Trump 2.0

[wayneL]

I suppose we all need goals in life, but a Nobel Peace Prize? I suppose anything is possible, but I'd be very surprised.

You need to be black. Then you get one preemptively for doing nothing at all, even if you subsequently murder American citizens.

Just chant "yes we can".

 

[IFocus]

Remember this - Victoria police for using 'unlawful violence' against COVID protesters, what did you post and scream about then?

It was discussed, here in WA police handed out masks in the East Coast people were beaten and arrested, our state premier made the point no one would be arrested for going for a jog and kebab as happen over your side.

Certainly an issue of culture in your part of the world.

 

[wayneL]

It was discussed, here in WA police handed out masks in the East Coast people were beaten and arrested, our state premier made the point no one would be arrested for going for a jog and kebab as happen over your side.

Certainly an issue of culture in your part of the world.

They just got the Karens to do it over here. Kudos to the greatest psyops ever.

 

[sptrawler]

The only way that the Middle East will get to long lasting peace is for countries like Iran stop their mission to kill all Israeli people and stop educating their children of that mission.

When I came to Australia, as an 8 year old kid in the 1960's, I came from a culture of wanting to bash the bejeezuz out of kids of a different religion.
It was such a breath of fresh air to realise there was non of that bigotry and everyone was the same, poor bare foot and livinging in housing commission housing.
It's a shame that has been lost, we now are richer in some ways, not in other ways.

 

[basilio]

Stephen Miller is demanding 3000 arrests a day from his ICE officers. 90k a month Over 1 million in a year.​

Swept off the streets, their schools, in hospital at work. Any brownie, any excuse, no mercy, just no sense.

The Shock-and-Awe Deportations Will Get Worse​

Trump’s immigration policy has quickly become a stain on the country. But it’s just getting started.​

Brutality Upon Brutality​

​

by Andrew Egger

Within hours of Narciso Barranco’s arrest on Saturday, the video had gone viral. Masked ICE agents had surrounded and tackled the Orange County, California landscaper, allegedly an illegal immigrant. In the video, his weed whacker lies discarded while they pin him to the ground and beat him around the head and neck.

The more details came out, the worse the story got. Barranco’s son Alejandro told local news his father had been pepper sprayed and suffered a dislocated shoulder; in more than 24 hours since entering ICE custody, Alejandro said, his father had not received food, water, or medical care.

Alejandro and his two brothers, Emanuel and José Luis, are U.S. citizens. They also happen to be U.S. Marines.

Barranco’s arrest may have prompted the largest recent outpouring of indignation, but his is an increasingly common story—one that represents a stain on our collective consciousness and a black mark in our nation’s history.

As they chase ever more stringent immigrant detention quotas—whipped along by mass-deportation ideologues like Stephen Miller—federal agents are increasingly abandoning the slightest concern for optics or basic human decency. Instead, they are bringing the hammer down on any migrant they can find. These are just some of the stories that we’ve seen in the last few weeks:

• In New Haven, Connecticut, masked ICE agents wearing no identification boxed in an immigrant woman’s car as she left home to drive her kids to school, arresting her and leaving them sobbing on the sidewalk with their grandmother, who had rushed out of the house as the arrest proceeded.
• In Houston, Texas, plainclothes officers detained and then deported the undocumented wife of an active-duty Army sergeant after misrepresenting themselves as “public safety officers” and telling her that her car had been in an accident in the parking lot outside her work. The woman, Shirly Guardado, had been brought to America as a child more than a decade ago.
• In New Orleans, Louisiana, ICE agents detained the wife of a Marine veteran who was in green-card proceedings because her mother had missed an immigration hearing years before, triggering removal orders against the entire family.
• Also in New Orleans, federal agents arrested at least 15 workers in a raid on a construction site for a major and long-delayed flood control project. New Orleans, as a reminder, is prone to disastrous flooding.
• In Nashville, Tennessee, an undocumented woman who was detained by ICE while pregnant suffered a stillbirth after allegedly being denied adequate medical care in ICE custody.
• In Atlanta, Georgia, an undocumented migrant who entered the country in 2004 and has gained a large following as a reporter covering ICE raids was arrested while reporting on a “No Kings” protest earlier this month. ICE promptly detained him and began deportation proceedings.
• In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a two-year-old girl, who happens to be a U.S. citizen, was deported along with her undocumented parents to Brazil, where she is now the undocumented one. “She has no right to routine pediatric checkups in Brazil’s public healthcare system,” the Washington Post reported. “She cannot easily enroll in a Brazilian school or day care. And she’s living on a temporary tourism visa that’s set to expire in weeks.”

The Shock-and-Awe Deportations Will Get Worse

Trump’s immigration policy has quickly become a stain on the country. But it’s just getting started.

www.thebulwark.com

 

[basilio]

This message was sent to Robert Reich. Effectively demanding that the Democrats actually do something concrete about stopping the march to authoritarianism by Donald Trump.

