intro sequence (sometimes after a cold open) and a minute and a half ending sequence (sometimes followed by a few seconds about the next episode or a post-script sequence). There is a suitable place for a commercial break about half way through. Sometime an episode is broken into two or three mini-stories with commercial break spots between them.

The evolving U.S. and streaming driven model of experimenting with series that have different lengths (even within the same series for different episodes), start at different times across the year, and can be terminated mid-season if ratings are poor, mostly hasn't spread to Japanese anime producers.

(There are also sometimes one or two 3-5 minute short episode series in a season, with the same number of episodes aired weekly, presumably distributed in a different medium.)

There are also plenty of genre and sub-genre conventions that they follow.

Anime fans decide at the beginning of each season which shows they plan to watch for the season sometimes sampling a lot of them for a week or two until they hone in on the shows that they will be following. If you dread watching the next week's episode somewhere mid-season, sometimes that show is dropped as well.

Fans generally know what they want and pick accordingly, although sometimes a highly hyped new series will lure someone who normally wouldn't watch something in that sub-genre or with its notable elements.

But, this can go awry. Suppose you like sweet, high school rom-coms. Depending on the season, there might be several of them available and standing alone, they might all be reasonably enjoyable. But if you cue up too many of them, and too few other anime types to provide variety, it can be overwhelming and you can get sugar sick from too much of a good thing.

That's me this season. 

Personal Reflections

* This year I'm going to be a sag wagon husband, taking my wife to her Horsetooth Half-Marathon in Fort Collins in April (one of the most difficult half-marathons there is, due to extreme elevation changes in the course) and to the New York City Marathon in November. As I write this post, my wife is doing an 18.5 mile training run for the 13.1 mile Horsetooth race.

* This year, our house which we bought twenty-five years ago turns 100 years old. We've been generally good stewards of it. Its fair market value is more than triple what it was when bought it. But our twenty-five year old swamp cooler is due to be replaced, so we'll do that this spring. I'll be getting bids next week. We're suffering from renovation and repair fatigue, however, after several major projects, so we may pause that, apart from landscaping (to eventually kill the lawn and replace a badly weather damaged back patio gazebo), for a while.

* We could find ways to pay off our small mortgage faster than it is scheduled to be paid off with increased principal payments, if we felt an urgent need to do so. But why waste an ability to borrow money at a 3.625% fixed rate with tax deductible interest that helps our credit rating, while inflation eats away at the inflation adjusted value of the loan principal every year? The money that would be used to pay off the loan can be invested instead for better returns, even in very safe bond investments (or even if it were in high return FDIC guaranteed CDs).

* We've received our compost bin as part of a new City of Denver program that has finally come into being. It takes a little getting used to in daily life to split waste into three categories instead of two and we've thrown out some waste that should be composted. But, we'll get the hang of it. The City also didn't pick it up the first time we put it out on a collection day for some reason.

* In contrast, we've pretty much gotten used to the new policy of having to bring reusable bags to the grocery store or pay a 10 cents per disposable bag tax on that formerly free service.

* One of my two cars has been unofficially the kids car for a long time, but this year, we will officially be a one car household as title to our kid's car is passed down to the next generation. 

* My Nissan Juke will hit 60,000 miles right around the tenth anniversary of purchasing it this year and is in pretty much perfect condition, except for some cosmetic hail damage that we don't plan on fixing. 

* The only thing the Juke lacks that I would actively like to have is a blind spot detector. I wonder how hard it is to add one on an aftermarket basis. 

* If I drove in the mountains more, I'd get snow tires, as the Juke is otherwise a perfect snow car. But I don't drive in the mountains all that much, and Denver doesn't get enough snow to justify snow tires, in lieu of all weather tires with a decent tread.

* My plan is to replace my Juke with an EV (not a Tesla) sometime after the next generation of far superior solid state batteries enter the market, the Trump tariffs have been repealed, and the national charging network is better, perhaps five to ten years from now. This will require emptying the garage (which currently has so much stuff stored there that there is no room for a car), moving the garage stuff to a new backyard shed, and installing an EV vehicle charger (which Denver's building codes now require in new garages, I've heard). The new EV could very well end up being my last car. 

