“The first is the right to free speech and for people to peacefully assemble and make their voices heard. The second is the rule of law. Both must be upheld. We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent.”
Joe Biden. May 2, 2024
Tag: Mitt Romney
Neocons are panicking over another possible Trump presidency
The Atlantic: Two Men Running to Stay Out of Prison
Liz Cheney warns US ‘sleepwalking into dictatorship
Robert Kagan: A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.
…We can expect more of this when the war against the “deep state” begins in earnest. According to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), there is a whole cabal determined to undermine American security, a “Uniparty” of elites made up of “neoconservatives on the right” and “liberal globalists on the left” who are not true Americans and therefore do not have the true interests of America at heart. Can such “anti-American” behavior be criminalized? It has in the past and can be again.
So, the Trump administration will have many avenues to persecute its enemies, real and perceived. Think of all the laws now on the books that give the federal government enormous power to surveil people for possible links to terrorism, a dangerously flexible term, not to mention all the usual opportunities to investigate people for alleged tax evasion or violation of foreign agent registration laws. The IRS under both parties has occasionally looked at depriving think tanks of their tax-exempt status because they espouse policies that align with the views of the political parties. What will happen to the think-tanker in a second Trump term who argues that the United States should ease pressure on China? Or the government official rash enough to commit such thoughts to official paper? It didn’t take more than that to ruin careers in the 1950s.
Their panic just shows how out of touch they are with the working class! As for Kagan, there’s so much more that I could say, but for now I’ll just roll my eyes! 🙄
Politicians Try To Recall How Their Constituents Feel About A Ceasefire
While it’s common knowledge that citizens have very little influence on elected officials, The Onion asked U.S. politicians how their constituents feel about a ceasefire in Gaza, and this is what they said.
Politicians Try To Recall How Their Constituents Feel About A Ceasefire
Biden’s corruption led to Ukraine’s destruction: fmr. Kiev diplomat
Former Ukrainian diplomat and political insider Andrii Telizhenko — now under US sanctions on what he says are false grounds — speaks out.
Biden’s corruption led to Ukraine’s destruction: fmr. Kiev diplomat
Ask Who Benefits: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
It is the Republican Party’s job to expand the US military, rob and oppress the working class, serve US plutocrats, facilitate ecocidal capitalism, and foment division among the electorate. It is the Democratic Party’s job to do these same things while blaming it on Republicans.
Ask Who Benefits: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Previously:
The Military Recruiting Crisis: Even Veterans Don’t Want Their Families to Join
Zelensky TOLD Rupert Murdoch To Fire Tucker Carlson?
Fox News Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch held a previously unreported call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this spring in which the two discussed the war and the anniversary of the deaths of Fox News journalists last March. The Ukrainian president had a similar conversation with Lachlan Murdoch on March 15, which Zelenskyy noted in a little-noticed aside during a national broadcast last month.
The Murdochs’ Ukraine connection
Previously:
Murdoch was displeased with Carlson’s stance on the Ukraine war—a graphic on Carlson’s show had previously called the country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky a “Ukrainian pimp.” The host also repeatedly chided the U.S. for providing military aid to Ukraine. Murdoch’s opinion of Carlson’s commentary had become so negative that he complained about it during a newsroom meeting, according to anonymous sources cited by the Washington Post
Raising Social Security’s retirement age would slam low-wage workers yet again
A proposal by Sens. Angus King (I-ME) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) to raise the Social Security retirement age to 70 would be a massive benefit cut, particularly affecting low-wage workers. If Congress enacts it, millions more Social Security taxpayers would not live long enough to collect a cent in retirement benefits.
Raising Social Security’s retirement age would slam low-wage workers yet again
Related:
Social Security Solvency: Raised Retirement Age More Likely as Congress Fails to Compromise
How Evil The U.S. Government Is
The U.S. regime lies to its own citizens, and works them up into frenzies of fear and hatred against targeted nation’s leader.
How Evil The U.S. Government Is
An Overblown Balloon Headline Inflates False Narrative on China
For several decades the American public has been instilled with an intrinsic fear of and hatred for China.
No singular event in this seemingly inevitable march to war is more emblematic of the American public’s warped psyche than the “Chinese Spy Balloon” narrative—perhaps due, in part, to its facial absurdity. The happening eclipses even similarly nonsensical yarns such as widespread TikTok paranoia (see the NSA’s PRISM program), China’s American farmland purchases (Chinese firms account for <.5% of all foreign-owned land in the U.S.), and the “invasion” of Chinese fentanyl through the Southern border (fentanyl trafficking is illegal in China).
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While some populist Republicans have bravely departed from the establishment’s support for Ukraine, many led the chorus of voices urging escalation—and not diplomacy.
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The banner narrative favored by mainline Republicans and the populist Right alike—that Joe Biden is weak—is insidious, because it implies that Biden should be more aggressive. Furthermore, it excuses Biden’s objectively ultra-hawkish policy against China.
Just in the last few weeks, the Biden administration continued its redoubling of the Asia Pivot launched by Barack Obama and furthered by Donald Trump: the U.S. Marine Corps opened a new base in Guam as the U.S. opened an embassy in the Solomon Islands, furthered diplomatic measures meant to militarize Japan, announced the opening of new military installations in the Philippines and Palau, and furthered a deal that would secure it exclusive military access to Micronesia, an area of the Pacific Ocean as large as the continental U.S.—all with the express and stated aim of confronting China.
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Unfortunately, the prevailing narrative won the day—while Americans’ heads were in the clouds, imagining a biowarfare attack, or falsely reporting the balloon carried explosives, Sino-American relations deteriorated even further. Distressingly, the American public exhibited its eagerness to rush to just about any conclusion concerning China.
An Overblown Balloon Headline Inflates False Narrative on China
Washington inflates the China balloon threat
The meltdown in DC risks turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy: Routine inter-state relations becoming a full-blown crisis.
Washington inflates the China balloon threat
Related:
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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