https://portside.org/2026-05-21/tidbits-may-21-reader-comments-summit-butter-and-schools-not-guns-and-warfare-reflecting

• World Series of Poker  --  Cartoon by DC Cartoonist

• Re: Butter (and Schools), Not Guns (and Warfare)  (Daniel Millstone)

• Imbalanced president's balance...  --  Cartoon by Jack Ohman

• Re: La Follette’s Struggle To Oppose World War I  (David Berger)

• Re: The Death of Mother Jones  (Mark)

• Reflecting Pool  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Rob Rogers

• The Strait  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Nick Anderson

 

Resources:

• After New Evidence of DOJ Misconduct, Mahmoud Khalil Calls on Board of Immigration Appeals to Terminate Case  (Center for Constitutional Rights)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  World Series of Poker  --  Cartoon by DC Cartoonist

DC Cartoonist
May 13, 2026
DC Cartoonist
 

 

Re: Butter (and Schools), Not Guns (and Warfare)
 

Can you use a good discussion of the costs of war and of the needs forgone of people here as we build and bus bombs and more? In the comments, via Portside, Frida Berrigan's essay can help. Google presents many more efforts:

 

 

Daniel Millstone
Post on Facebook

 

Imbalanced president's balance...  --  Cartoon by Jack Ohman
 

Jack Ohman
May 19, 2026
Jack Ohman's You Betcha!
 

 

Re: La Follette’s Struggle To Oppose World War I
 

I hope that Chester mentions that John Dewey, darling of American liberals, consciously supported the war when he knew it was monstrous and aided in the persecution of his former student, Randolph Bourne, who coined the phrase: WAR IS THE HEALTH OF THE STATE.

David Berger

 

Re: The Death of Mother Jones

(posting on Portside Culture)
 

THANK YOU. I have always preferred Gene Autry to Roy Rogers, more so when I learned he went into the military during WWII, when Rogers did not. But... I have *never* heard of this song, and gives me still more reason to like Autry.

mark

 

Reflecting Pool  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Rob Rogers

“Trump is trying to erase the civil rights movement from our national memory. He wants to eliminate diversity in our polling places, universities and boardrooms. Extreme white nationalism will be his legacy unless we can stop him.”

Rob Rogers
May 19, 2026
TinyView
 

 

The Strait  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Nick Anderson
 

President Trump would love to take a mulligan on this ill-conceived war in Iran, because he so obviously can’t find a way out of this mess. Instead, his Iran policy has fallen into a predictable rhythm now; a kind of call-and-response.

First comes the threat.

“Iran must act now.”

“The clock is ticking.”

“There won’t be anything left.”

It’s bold. It’s dramatic. It sounds like the trailer for a summer blockbuster… deep voice, ominous music, things exploding just off-screen. And then, almost on cue, comes the sequel:

Actually, let’s hold off.

Let’s give negotiations more time.

Let’s pause. Reassess. Extend the ceasefire.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

It’s less a foreign policy than a recurring bit. At this point, Iran doesn’t need intelligence briefings to understand U.S. strategy. They just need a calendar and a basic grasp of narrative structure. Threat on Sunday, walk-back by Tuesday, negotiations by Thursday, new threat over the weekend. You can practically set your watch to it.

The latest episode follows the script perfectly. The president warns Iran that time is running out, that consequences are imminent, that action must be taken “or there won’t be anything left.”

Strong words. Vague deadline. No follow-through.

Because we’ve seen this before… many times now. The threats pile up, each one meant to convey urgency and resolve, and yet they rarely seem to lead anywhere except, another round of threats.

This is not deterrence. It’s theater. And like any long-running show, the problem is that the audience eventually figures out the pattern. When every ultimatum is followed by a pause, the ultimatum stops being an ultimatum. When every “last chance” is followed by another chance, the concept of a deadline starts to lose meaning. At some point, “the clock is ticking” starts to sound less like a warning and more like background noise.

Meanwhile, the real-world consequences keep accumulating. The Strait of Hormuz remains unstable. Oil prices spike and dip with each new burst of rhetoric. Shipping companies hesitate. Markets flinch. And the broader economy absorbs the uncertainty, quietly, persistently, and expensively.

But none of that fits neatly into the messaging cycle. Because the messaging cycle isn’t built for consistency. It’s built for impact. A threat grabs attention. A pause buys time. A new threat resets the narrative. What’s missing is a sense that any of it is part of a coherent plan. Are we escalating? De-escalating? Negotiating? Preparing for war? The answer, apparently, is yes. All at once.

There’s a term for this kind of approach in economics: signaling without commitment. You send signals—loud, dramatic ones—but you avoid binding yourself to any particular course of action. In theory, it gives you flexibility. In practice, it erodes credibility. Because credibility depends on the gap between what you say and what you do. And right now, that gap is widening.

Threats without action become suggestions. Deadlines without enforcement become estimates. Warnings without consequences become habits. And habits are easy to ignore.