* Incidentally, even though Nissan sells decent enough EVs, it's looking like there's a good chance that Nissan won't exist anymore by the time my next car purchase rolls around. The company is in dire straights, and a contemplated merger with Honda has apparently fallen through.

* Also vaguely car related, I have dropped SiriusXM, which my car is equipped to receive. I almost always listen to Spotify using Bluetooth to my cell phone instead when I'm out and about, and don't drive enough in places with no cell phone access to justify keeping it. 

* My generation has seen vinyl records, cassettes, CDs, iPods, videocassettes, large format video disks, DVDs, 5.25" floppy disks, 3.5" floppy disks, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, hard drives with actual disks in them, and analog broadcast television all come and go (we were too young to really experience 8-track tapes). We have seen digital broadcast television, digital radio, dead tree format newspapers and magazines, large movie theaters, satellite TV (first with large dishes and then with smaller ones), short wave radio, land line phones, pay phones, pagers, slow speed intercity passenger rail, paper checks, personal letters, "dumb" Blackberries and flip phones, and home yogurt makers, lose their shine too. Denmark's Post Office is discontinuing letter delivery at the end of this year and taking away all of its post boxes. Analog FM and AM radio are also just dying a slow and gradual death (especially AM radio). Wrist watches used to be a daily necessity and are now jewelry and a fitness tracking device. Vinyl records are actually coming back, but it's a niche thing that probably won't get big. We saw supersonic commercial flight come and go, but it looks like it will return soon, beyond a niche. So, seeing satellite radio start to lose its relevance too isn't all that shocking.

The story of AM radio over the last 50 years has been a transition from being the dominant form of audio entertainment for all age groups to being almost non-existent to the youngest demographic groups. Among persons aged 12–24, AM accounts for only 4% of listening, while FM accounts for 96%. Among persons aged 25–34, AM accounts for only 9% of listening, while FM accounts for 91%. The median age of listeners to the AM band is 57 years old, a full generation older than the median age of FM listeners.

From a 2009 Federal Communication Commission report (via Wikipedia). A person who was a median aged AM radio listener in 2009 is now 73 years old. Baby Boomers are between the ages of 61 and 79 in the year 2025. As of 2024, the average AM and FM radio listener combined is 57 years old, and 62% of all AM and FM radio listeners combined are 55 years old or older. AM/FM radio formats that were historically mostly AM like talk radio and religious programming, have the oldest listeners (although Spanish language radio formats which were also historically AM dominated have younger than average listeners, and country music formats are only a little older than that).

* I've also decide not to renew my digital Washington Post subscription this month, even though I've read it regularly since college, because the editorial interference of Jeff Bezos in the paper is undermining the quality of the product. I'll probably remove it from the sidebar of this blog as well.

* Today is the start of daylight savings time. I would eliminate it and have standard time all year round if I could. There is nothing wrong with changing the time that businesses and governments open and close during the course of the year if particular businesses and governments want to change that on a seasonal basis.

* My new office, across the street from Shotgun Willies, is so far a success. At a recent deposition I hosted there, that went smoothy from a logistics perspective, opposing counsel and her paralegal were plotting and scheming about how to get a coffee maker a nice as mine for themselves.

* Evidencing my progressing older age, I got a colonoscopy last month. It went fine and I don't have cancer, but it isn't something that I'm looking forward to the next time it is scheduled, a few years from now. The pre-procedure purging is harrowing.

* In very positive news, they are on the brink of introducing a new and affordable screening test for pancreatic cancer, which was the main cause of death of my father, his brother, and two of my not related by blood aunts. If there is a genetic risk factor, my brother and I probably have it, and we will probably live to benefit from this screening test. In even more positive news, they are close to being able to provide a pancreatic cancer "vaccine" that would prevent some subtypes of pancreatic cancer, although this isn't quite as imminent.