It also outlines what they "might do "

I think it is an outstanding piece of work. Anyone want to guess the author of this message and strategy ?

Dear Democratic Party,

I need more from you. You keep sending emails begging for $15, while we’re watching fascism consolidate power in real time.
This administration is not simply “a different ideology.” It is a coordinated, authoritarian machine — with the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate, and the executive pen all under its control.

And you?

You’re still asking for decorum and donations. WTF. That won’t save us. I don’t want to hear another polite floor speech. I want strategy.
I want fire. I want action so bold it shifts the damn news cycle — not fits inside one.

Every time I see something from the DNC, it’s asking me for funds. Surprise. Those of us who donate don’t want to keep sending money just to watch you stand frozen as the Constitution goes up in flames — shaking your heads and saying, “Well, there’s not much we can do. He has the majority.”

I call bull****.

If you don’t know how to think outside the box… If you don’t know how to strategize… If you don’t know how to fight fire with fire… what the hell are we giving you money for?

Some of us have two or three advanced degrees. Some of us have military training. Some of us know what coordinated resistance looks like — and this ain’t it.

Yes, the tours around the country? Nice. The speeches? Nice. The clever congressional clapbacks? Nice.

That was great for giving hope. Now we need action.

You have to stop acting like this is a normal presidency that will just time out in four years. We’re not even at Day 90, and look at the chaos.
Look at the disappearances. Look at the erosion of the judiciary, the press, and our rights. If you do not stop this, we will not make it 1,460 days.

So here’s what I need from you — right now:
⸻

1. Form an independent, civilian-powered investigative coalition.

I’m talking experts. Veterans. Whistleblowers. Journalists. Watchdog orgs. Deputize the resistance. Build a real-time archive of corruption, overreach, and executive abuse. Make it public. Make it unshakable. Let the people drag the rot into the light.

If you can’t hold formal hearings, hold public ones. If Congress won’t act, let the country act. This isn’t about optics — it’s about receipts.
Because at some point, these people will be held accountable.

And when that day comes, we’ll need every name, every signature, every illegal order, every act of silence—documented. You’re not just preserving truth — you’re preparing evidence for prosecution.

The more they vanish people and weaponize data, the more we need truth in the sunlight.
⸻

2. Join the International Criminal Court.

Yes, I said it. Call their bluff. You cannot control what the other side does. But you can control your own integrity. So prove it. Prove that your party is still grounded in law, human rights, and ethical leadership.

Join.

If you’ve got nothing to hide — join. Show the world who’s hiding bodies, bribes, and buried bank accounts. Force the GOP to explain why they’d rather protect a war criminal than sign a treaty. And while you’re at it, publicly invite ICC observers into U.S. borders.

Make this administration explain — on camera — why they’re terrified of international oversight.

⸻

3. Fund state-level resistance infrastructure.

Don’t just send postcards. Send resources. Channel DNC funds into rapid-response teams, legal defense coalitions, sanctuary networks, and digital security training. If the federal government is hijacked, build power underneath it. If the laws become tools of oppression, help people resist them legally, locally, and boldly. This is not campaign season — this is an authoritarian purge.

Stop campaigning. Act like this is the end of democracy, because it is. We WILL REMEMBER the warriors come primaries.

Fighting this regime should be your marketing strategy. And let’s be clear: The reason the other side always seems three steps ahead is because they ARE.

They prepared for this.

They infiltrated school boards, courts, local legislatures, and police unions. They built a machine while you wrote press releases.
We’re reacting — they’ve been executing a plan for years. It’s time to shift from panic to blueprint. You should already be working with strategists and military minds on PROJECT 2029,

A coordinated, long-term plan to rebuild this country when the smoke clears.

You should be publicly laying out:

• The laws and amendments you’ll pass to ensure this never happens again

• The systems you’ll tear down and the safeguards you’ll enshrine

• The plan to hold perpetrators of human atrocities accountable

• The urgent commitment to immediately bring home those sold into slavery in El Salvador

You say you’re the party of the people?

Then show the people the plan.

⸻

4. Use your platform to educate the public on rights and resistance tactics.

If they’re going to strip us of rights and lie about it — arm the people with truth. Text campaigns. Mass trainings. Downloadable “Know Your Rights” kits. Multilingual legal guides. Encrypted phone trees.

Give people tools, not soundbites. We don’t need more slogans. We need survival manuals.

⸻

5. Leverage international media and watchdogs.

Stop hoping U.S. cable news will wake up. They’re too busy playing both sides of fascism.

Feed the real stories to BBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Reuters, Der Spiegel — hell, leak them to anonymous dropboxes if you have to.
Make what’s happening in America a global scandal. And stop relying on platforms that are actively suppressing truth.

