Tag: University of Virginia

Neocons are panicking over another possible Trump presidency

Ms. Cat

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! 🙄

New York Times Helps Marco Rubio Push Persecution Of Antiwar Leftists + More

China faces an increase in extremist threats in central Asia, US panel is told

Ms. Cat

China faces an increase in extremist threats in central Asia, US panel is told

Raffaello Pantucci, a senior fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said that the Islamic State Khorasan (Isis-K) had identified the perpetrator of the suicide bomb attack on worshippers in a mosque in the Afghan city of Kunduz in October as a Uygur.

…

US policymakers are paying more attention to the growth of China’s geopolitical influence through programmes like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – which includes the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – as Washington’s relationship with Beijing has frayed on multiple fronts.

…

“It used to be the Uygur militants that tended to be responsible for attacks on Chinese diplomats or Chinese businessmen in Kyrgyzstan,” Pantucci added. “Increasingly we see Kyrgyz in general being quite angry towards the Chinese … and we can see similar narratives in Kazakhstan.”

Still, anger against Chinese does not mean that Americans are welcome, Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, founding director at the University of Pittsburgh’s Centre for Governance and Markets, said.

“The US lost so much credibility because of the way it left Afghanistan,” she said. “Regardless of how you may feel about the intervention, regardless of how you may feel about the withdrawal of decision to withdraw the way the US left, I think it left a very bitter taste in the mouth of many people in the region.”

After all that work, instigating terrorists, they’re still not welcome back! Wonder why?! 🙄