* It is a relief that both of our children have finished college, secured good jobs in the tech sector, established themselves in their own apartments, and found good relationships with significant others. 

* It would be nice if they could buy homes for themselves, but the housing market is the toughest for buyers that it has been in at least thirty-years right now, due to a surge in mortgage interest rates, while home prices mostly remain sticky at prices established when mortgage interest rates (and hence home affordability) were half what they are now.

* We've very much enjoyed being able to see our children's significant others this year. We'd welcome their upgrades to official son-in-law and daughter-in-law status, but that's up to the kids to decide. We are proud of the progress that our daughter's boyfriend has made toward becoming a Chartered Financial Analyst®, and are excited about our son's girlfriend's first half-marathon in the District of Columbia next weekend that she is just finishing her training to prepare to run.

* My official running competitions have been limited to 1 mile fun runs and 0.5 km races with donuts at the half-way mark. 

* I'm more ambivalent about my daughter's new dog, Oakley, because, as most people who know me are aware, I'm not a dog person. But, I'm learning to tolerate him.

* Both my nephew and the daughter of a dear friend of the family are applying to colleges this year. They have gotten out all of their applications, and have received acceptances and rejections from some schools so far. Even if none of them remaining responses are acceptances, they each have decent options. Over the next month or so, they'll each hear from some remaining schools that haven't given them an answer so far and they'll make their big decisions. For different reasons, neither will be going to schools in red states.

* Next year will be senior year for both of my nieces, so we'll get to watch the process of them deciding what to do after high school again next year as well, from front row seats. My brother and his wife will probably move to a different home in the Boston metro area once they become empty nesters.

* On July 3, 2025, less than four months from now, this blog will be 20 years old.

Half The Story

Too much crime reporting is like this story. It regurgitates a police department's press release, but makes no effort to provide context or understanding for why an incident like this happened, even when it is quite atypical and doesn't fit into the usual mold, when even fairly minimal actual reporting could provide much more insight to readers.

An ambush murder in broad daylight on a public street involving seven perpetrators is rare, and one in which five of the suspects were women is even more rare. A murder in which all of the seven suspects and at least one of the two victims is black, in mostly white first ring suburb of Denver, like Lakewood, is also atypical.

The final suspect in the ambush killing of a pregnant woman was arrested Tuesday evening in Aurora.

Isaac Amir Pierrie, 24, was arrested on suspicion of first degree murder and attempted first degree murder in connection to the 2023 homicide, according to a post on X from the Lakewood Police Department. He had been on the run for more than two years.

Melanie Massay was shot and killed in an ambush around 1:30 p.m. on Feb. 28, 2023, in the 1300 block of Zephyr Street. Her unborn child also died. A man was also shot during the attack but lived.

Pierrie is the last of seven suspects arrested in Massay’s killing. Monte Hayes, ReaAsia Hollins, DaJanah Abrams, Jrayla Taylor, Trinity Walker and Jaliyah Burks all were previously arrested in connection to the shooting.

From the Denver Post. The linked previous story in the current story provided only a little more detail:

“In a lot of cases like this we have to keep the investigations quiet, especially in a situation where we have seven suspects,” said John Romero, spokesperson for Lakewood Police Department. “It was in the best interest of the investigation and the family to hold back on some of the information until now.”

Lakewood officers responded to reports of a gunshot wound victim around 1:30 p.m. on Feb. 28 [2023], Romero said.

When they arrived at the scene, officers found Massay’s body and a second victim who had been shot in the back, Romero said. The second gunshot victim survived.

Police issued arrest warrants for the seven people suspected in Massay’s death in January and have arrested five, according to Romero.

Isaac Pierrie, 23, and Jaliyah Burks, 19, are wanted on suspicion of first-degree murder, attempted murder and assault, according to court records.

Burks is a 5-foot-2-inch, Black woman weighing about 110 pounds with black hair and brown eyes, Romero said. A description was not available for Pierre, but photos released by the police department in Thursday’s crime alert show the 23-year-old is a Black man with black hair and brown eyes.