Start leveraging Substack. Use Bluesky. That’s where the resistance is migrating. That’s where censorship hasn’t caught up. If the mainstream won’t carry the truth — outflank them.

Get creative. Go underground. Go global. If our democracy is being dismantled in broad daylight, make sure the whole world sees it — and make sure we’re still able to say it.
⸻

6. Create a digital safe haven for whistleblowers and defectors.

Not everyone inside this regime is loyal. Some are scared. Some want out.

Build the channels. Encrypted. Anonymous. Protected.

Make it easy for the cracks in the system to become gaping holes. And while you’re at it?

Stop ostracizing MAGA defectors. Everyone makes mistakes — even glaring, critical ones.

We are not the bullies. We are not the ones filled with hate. And it is not your job to shame people who finally saw the fire and chose to step out of it. They will have to deal with that internal struggle — the guilt of putting a very dangerous and callous regime in power.

But they’re already outnumbered. Don’t push them back into the crowd. We don’t need purity.

We need numbers.

We need people willing to burn their red hats and testify against the machine they helped build.
⸻

7. Study the collapse—and the comeback.

You should be learning from South Korea and how they managed their brief rule under dictatorship. They didn’t waste time chasing the one man with absolute immunity.

They went after the structure. The aides. The enforcers. The loyalists. The architects.

They knocked out the foundation one pillar at a time —until the “strongman” had no one left to stand on And his power crumbled beneath him.

You should be independently investigating every author of Project 2025, every aide who defies court orders, every communications director repeating lies, every policy writer enabling cruelty, every water boy who keeps this engine running.

You can’t stop a regime by asking the king to sit down. You dismantle the throne he’s standing on — one coward at a time.

Stop being scared to fight dirty when the other side is fighting to erase the damn Constitution.

They are threatening to disappear AMERICANS. A M E R I C A N S. And your biggest move can’t be another strongly worded email.
We don’t want your urgently fundraising subject lines. We want backbone. We want action. We want to know you’ll stand up before we’re all ordered to sit down — permanently.

We are watching. And I don’t just mean your base. I mean millions of us who see exactly what’s happening. I’ve only got 6,000 followers — but the groups I’m in? The networks I touch? Over a quarter million.

Often when I speak, it echoes. But when we ALL speak, it ROARS with pressure that will cause change.

We need to be deafening. You still have a chance to do something historic. To be remembered for courage, not caution. To go down as the party that didn’t just watch the fall — but fought the hell back with everything they had.

But the clock is ticking.

And the deportation buses are idling.

 

[StockyGuy]

This message was sent to Robert Reich. Effectively demanding that the Democrats actually do something concrete about stopping the march to authoritarianism by Donald Trump.

It also outlines what they "might do "

I think it is an outstanding piece of work. Anyone want to guess the author of this message and strategy ?

Dear Democratic Party,

I need more from you. You keep sending emails begging for $15, while we’re watching fascism consolidate power in real time.
This administration is not simply “a different ideology.” It is a coordinated, authoritarian machine — with the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate, and the executive pen all under its control.

And you?

You’re still asking for decorum and donations. WTF. That won’t save us. I don’t want to hear another polite floor speech. I want strategy.
I want fire. I want action so bold it shifts the damn news cycle — not fits inside one.

Every time I see something from the DNC, it’s asking me for funds. Surprise. Those of us who donate don’t want to keep sending money just to watch you stand frozen as the Constitution goes up in flames — shaking your heads and saying, “Well, there’s not much we can do. He has the majority.”

I call bull****.

If you don’t know how to think outside the box… If you don’t know how to strategize… If you don’t know how to fight fire with fire… what the hell are we giving you money for?

Some of us have two or three advanced degrees. Some of us have military training. Some of us know what coordinated resistance looks like — and this ain’t it.

Yes, the tours around the country? Nice. The speeches? Nice. The clever congressional clapbacks? Nice.

That was great for giving hope. Now we need action.

You have to stop acting like this is a normal presidency that will just time out in four years. We’re not even at Day 90, and look at the chaos.
Look at the disappearances. Look at the erosion of the judiciary, the press, and our rights. If you do not stop this, we will not make it 1,460 days.

So here’s what I need from you — right now:
⸻

1. Form an independent, civilian-powered investigative coalition.

I’m talking experts. Veterans. Whistleblowers. Journalists. Watchdog orgs. Deputize the resistance. Build a real-time archive of corruption, overreach, and executive abuse. Make it public. Make it unshakable. Let the people drag the rot into the light.

If you can’t hold formal hearings, hold public ones. If Congress won’t act, let the country act. This isn’t about optics — it’s about receipts.
Because at some point, these people will be held accountable.