That’s the real risk here. Not just that the strategy is inconsistent, but that it’s becoming predictable in the worst possible way. Not predictably strong. Predictably reversible. Which leaves the United States in an odd position: loudly announcing its intentions, then quietly revising them, over and over again, in a loop that everyone can see. It’s not quite war. It’s not quite peace. It’s something else entirely.

A kind of geopolitical improv, where every scene ends the same way: with a dramatic line… followed by an immediate rewrite. And somewhere in Tehran, you have to imagine they’re not panicking. They’re just waiting for the next episode.

Nick Anderson
May 19, 2026
Pen Strokes
 

 

After New Evidence of DOJ Misconduct, Mahmoud Khalil Calls on Board of Immigration Appeals to Terminate Case

 

Mr. Khalil Separately Appealed the Removal Order to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals 
 

Center for Constitutional Rights
Contact: press@ccrjustice.org

May 15, 2026

 

In light of new evidence of misconduct by the Trump Administration, Mahmoud Khalil’s legal team is asking the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) to re-open his immigration case and terminate proceedings. The new evidence reveals that the Trump Administration secretly engineered the outcome of his immigration case to make an example of him. 

The motion includes declarations from former immigration judges, as well as former members of the BIA, testifying to the weaponization of the immigration court system to achieve the Trump administration’s political goals and the apparent procedural abnormalities in Mr. Khalil’s case. The filing shows that the BIA, which is controlled by the Trump administration’s Department of Justice, improperly influenced the lower immigration court’s decision, fast-tracked his proceedings, bypassed the normal channels through which immigration appeals are docketed and adjudicated, and ultimately reached a decision in an unheard-of nine days. 

The administration pressed all of this forward in open defiance of a federal district court order barring the government from using the “foreign policy ground”— the original pretext for Mr. Khalil's arrest — to detain or remove him.  

“The administration wants to arrest, detain, and deport me to intimidate everyone speaking out for Palestine across this country, and they are willing to violate longstanding U.S. rules and procedures to do it,” said Mahmoud Khalil. “This is the performance of due process the administration is offering me: putting me through a sham immigration process while guaranteeing the outcome in advance. But no lies, corruption, or ideological persecution will stop me from advocating for Palestine and for everyone's right to free speech.”

The new evidence also includes reports that at least three judges on the BIA recused themselves from voting on the decision in his case, a highly unusual move that  suggests they may have played a role in the immigration judge’s rulings from behind the scenes — despite the judge being legally obligated to exercise her own independent judgment. 

Allegations of misconduct in Mr. Khalil’s case are corroborated by growing evidence that the Executive Office of Immigration Review leadership and other top government officials pressured judges to issue predetermined decisions and expedite deportations — particularly in high-profile cases like Mr. Khalil’s — despite the agency being legally obligated to provide noncitizens a full and fair hearing on their claims. 

“It’s clear that the revelations of DOJ misconduct corroborate what we have known since Mahmoud was arrested–that the administration has reverse-engineered its desired outcome by weaponizing a farcical proceeding littered with abnormalities,” said Johnny Sinodis, partner at Van Der Hout LLP. “The administration has to be held to account, and the government’s case against Mahmoud must be thrown out. Transparency also dictates that the government produce any records regarding the handling and adjudication of Mahmoud’s case. The apparent interference with the Immigration Judge’s decision making is not only unconstitutional but also violates the government’s own rules and procedures.” 

This filing with the BIA comes as Mr. Khalil waits for the full Third Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether they will re-hear the government’s appeal of the district court’s orders prohibiting his detention and deportation. While that is pending, the Third Circuit panel’s order overturning the district court’s orders is not currently in effect and the Trump administration cannot lawfully re-detain nor deport Mr. Khalil at this time. 

Last weekend, Mr. Khalil’s legal team also filed an appeal with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, urging it to reverse the BIA’s removal order and terminate the proceedings entirely. As the legal team has repeatedly made clear, the immigration judge rushed to a decision without considering relevant evidence and refused to consider the constitutional challenges to his deportation, and improperly sustained false, after-the-fact charges that the Trump administration brought in retaliation for Mr. Khalil’s speech. This Fifth Circuit appeal will proceed regardless of whether the stay of the mandate is granted in the Third Circuit. 

Mr. Khalil is represented by Van Der Hout LLP, Dratel & Lewis, the Center for Constitutional Rights, CLEAR, Washington Square Legal Services, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), the ACLU of New Jersey, and the ACLU of Louisiana.

For all case materials, please see here, here, and here.

[The Center for Constitutional Rights works with communities under threat to fight for justice and liberation through litigation, advocacy, and strategic communications. Since 1966, the Center for Constitutional Rights has taken on oppressive systems of power, including structural racism, gender oppression, economic inequity, and governmental overreach. Learn more at ccrjustice.org.]