A Facebook post from the Lakewood police has pictures of the suspects and the victim who was killed, but not her male companion who survived.

 

Almost by definition a group of seven people participating in an ambush murder with guns is some sort of gang activity. But, was the pregnant woman killed the real target, or just unfortunately in the proximity of a man who was the real target.

Were they part of the rival gang? Were the killers seeking retribution for betrayal in a drug deal or snitching? Was this a matter of claimed infidelity? Was she a human trafficking victim?

The arrest warrants were issued in January of 2024, more than ten months after the shooting. Five were arrested within a few weeks (and possibly much sooner), two more took longer. 

How were the seven suspects identified? Did the man who survived identify them? Once one person caught and turned against his or her co-conspirators? Was their surveillance cam video? Was there a police informant in their gang?

If this story is typical, readers of the paper will never know, because the paper won't every follow up on the case with that level of detail. The convictions and sentences might be reported, and perhaps the male victim will be identified eventually, but what was really going on will never be disclosed, even if the narrative was laid out in one or more public trials.

The problem isn't so much that the story is reported before more complete information is available. This is an unavoidable problem with almost every breaking news story in TV news, radio news, newspapers, and online new media. But, in a better world, there would be in depth follow up eventually.

Greater depth and a quest for a deeper understanding is what distinguishes a great media source, like the New York Times, from a merely mediocre one, like the Denver Post, that rarely even tries to get beyond the press releases from law enforcement.

The obituary for the woman killed provides at least a little context:

Melanie Massay

September 10, 2001 — February 28, 2023

Lakewood, CO

Services are private, those who show up uninvited will be ARRESTED.

Melanie Amanda Massay was born to her parents, Chataca Moneque Brown and Wayne Anthony Massay. She was third child born to Chataca and was raised with her 3 siblings. As a child, Melanie LOVED cereal. When she had a delicious serving, her lips would instantly roll. She was a very entertaining young lady who enjoyed hanging out with friends, having fun and making others laugh. One of her fondest memories as achild included beating up her brother and sisters. She was cute but bossy and had expensive taste.

Melanie attended Central High School. Her graduation is March 24th, 2023, in her honor, baby Honesty will receive her graduation certificate with nana Chataca Brown at New Legacy Charter School. She gained employment as a medical assistant at Hope Senior Living where she gained her nursing certificate, furthering her medical career.

In 2021, Melanie was blessed with a beautiful baby girl named, Honesty Lorain Dior Massay. She truly embraced motherhood. They enjoyed many moments together including going to the water park, going to firework shows, and even to Disney on Ice.

Melanie was a spiritual woman who took her relationship with the Holy Spirit seriously. She was guided in her spirituality by her mother who taught her the value of being in tune with the Holy Spirit.

In her free time, Melanie enjoyed hanging out with her bestfriend, Lashay, they supported each other in every way possible. Lashay enjoyed learning about Melanie’s heritage because, both Creole Afro Indian and Guyanese. In addition, Melanie enjoyed going shopping with her mother and baby girl, Honesty.

Chataca, Melanie’s mother reminisces on many wonderful moments that she has had with her daughter. This is a very challenging time for her but she is looking forward to taking care of baby girl, Honesty and giving her all the support that she needs as she grows. Chataca knows that one day, they will meet again.

Melanie passed away on February 28, 2023, those left to cherish her memory include her daughter, Honesty Lorain Dior Massay; her mother, Chataca Moneque Brown; her father, Wayne Anthony Massay; her 3 siblings, cousins and friends.

Honesty was three years old. Melanie apparently knew something was up the day before. Her mother said that: “In her phone, she kept saying, ‘I’m so scared. I feel like I’m going to die,'” Brown said. “The next day, my daughter’s life was taken.” Melanie's mother, Ms. Brown, is about 44 year olds and apparently lives in Aurora, Colorado.

A three minute TV news spot shows the scene and the deceased woman's mother (and disclosed that the deceased woman was pregnant with twins). It also discloses that the deceased woman knew some of the suspects and was a childhood friend of one of them. 