And when that day comes, we’ll need every name, every signature, every illegal order, every act of silence—documented. You’re not just preserving truth — you’re preparing evidence for prosecution.

The more they vanish people and weaponize data, the more we need truth in the sunlight.
⸻

2. Join the International Criminal Court.

Yes, I said it. Call their bluff. You cannot control what the other side does. But you can control your own integrity. So prove it. Prove that your party is still grounded in law, human rights, and ethical leadership.

Join.

If you’ve got nothing to hide — join. Show the world who’s hiding bodies, bribes, and buried bank accounts. Force the GOP to explain why they’d rather protect a war criminal than sign a treaty. And while you’re at it, publicly invite ICC observers into U.S. borders.

Make this administration explain — on camera — why they’re terrified of international oversight.

⸻

3. Fund state-level resistance infrastructure.

Don’t just send postcards. Send resources. Channel DNC funds into rapid-response teams, legal defense coalitions, sanctuary networks, and digital security training. If the federal government is hijacked, build power underneath it. If the laws become tools of oppression, help people resist them legally, locally, and boldly. This is not campaign season — this is an authoritarian purge.

Stop campaigning. Act like this is the end of democracy, because it is. We WILL REMEMBER the warriors come primaries.

Fighting this regime should be your marketing strategy. And let’s be clear: The reason the other side always seems three steps ahead is because they ARE.

They prepared for this.

They infiltrated school boards, courts, local legislatures, and police unions. They built a machine while you wrote press releases.
We’re reacting — they’ve been executing a plan for years. It’s time to shift from panic to blueprint. You should already be working with strategists and military minds on PROJECT 2029,

A coordinated, long-term plan to rebuild this country when the smoke clears.

You should be publicly laying out:

• The laws and amendments you’ll pass to ensure this never happens again

• The systems you’ll tear down and the safeguards you’ll enshrine

• The plan to hold perpetrators of human atrocities accountable

• The urgent commitment to immediately bring home those sold into slavery in El Salvador

You say you’re the party of the people?

Then show the people the plan.

⸻

4. Use your platform to educate the public on rights and resistance tactics.

If they’re going to strip us of rights and lie about it — arm the people with truth. Text campaigns. Mass trainings. Downloadable “Know Your Rights” kits. Multilingual legal guides. Encrypted phone trees.

Give people tools, not soundbites. We don’t need more slogans. We need survival manuals.

⸻

5. Leverage international media and watchdogs.

Stop hoping U.S. cable news will wake up. They’re too busy playing both sides of fascism.

Feed the real stories to BBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Reuters, Der Spiegel — hell, leak them to anonymous dropboxes if you have to.
Make what’s happening in America a global scandal. And stop relying on platforms that are actively suppressing truth.

Start leveraging Substack. Use Bluesky. That’s where the resistance is migrating. That’s where censorship hasn’t caught up. If the mainstream won’t carry the truth — outflank them.

Get creative. Go underground. Go global. If our democracy is being dismantled in broad daylight, make sure the whole world sees it — and make sure we’re still able to say it.
⸻

6. Create a digital safe haven for whistleblowers and defectors.

Not everyone inside this regime is loyal. Some are scared. Some want out.

Build the channels. Encrypted. Anonymous. Protected.

Make it easy for the cracks in the system to become gaping holes. And while you’re at it?

Stop ostracizing MAGA defectors. Everyone makes mistakes — even glaring, critical ones.

We are not the bullies. We are not the ones filled with hate. And it is not your job to shame people who finally saw the fire and chose to step out of it. They will have to deal with that internal struggle — the guilt of putting a very dangerous and callous regime in power.

But they’re already outnumbered. Don’t push them back into the crowd. We don’t need purity.

We need numbers.

We need people willing to burn their red hats and testify against the machine they helped build.
⸻

7. Study the collapse—and the comeback.

You should be learning from South Korea and how they managed their brief rule under dictatorship. They didn’t waste time chasing the one man with absolute immunity.

They went after the structure. The aides. The enforcers. The loyalists. The architects.

They knocked out the foundation one pillar at a time —until the “strongman” had no one left to stand on And his power crumbled beneath him.

You should be independently investigating every author of Project 2025, every aide who defies court orders, every communications director repeating lies, every policy writer enabling cruelty, every water boy who keeps this engine running.

You can’t stop a regime by asking the king to sit down. You dismantle the throne he’s standing on — one coward at a time.

Stop being scared to fight dirty when the other side is fighting to erase the damn Constitution.

They are threatening to disappear AMERICANS. A M E R I C A N S. And your biggest move can’t be another strongly worded email.
We don’t want your urgently fundraising subject lines. We want backbone. We want action. We want to know you’ll stand up before we’re all ordered to sit down — permanently.

We are watching. And I don’t just mean your base. I mean millions of us who see exactly what’s happening. I’ve only got 6,000 followers — but the groups I’m in? The networks I touch? Over a quarter million.

Often when I speak, it echoes. But when we ALL speak, it ROARS with pressure that will cause change.

We need to be deafening. You still have a chance to do something historic. To be remembered for courage, not caution. To go down as the party that didn’t just watch the fall — but fought the hell back with everything they had.

But the clock is ticking.

And the deportation buses are idling.

Trump is not just some professional "politician". I would liken him more to a crusader on a mission to save Western civilisation. A great USA is like a great Rome in days of yore - it makes their sphere of influence prosperous and safe also. But the man is not alone in the battle. I'm really liking Hegseth as a future POTUS.

 

[DB008]

Winning

​

 

[JohnDe]

Trump is not just some professional "politician". I would liken him more to a crusader on a mission to save Western civilisation. A great USA is like a great Rome in days of yore - it makes their sphere of influence prosperous and safe also. But the man is not alone in the battle. I'm really liking Hegseth as a future POTUS.

Trump is no angel, but the vocal left appears to be making the same mistakes they made when Reagan and Thatcher were leaders; attacking the person and avoiding the analysis of policy.

This is a serious misreading of the US President. Like all of us, he has his faults. But weakness is not one of them.​

​

Sure, Trump and Netanyahu are widely disliked in the West – although they have their supporters, especially in the US and Israel. But they have shown real leadership in this instance.​

​

Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong are not in the Trump-Netanyahu cart (to borrow Paul Keating’s expression). But both acknowledged this week that Iran under the rule of supreme leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei and the mullahs could not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon.​

Donald Trump has faults but weakness isn’t one of them

It’s just over three decades since American satirist PJ O’Rourke wrote a book titled Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind’s Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice and Alcohol-Free Beer. I was reminded of this last Sunday morning when news reached Australia about the US strike against the Iranian nuclear facility at Fordow.

On any analysis, this was an extraordinary feat of arms. Not only did the US Air Force fly seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers from the US to Iran and back, all of which returned safely after dropping 14 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-busting bombs. But a US submarine also delivered Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles on Iranian targets from 1000km away out at sea.

As President Donald J. Trump acknowledged, such an operation would not have been possible without Israel which, across many months, had effectively destroyed Iran’s air defence system. The USAF planes that accompanied the B-2 bombers also returned to base without incident.

In addition, from June 13 Israel launched attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities at Natanz and Isfahan. Now there is a ceasefire, for the moment at least, and several leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps along with some Iranian leading nuclear scientists have been killed.

On ABC TV’s Insiders last Sunday, ABC journalist Raf Epstein effectively denied that Iran was close to developing nuclear weapons. He blamed Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for attempting to convince Trump that this was the case.

Whereupon presenter David Speers commented: “Ann Coulter’s quote about Donald Trump – that he’s like a sofa, he bears the impression of the person who last sat on him. You just hope that it’s not Netanyahu that he was listening to.”

This is a serious misreading of the US President. Like all of us, he has his faults. But weakness is not one of them.

Sure, Trump and Netanyahu are widely disliked in the West – although they have their supporters, especially in the US and Israel. But they have shown real leadership in this instance.

Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong are not in the Trump-Netanyahu cart (to borrow Paul Keating’s expression). But both acknowledged this week that Iran under the rule of supreme leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei and the mullahs could not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon.

Coulter is an American isolationist in the tradition of Pat Buchanan. So is Tucker Carlson, formerly of Fox News until his role was terminated in April 2023.

Carlson’s isolation is such that he palled up with Russia’s Vladimir Putin last year, giving him an oh-so-soft interview in which Carlson exhibited an appalling ignorance of the former Soviet Union (which Putin admires) and contemporary Russia (which Putin rules in an authoritarian manner).

On June 23, The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote: “For all the predictions that a strike on Iran would ‘almost certainly result in thousands of American deaths’ (Tucker Carlson) and set off World War III, Iran strongly signalled it doesn’t want to fight.”

There is no evidence that Trump wants a war. Even less that he would be led into one by Netanyahu.

It came as no surprise that CNN – the left-of-centre US subscription television outlet – sought to discredit not only Trump but also the US military by this report of a leak from the US Defence Intelligence Agency: “Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said that centrifuges are largely intact. Another source said that the intelligence assessed enriched uranium was moved out of the sites prior to the US strikes. So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops, this person added.”

The story received widescale coverage in Australia and elsewhere. However, it was later reported that the assessment was labelled to be of the “low confidence” kind.

This is understandable since it is too early to gauge the success of the US attack and that of Israeli forces before that.

However, an assessment of analysis provided by US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Dan Caine and CIA director John Ratcliffe indicates that substantial damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities has been achieved that will take years to be overcome.