Melanie apparently didn't finish high school at her public high school in Aurora but was enrolled in a charter school devoted to meeting the needs of teen parents to eventually earn it. She apparently had two half siblings through her mother whom she grew up with. Her father probably also lived in Aurora.

19 year old Jaliyah Burks turned herself in on March 7, 2024, more than a year after the shooting, a couple of months after the warrant for her arrest was issued, and almost a year ago. In 2021, Burks was apparently on the women's basketball team at Newman International Academy in Cedar Hill, Texas, where she was a high school senior, and went to prom (although it is conceivable that this is a different person with the same name).

The other five suspects, arrested before she turned herself in, like the woman who was killed, were also young adults in the same general age range of my children and my nephew:

Monte Hayes, 23, ReaAsia Hollins, 20, DaJanah Abrams, 25, Jrayla Taylor, 22, and Trinity Walker, 18

Monte Hayes may have played basketball for an Englewood High School team, as the age and location are about right and the name is a match.

DaJanah Abrams is apparently currently being held in the Broomfield County jail. Someone of the same name who is about the right age was a dietician who lived in Houston, Texas and went to three different colleges in Lousiana.

Hollins was booked on January 25, 2024 at the Jefferson County jail. She was registered as an unaffiliated voter residing at 1705 N. Franklin Street #301, Denver, Colorado 80218 (very close to my old office). I've probably seen in her passing driving home from work.

Jrayla Taylor was booked on January 23, 2024 at the Jefferson County Jail. She was registered to vote as a Democrat at 18948 E. Mercer Drive, Aurora, Colorado 80013. She has a couple of short YouTube videos posted of kids dancing in a bedroom. 

Trinity Walker is a much more common name, making it harder to connect information separate from the crime to her, and may not have been old enough to register to vote at the time of the crime.

A booking photo of Isaac, the last suspect arrested, in Aurora, after two years on the run, shows a tattoo peeping out on his chest, although its meaning is unclear:

Fox News 31 reported that:

Massay’s mother, Chataca Brown, told FOX31’s Alliyah Sims last year that Massay thought the people involved were friends. . . . 

“I fed these children,” Brown said then. “My daughter housed one that was homeless. All the while, they were plotting to ambush my pregnant daughter.”

Shortly after Massay was dropped off at her home, there was gunfire. Her mother said bullets hit the young woman in the back of the head and leg. She tried defending herself.

“Melanie shot that one bullet,” Brown said. “One of the guys actually had two guns and ambushed my daughter. Just shot my daughter to death.” . . .

Lakewood police said the Aurora Police Department, U.S. Marshals, the Department of Corrections, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and Immigration and Customs Enforcement assisted in arresting Pierrie.

Apparently, Melanie was armed and fired back in self-defense at the time of the killing, and apparently the last person arrested was not a U.S. citizen. 

Melanie was apparently either a first or second generation immigrant from the South American country immediately adjacent to Venezuela.

All of the suspects face very serious charges and very long prison terms.

But even with a through search of available information, there are lots of gaps in the story.

Bye, Bye WaPo

Because of Jeff Bezos's editorial interference with the Washington Post, I've decided not to renew my subscription when it expires at the end of March. 

I've been reading it regularly since I was in college, but I'm joining hundreds of thousands of other subscribers in deciding that enough is enough. Bezos has seriously compromised the Washington Post's credibility and value as a news source.

More than 75,000 digital subscribers to The Washington Post have cancelled since its owner, billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, announced on Wednesday that he would radically overhaul the paper's opinion pages to reflect libertarian priorities and to exclude opposing points of view. . . . The rapid-fire cancellations since Wednesday represent a historic level of reader fury over the changes. Yet they are only the most recent wave in a series of mass cancellations that began in late October. That was when Bezos killed a planned endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. Between then and Election Day, more than 300,000 subscribers canceled the Post, as NPR first reported last month. That was more than 12% of digital subscribers, which make up the vast majority of the paper's paid circulation.

The Post has aggressively wooed new subscribers to replace them, boosting circulation by 400,000, often at highly discounted rates, according to a Post executive. (The executive spoke on condition of anonymity because the Post does not release circulation figures.)

Even so, there is broad consensus inside the Post that without Bezos' decisions, the paper would be up hundreds of thousands of paying subscribers from where it was before the election. Instead, the numbers NPR has been able to obtain indicate a net loss of a couple hundred thousand subscribers.

- National Public Radio.

Deplorable Trump Team Tactics

Trump has engaged in a "flood the zone" strategy of taking outrageous and unprecedented actions on so many front that his opponents are overwhelmed. As the secondary headline of one analysis explained: ""Trump starts presidency by mocking rule of law and stigmatizing trans Americans" 

This post highlights some of those actions.

* Trump ran for office on immediately lowering the price of eggs. The price of eggs has soared since he took office. He says he can't do anything about it and neither he nor his supporters seem to care.

* Produce prices are at risk of rising in the near future since migrant farm workers are failing to show up, en masse, in states like California, Texas, and Florida, and due to threatened broad 25% tariffs on imports to the U.S. from Mexico, Canada, and other countries (in violation of free trade treaties that Trump himself negotiated in his first term). 

* Gasoline prices are also up for now.

* Trump rescinded an Executive Order from President Biden that limited the price of certain prescription drugs resulting in immediate drug price inflation for large number of patients in the U.S.

* Trump pardoned the more than 1,000 people who committed crimes while storming the capitol in an effort to overturn the 2020 election on January 6, 2021, some of whom violently assaulted police officers (to the disgust of a police officer's union that supported him in the election).  One pardoned January 6 criminal was since killed in a traffic stop after pointing a gun at a traffic officer, and another has been sentenced to ten years in jail for a deadly DUI. He also made other dubious pardons. 

* Trump has threatened to conquer Greenland and the Panama Canal without any Congressional authorization or legal basis to do so, and to use economic pressure to force Canada to become the 51st U.S. state. In addition to blatantly violating international law, this is also contrary to U.S. law. These proposals are unpopular with the U.S. public (as well as the people of the affected countries) and would blow up the NATO alliance.

* Trump has lied about what he has done with regard to water supplies in California.

* Trump is using the FCC to try to punish National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System, formally, over concerns about sponsorships, but really because he doesn't like the fact that their truthful news reporting and the decent values of PBS children's programming impeded his ability to lie unchecked and promote hate.

* Trump baselessly blamed Biden and affirmative action hiring for a crash (see also here) between a regional jet with 64 people on board and a U.S. military helicopter with 3 people on board that killed all 67 people near Reagan National Airport in the District of Columbia. Poor training for military helicopter crews (who were outside their designed flight zone), understaffing of air traffic controllers (only two were on duty when there should have been four), and the somewhat reduced experience of regional jet pilots compared to larger commercial aircraft pilots, were far more likely to be the real causes. Trump had already gutted federal air safety measures, left the FAA without a director, and disrupted federal employees after less than two weeks in office when this happened, although realistically none of these things actually caused this crash.

* "The Pentagon’s intelligence agency paused observances of Pride Month, Black History Month, Martin Luther King’s Birthday, Holocaust Days of Remembrance, Juneteenth and other cultural events, as federal agencies scramble to try to conform to President Trump’s repudiation of diversity programs." From the New York Times.

* Trump repealed Executive Order 11246, 59 years, 3 months, 27 days after it was signed by Lyndon B. Johnson on September 24, 1965, which established requirements for non-discriminatory practices in hiring and employment on the part of U.S. government contractors.

* Federal agencies have been forbidden from communicating scientific or public health information to the public. "The Trump administration, moving quickly to clamp down on health and science agencies, has canceled a string of scientific meetings and instructed federal health officials to refrain from all public communications, including upcoming reports focused on the escalating bird flu crisis in the U.S." As one doctor explained on social media:

Trump just directed the CDC, NIH and FDA to halt all external communications. That means to stop giving scientific reports, health advisories, website updates, etc. In simple terms, if there was a salmonella outbreak with massive food recall needed right now, they wouldn't be allowed to announce it. Scared yet? The order came in Tuesday AM and without a reason or a timeline.