Recently Axios reported that, according to Israeli sources, the strikes at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan have been very significant. Moreover, the International Atomic Energy Agency has put out six statements on Iran since June 19. All suggest widespread damage to Iran’s nuclear assets.

Much of the internal opposition to Trump’s position on Iran comes from Democrats who are disillusioned and isolated because of his success at the November 2024 election. They overlook the fact, in March 2011, president Barack Obama ordered military strikes on Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya.

Hillary Clinton was US secretary of state at the time. No Democrats suggested then that the Obama administration had acted illegally in a war inconsistent with the US War Powers Act.

Then there is the Western left. From London to Melbourne and Sydney, leftist activists can be seen in the streets in opposition to the democratically elected administrations in Washington and Jerusalem and in favour of the unelected theocracy in Tehran.

This street mob includes some radical feminists who are blind to the suffering and persecution of Iranian women.

As the likes of historians Niall Ferguson and Andrew Roberts have argued in these pages, we live at a time when the future of Western democracy is at stake. It is a melancholy fact that all wars are dreadful and involve the deaths of children, women and men. This was true of Germany along with Japan in 1945 and earlier. But the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan was necessary to the survival of Western civilisation.

In recent times Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper highly critical of the Netanyahu government, has reported that captured documents reveal that Hamas’s invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, was designed to wipe Israel off the map. The destruction of Israel would be a disaster to Western democracies. At times, defensive war is necessary – to paraphrase O’Rourke’s view.

Gerard Henderson is executive director of The Sydney Institute.

 

[IFocus]

Mean while back at the cult

82K views · 2.7K reactions | Very insightful analysis of the psychology behind the MAGA movement. | Carrick Ryan

Very insightful analysis of the psychology behind the MAGA movement..

www.facebook.com

 

[wayneL]

Mean while back at the cult

82K views · 2.7K reactions | Very insightful analysis of the psychology behind the MAGA movement. | Carrick Ryan

Very insightful analysis of the psychology behind the MAGA movement..

www.facebook.com

projection.

 

[DB008]

Finally, common sense is returning

​

 

[IFocus]

The Cult cheers on......


Congress just approved a $150 billion increase to ICE's budget, the paramilitary force used to round up undocumented immigrants for Trump. It now receives more funding than the US Marines.
Meanwhile, the National Science Foundation has had its budget cut by more than 55%, losing $5.1 billion in funding.
The National Science Foundation has been instrumental in some of humanity's greatest scientific breakthroughs over the last 50 years. We are all poorer for this.
This is what civilisational decline looks like.

 

[orr]

Begs the question too hey Focus ... What do you do with a paramilitary bigger than the US marines when they have not much left to do?
ICE are left now rounding up nanny's outside day cares, day labourers from the front of bigbox stores, tracvking down 40yr+ resident grandma's on indiscretions.... and they're probably looking for anyone slightly brown who's farted in church.
Does this goon squad have to pledge allegiance to the Constitution like US Military?
It's all moving on one goose step at time.

 

[basilio]

Begs the question too hey Focus ... What do you do with a paramilitary bigger than the US marines when they have not much left to do?
ICE are left now rounding up nanny's outside day cares, day labourers from the front of bigbox stores, tracvking down 40yr+ resident grandma's on indiscretions.... and they're probably looking for anyone slightly brown who's farted in church.
Does this goon squad have to pledge allegiance to the Constitution like US Military?
It's all moving on one goose step at time.

They are just beginning Orr. Baby steps really.
Don't know if you follow The Bulwark but it does offer excellent analysis/insights into the direction of Trump 2.0

Trump Is Coming for Your Citizenship​

Your citizenship won’t save you any more than Congress, or the laws, or the courts do.​

Jonathan V. Last
Jul 03, 2025
∙ Paid







(Composite by Hannah Yoest / Photos: GettyImages / Shutterstock)

1. Zohran​

​

Last week Rep. Andy Ogles sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi requesting that she open an investigation of Zohran Mamdani. The purpose, Ogles explained, was to explore whether or not the Trump administration could denaturalize Mamdani—meaning, strip him of his citizenship.

When Trump’s spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, was asked about the letter, she said that if Ogles’s allegations against Mamdani were true then yes, the New York City Democrat “should be investigated.”1

This followed a June 11 Department of Justice memo telling lawyers in the Civil Division that the president commands them to “prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence.”

It sounds like crazy talk. Zohran Mamdani was born in Uganda, but has lived in America since he was 7. He became a U.S. citizen in 2018.

Donald Trump can’t just strip him of his citizenship, can he?

The answer is kind of terrifying:

It’s a definite “maybe.”

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Under 8 U.S.C. § 1451, there is a legal means for the government to “denaturalize” naturalized citizens. The law was put in place in 1954, during the Red Scare, and it created two pathways for the government to revoke naturalized citizenship.