* Trump has started the process to remove the U.S. from the World Health Organization, despite a high risk in the near future of a bird flu epidemic. 

* Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox news commentator, was confirmed with a 50-50 votes with all Democrats and three Republicans opposing him and Vice President J.D. Vance breaking the tie, after credible testimony at his confirmation hearings revealed that he was a seriously impaired alcoholic and a rapist, among other concerns. 

Mr. Hegseth’s selection by President Trump and the confirmation process were complicated by a claim of sexual assault and accusations of abusive behavior, public drunkenness and fiscal mismanagement of two nonprofit veterans groups.

In a sworn statement submitted to the Senate on Tuesday, a former sister-in-law of Mr. Hegseth’s described him as frequently intoxicated and “abusive” toward his second wife. Mr. Hegseth, 44, has denied the account, along with other allegations that have dogged his nomination.

And on Thursday, the office of Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, shared written answers to questions she put to Mr. Hegseth, in which he disclosed that he paid $50,000 to a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017.

He has said that encounter was consensual, and he was never charged with a crime.

A handful of Republicans had said privately that the new allegations in the affidavit from Danielle Diettrich Hegseth, the former wife of Mr. Hegseth’s brother, were concerning. But in the end, only Ms. Collins, Ms. Murkowski and Mr. McConnell voted with Democrats against his confirmation.

Ms. Hegseth said after the vote that she had submitted her affidavit only because she had been assured that it would sway key votes. “There are many reasons women are reluctant to come forward, by name, and tell the truth about a powerful man like him,” she said. “What happened today will make women who have experienced abuse and mistreatment even less forthcoming.”

His tattoos suggest neo-Nazi or white supremacist leanings.

* Confirmation hearings for failed third-party Presidential candidate RFK, Jr. as U.S. Health And Human Services Secretary show him to be profoundly unqualified and dangerous. His personal behavior is also deeply concerning due to credible sexual assault allegations against him and weird incidents with dead animals. He also has admitted that some of his brain was eaten away by a worm.

* Trump's Office of Personnel Management nominee is on record as publicly stating that he is a "raging msogynist". 

Andrew Kloster has a new job in the Trump administration, as reported by the Project On Government Oversight. Kloster has landed as the new general counsel for the Office of Personnel Management. The New York University Law graduate has made the rounds in conservative legal circles, previously working at OPM in the first Trump term, becoming a prominent 2020 election denier, and serving as general counsel for congressman Matt Gaetz (FL-01). . . . "It wasn’t even a long time ago, so it’s hard to even disingenuously chalk it up to youthful indiscretion. In 2023(!) he was tweeting that he identified as a “raging misogynist,” saying, “I’m 100% women respecter precisely because I’m a raging misogynist. I’m so kind you’ll want to kill yourself and die, which is the goal.” Around that time he also tweeted, “I need a woman who looks like she got punched.” Which was only a few months after being served a temporary restraining order. He referred to “literally all women” as annoying liberals. In 2012, he also commented on a Volokh Conspiracy article that, “Consent is probably modern society’s most pernicious fetish.” But it isn’t only women that the new counsel for the federal government’s HR department has attacked online. He also wrote, “Slaves owe us reparations,” and “slavery was voluntary.” He called Chinese people uncivilized and compared them to raccoons. Oh, and he also seemed to encourage a civil war.

* Kash Patel, Trump's nominee for FBI director, has starting suing people for defamation for opposing his nomination, something that is a patently frivolous strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP). 

* Trump’s Press Secretary has been credibly accused of allegedly pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars of illegal campaign donations.

* Key Trump advisor Elon Musk is a big supporter of what is basically a neo-Nazi party in Germany. He's also a big backer of the modern fascist party in Italy. Musk has also been accused of making Nazi salutes at political functions in the U.S.