The first was purely McCarthyite: Citizenship could be revoked if a person refused to testify before Congress about “subversive activities” within a decade of his or her naturalization.2

The second pathway was more expansive. It allows for revocation of citizenship if it is found that the citizen concealed some “material fact” or made a “willful misrepresentation” during naturalization proceedings concerning opinions or ideas held by the individual.

And here’s where things get real murky: The list of qualifying opinions or ideas defined under §1424 of the law starts off as a McCarthy-era description of Communist affiliations but then transitions to something that’s almost hilariously open-ended:

[N]o person shall hereafter be naturalized as a citizen of the United States-
(1) who advocates or teaches, or who is a member of or affiliated with any organization that advocates or teaches, opposition to all organized government; or
(2) who is a member of or affiliated with (A) the Communist Party of the United States; (B) any other totalitarian party of the United States; (C) the Communist Political Association; (D) the Communist or other totalitarian party of any State of the United States, of any foreign state, or of any political or geographical subdivision of any foreign state; (E) any section, subsidiary, branch, affiliate, or subdivision of any such association or party; or (F) the direct predecessors or successors of any such association or party, regardless of what name such group or organization may have used, may now bear, or may hereafter adopt. . . .
(3) who, although not within any of the other provisions of this section, advocates the economic, international, and governmental doctrines of world communism or the establishment in the United States of a totalitarian dictatorship, or who is a member of or affiliated with any organization that advocates the economic, international, and governmental doctrines of world communism. . . .
(4) who advocates or teaches or who is a member of or affiliated with any organization that advocates or teaches (A) the overthrow by force or violence or other unconstitutional means of the Government of the United States or of all forms of law; or (B) the duty, necessity, or propriety of the unlawful assaulting or killing of any officer or officers (either of specific individuals or of officers generally) of the Government of the United States or of any other organized government because of his or their official character; or (C) the unlawful damage, injury, or destruction of property; or (D) sabotage. . . .

It goes on from there, but you get the gist. Suffice it to say that anyone who demands that a masked ICE agent show identification might be made to fit this description. As could anyone standing within fifty feet of the word “Communist.”

Which, by the way, is the specific word Donald Trump, Republicans, and conservative media use to describe Mamdani: Communist.

Here’s Trump yesterday: “I think the people of New York are crazy. If they go this route, I think they’re crazy. We will have a Communist in the for the first time, really a pure, true Communist.”

As you watch the Republican discourse around Mamdani, keep an eye out for how often that word is used. It’s not an accident.

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2. The Larger Project​

​

This is all part of two larger projects.

The first is a political trap. Targeting Mamdani in this way is an attempt to bait people who otherwise do not love Mamdani into defending him, so that they can be tied to him.

It’s an effective trap. For instance, Zohran is not my cup of tea; I am at the very least skeptical of him. But what am I supposed to do? Not defend the guy from a legal threat to strip him of his citizenship and unperson him from our country?

Every elected Democrat in America will face the same choice. Mikie Sherrill, Abigail Spanberger, Elissa Slotkin—they will be put on the spot and asked to defend the “Communist.” If they don’t, they’ll dishonor themselves. If they do, they’ll expose themselves to attacks that they agree with every thing Zohran Mamdani ever said on Twitter.

But that’s the pedestrian project. The other project is much more insidious. It is, as John Ganz wrote yesterday, “an attack on the very concept of American citizenship.”

It’s the bright, red thread that runs through the entirety of its existence: from its origin in birtherism, the racist idea that there was something questionable or tainted about Barack Obama’s citizenship, to the stolen election myth, which sought to disenfranchise millions of Americans, to the attempt to end birthright citizenship by fiat through executive order. . . .

I say it is an attack on the concept of citizenship, not a redefinition or even a return to the pre-Reconstruction racial state, because, in the Trumpian universe, there is no agreed-upon, apolitical definition of who is granted citizenship, of who bears inalienable rights under the law. The sovereign decides who is a citizen, as it decides who is an enemy and where and when the law applies. It becomes entirely arbitrary, a prerogative grant. Citizenship is no longer a right, it is, as the Orwellian executive order PROTECTING THE MEANING AND VALUE OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP puts it, “a privilege,” a “priceless and profound gift.” No one can seriously argue that, if possible, Trump would not revoke and grant citizenship at will. That’s what he is already trying to do. Look at the idea of the Trump Card, where someone can buy their way into citizenship. This a further degradation of the notion of citizenship from a set of rights and duties to a transferable and revocable commodity.

This seems inarguable to me. (And you should read the whole thing; Ganz is great.) Here, for instance, is Donald Trump yesterday explaining his view of which Americans should be allowed to remain Americans:

Which brings us, finally, to Trump’s executive order revoking birthright citizenship.