* Trump is persecuting former Joint Chief of Staff General Mark Milley, without any semblance of due process or justification, removing his security clearance, ending a security detail established due to credible threats from Iranian assassinations, and removing pictures of him from the Pentagon halls, because Milley put obeying the law and doing is job properly ahead of loyalty to Trump. The New York Times notes that:

Donald J. Trump had previously said he deserved to be executed for treason after the general apologized for appearing with Trump in Lafayette Park near the White House after the removal of civilians protesting the murder of George Floyd.

A Pentagon statement said that Hegseth had directed the Defense Department’s inspector general to review whether General Milley should be demoted in retirement.

* Trump has threatened to bring criminal prosecutions as retribution against state and local officials who defy his immigration plans (something that is illegal).

* Trump's Executive Order purporting to freeze all U.S. government grants and loans created widespread chaos and gave rise to a quick injunction from a judge. Trump quickly rescinded the order in one of the first big wins for Democrats since he took office. More legal analysis here and here.

* Trump has attempted to suspend military aid to Ukraine that has already been authorized by Congress. It isn't clear to me if this is part of the order that has since been rescinded.

* Unilaterally and without any legal authority to do so, the "Trump administration offered roughly two million federal workers the option to resign but be paid through the end of September. It is unclear what authority the Trump administration has to offer a payout to effectively the entire federal civilian work force." Elon Musk had ridiculously claimed that cutting the federal work force by 5-10% could reduce the budget by $100 billion, which this vastly overestimates the cost saving that could be achieved.

* Fox News is making up out of whole cloth the false claim that the U.S. funding $50 million of condoms in Gaza.

* Trump's plan for the Gaza Strip is to "clean out the whole thing." 

* Trump's press release staff can't spell the name of Colombia, the country upon which he sought to impose tariffs for its resistance to the manner in which he deported its citizens, something his legal authority to do is dubious. See also here.

* Deportations are being conducted with U.S. Air Force planes, something arguably in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

* Trump's Executive Order purporting to end birthright citizenship is patently unconstitutional and a federal judge in Washington State has stayed it, expressing exasperation at the Justice Department lawyers trying to defend it.

* As part of Trump's mass deportation sweep, a grandmother, mother and baby grandson, who were all U.S. citizens, were detained in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for speaking Spanish in public by immigration officials, and weren't released until birth certificates and proof and citizenship were provided.

* ICE Agents have staked out an ambulance bay at UC-Health Anschutz (the main university hospital in metro Denver) now that Trump has directed them to ignore historical restrictions on immigration enforcement in sensitive areas like hospitals, courts, and churches.

* Leading Christians including the Pope, a Catholic Cardinal, and the Episcopal Bishop in the National Cathedral have decried his harsh immigration tactics:

* Trump's unilateral attempt to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, is unsurprisingly, receiving strong pushback, although Google seems ready to accept it if it is officially sanctioned by a U.S. place naming board.

* Trump, illegally and without the legal authority to do so, "signed an executive order on Tuesday taking steps to end gender-affirming medical treatments for children and teenagers under 19, directing agencies to take a variety of steps to curtail surgeries, hormone therapy and other regimens. The order continued to chip away at social protections for transgender and intersex people, coming one day after Mr. Trump directed the Pentagon to re-evaluate whether anyone who received gender-related medical treatments should be permitted to serve in the military."

* Trump is illegally and unilaterally banning transgender people from U.S. military service.

* Trump is supporting a "U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights will open an investigation into Denver Public Schools for “discriminating against its female students” by creating an all-gender bathroom at East High School[.]"" as a way to continue scapegoating of transgender students.

* "The Trump administration has instructed organizations in other countries to stop disbursing HIV medications purchased with U.S. aid, even if the drugs have already been obtained and are sitting in local clinics." (NYT).

* A right wing summary of Trump's Executive Orders is available here.

* Trump is suggesting that he is not term-limited, blatantly contradicting the constitution, and showing grave disrespect for is duty to uphold the U.S. Constitution and for democracy.

* Incidentally, Trump is the least popular President in the history of polling, for a second time in a row, at the start of his Presidential term.