Have you ever wondered what happens to adopted kids if birthright citizenship no longer exists? If you are adopted, you may have no way to prove that your parents were citizens. Without birthright citizenship, that would leave you in limbo, as a stateless individual with no right to live anywhere.

Alan Elrod writes movingly about this evil.3

Am I a citizen? Right now, the answer is pretty simple: yes. I am adopted, though I was born in North Carolina. I assume both of my birth parents were citizens, and know that my adoptive parents are citizens. But my adoption was closed, which, as I’ll explain, means I have severely limited means of accessing information about my biological family or details about my birth. . . .

Before now, birthright citizenship precluded the need for citizenship questions about domestic adoptees. Their adoptive parents would of course have had no reason to naturalize them. If this fundamental constitutional principle is threatened, what happens to domestic adoptees who can neither provide definitive proof they were born to American citizens nor easily gain access to the people and documentation that could provide certainty?

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Birtherism. Ending birthright citizenship. Looking to denaturalize Zohran Mamdani. It’s all part of something exceedingly sinister. In his essay Ganz quotes Hannah Arendt’s meditation on how denaturalization creates a “stateless” person who is then uniquely vulnerable:

As long as mankind is nationally and territorially organized in states, a stateless person is not simply expelled from one country, native or adopted, but from all countries—none being obliged to receive and naturalize him—which means he is actually expelled from humanity. Deprivation of citizenship consequently could be counted among the crimes against humanity, and some of the worst recognized crimes in this category have in fact, and not incidentally, been preceded by mass expatriations. The state’s right of capital punishment in case of murder is minor compared with its right to denaturalization, for the criminal is judged according to the laws of the country, under which he possesses rights, and he is by no means put outside the pale of the law altogether.

This is what Republicans want. They are saying it, plainly. The president of the United States agrees with them. The law gives them the leeway to pursue their goals and the Supreme Court keeps signaling that it is at least open to their ends.

If you have a way to explain why 70 percent of the country isn’t freaked the fork out by this, I’m all ears.

I hope you’ll discuss it in the comments.

Trump Is Coming for Your Citizenship

Your citizenship won’t save you any more than Congress, or the laws, or the courts do.

www.thebulwark.com

 

[basilio]

I missed this statement from Donald Trump in the previous post.

 

[JohnDe]

Donald Trump's name is dropped quite a few times here -

 

[The Triangle]

I missed this statement from Donald Trump in the previous post.

View attachment 202950

Oh my god! wait! Trump said something controversial??? Oh my god I can't believe it. But I'm glad you can.

If we could get rid of the bad Aussies I'd be all for it. Send them to Bali. Win win. I don't care if they're citizens.

Donald Trump's name is dropped quite a few times here -

Should be a drinking game. Take a shot every time someone with TDS says Trump. Take a shot every time Sky News reporters have an orgasm when they say Trump. But you'd be dead from alcohol poisoning within minutes.

I've said so many times before I believe I'm one of the few people here that posts on this forum that has spent extensive amounts of time in the United states. my Maga mates and my non Maga mates...believe it or not... don't talk about Trump all day everyday. Trumps been talking smack for 45 years. Most people learnt to tune out the rehtoric after his failed NFL endeavours.

The media need to get on to more interesting topics like how many bottles of baby oil Diddy has.

 

[JohnDe]

Oh my god! wait! Trump said something controversial???

What did he say?

 

[basilio]

Oh my god! wait! Trump said something controversial??? Oh my god I can't believe it. But I'm glad you can.

If we could get rid of the bad Aussies I'd be all for it. Send them to Bali. Win win. I don't care if they're citizens.


Should be a drinking game. Take a shot every time someone with TDS says Trump. Take a shot every time Sky News reporters have an orgasm when they say Trump. But you'd be dead from alcohol poisoning within minutes.

I've said so many times before I believe I'm one of the few people here that posts on this forum that has spent extensive amounts of time in the United states. my Maga mates and my non Maga mates...believe it or not... don't talk about Trump all day everyday. Trumps been talking smack for 45 years. Most people learnt to tune out the rehtoric after his failed NFL endeavours.

The media need to get on to more interesting topics like how many bottles of baby oil Diddy has.

You just don't care do you ? Or don't believe it ? Or don't think it matters.

There is no mystery about what Trump is doping ? He ain't hiding in the shadows. The old boy is an upfront righteous dude who has made totally clear what he will do.

1) Make a xucking truckload of money using his office as President instituting corruption as a Right of Office
2) Destroy every piece of policy instigated by Joe Biden regardless of practicality, impact on the economy , destruction of society and
3) Destroy every person and institution that might challenge his power to decide exactly what will happen in his fiefdom

Your good with that ? Fine. You have plenty of company. Knock yourself out . It will be a wild ride.