Here in Baghdad By the Sea, we have a schism in our MAGAT delegation:
Miami [Republican] Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar on Sunday called the Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown “un-American” in a biting statement to the Miami Herald.
I printed that Technate of America map several months ago and stuck it up on the fridge, after reading about Elon Musk's grandfather's ties to it, in an article by Gil Duran (The Nerd Reich)
What bothers me is that there is no discussion about it, anywhere, Also Trump has been able to move the Epstein files off the news, by bombing fishing boats. Soon it will go the way of the Mueller Files, the Documents case, any and all things Trump
Trump tried to sell out Ukraine to Putin, with that Putin originated 28 Points, failing that he is going to use his National Security Strategy of Nov 2025, Here is one analysis of it: https://www.mind-war.com/p/national-insecurity-strategy-the
Thank you Thom that was a real eye opener. Is NSPM-7 the tool Trump, Bondi, GOP, will use to keep us bad guys from voting? Skip old fashioned gerrymandering and label anyone against them subversives and therefore undeserving of the right to vote. In my estimation Trump and friends are simply a criminal organization, they have no intention of having free and fair elections. Losing would end their gravy train. Guess I'll check and see if I've been removed from the voter roll.
PDF here: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf#:~:text=President%20Trump%20has%20proven%20that,least%20the%20end%20of%20the
Basically it is Orwellian, Oceania being the Technate of America: https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:34227574 this link is a map. Notice it includes Greenland and Canada, and Ecuador,Colombia and Venezuela (the three countries that he is attacking).
The technate doesn't have to rule by imposing a government, but by satrapy, just as Persia once ruled most of the known world..
You can even consider the 50 states as satraps, and to that I mention that the White House has 51 Xmas trees, but only 50 states, guess which is the 51st: Canada.
No. Kushner/Saudi Arabia is our 51st state. Making the war discussion in Ukraine/Russia transactional (Saudi Arabia gets something out of their transaction), and now the possible hostile takeover of WB. And this is while Kushner is an advisor to Trump. Oh, what does that matter, they say in response. What’s a little money between friends? Huh?
In this context it is Canada. Trump has not ever declared that he wanted to annex Israel,and Israel is not contiguous, also not a Xtian oriented Xmas tree.
While I consider myself anti Zionist, and totally opposed to the current Trumpian government, but not the state of israel. your comment is a little to antisemitic for me (and I abhor that made up word)
It’s so easy to just blame people for not paying attention to correct issue, “if only people weren’t so worried about the price of food.”
What worries me is that the Democratic isn’t paying enough attention to price of food eggs, and the general defunding of American households. For the last forty years, the Democratic Party (I’m speaking of the Party itself, not all Democrats) has been using much of the same election strategies as the Republicans - increasing focus and reliance on $ and Power, and less energy actually representing their constituency - albeit without sacrificing quite so many values and norms in the process as Republican MAGA seems to be doing.
I left the Democratic Party largely because I grew frustrated with their “look at what we accomplished lists” that tended to focus primarily on the needs & interests of the upper middle class.
And democrats are still doing this
- did anyone notice that after Senate Dems agreed to end their resistance and pass the funding bill, all their talk about Medicaid just stopped? When they came back, it was all about ACA.
As I see it, once again the Democratic Party “sacrificed” the interests of the more vulnerable groups in their negotiated compromises with Republicans . They have been doing this for years - because they don’t want to lose the donor money & what they consider to be the guaranteed vote of middle and upper-middle class voters. (I don’t understand this - if that money and the votes are so certain, shouldn’t they be focusing their resources on those voters they have, and are still, losing to progressive alternative parties, independent status, and as MAGA Trump supporters - - the latter of which are becoming increasingly disillusioned w/Maga, yet may have trouble believing that the Democratic Party will do much better in protecting their general well-being).
What do they need all that money for? About 70% of campaign funds go to media - ads, political propaganda, etc. Every year, candidates from both parties break records on how much they spend on political campaigns. What they aren’t doing is spending much time doing the old-fashioned work associated with campaigns - spending time, and talking with their constituents.
The only group in society that is being helped by our new modern, distant campaigning, based largely on campaign propaganda and oppositional research, are the wealthy donors who have been able to purchase via their politicians donations considerably more control in our governments these last few decades.
As for the rest of us, is there any surprise that the number of people who actually vote became and remains quite low. Most of us have never met our districts elected politicians, and the closest we can get to being heard is to bombard their office with phone calls, letters and emails in hopes of convincing them that enough of their constituency are dissatisfied with their job performance, hat they will reconsider their actions.
The fact is both parties have worked - whether deliberately or not, it doesn’t really matter - to distance the parties and the politicians from the people they are supposed to be Representing. This has resulted in a rather invidious kind of disenfranchisement of American voters - which has contributed the perfect environment for the divisive, hateful politics of modern authoritarianism (something I say coming five years before Donald Trump went public with his plan to run for president).
So many of us are looking for the source, or cause, of the current threat to our Constitutional Democracy, instead of realized that this moment has been a long time coming, and there were plenty of red flags all along the way to the Republican MAGA takeover of our nations government. We - the American people - didn’t just stand by as the conditions for authoritarianism ripened, we went along with it. And the only solution must likewise come from We The People.
I understand Power, and that there is a high risk of violence against Americans who resist the MAGA vision of America. Just the same, that vision will not be made a reality without the cooperation of the people. Just as the economy functions today only because the people sell their labor (for far less than its actual value) and buy the goods we produce, Social Institutions and the daily functioning of society equally depends on us. No matter how much the wealthy would have us believe that The People are on verge of being obsolete, the fact is, all of their wealth accrued because of our cooperation in their predatory business practices.
But first, we The People should probably stop doing the bidding of our would-be emperors, and end the divisiveness, the blame games, the righteous superiority of some over others. It’s time that we help our fellow Americans see that our only chance to save America, and her unique Democratic Republic, is to work together. We have earn each others trust and we have to have tolerance - something that Thomas Jefferson argued strongly for in his discussions of Religious Freedom - in which Freedom is limited only when our actions cause harm or injury to another. As Jefferson put it, when “it picks my pocket or breaks my leg” (paraphrased from his words from the section on Religious Freedom in The State of Virginia)
Thank you for your thoughtful and comprehensive comment. I agree wholeheartedly with what you've said, particularly in your last paragraph, and also that the Democrats over the last several decades have been complicit in the creation of the situation in which The USA now finds itself. What concerns me, and what prompted me to make my original comment, is that a disturbingly large number of voters have not made it their business to fully understand the important issues around the time that elections happen. They just assume that if Party A isn't getting the job done, then they might as well support Party B, even if Party B has made no secret of their diabolical plans to remake the world order. It is contingent upon those of us who are conversant in politics to engage in dialogue with our friends and neighbors, daunting as that may seem.
I agree. So many contributing variables that have led to this place - from defunding and dismissing education to a growing focus on money instead of people. And with new high tech, propaganda is more effective and pervasive than ever.
For years, it has driven me nuts that the Democratic Party has not bothered to create a meaningful, genuine and positive, productive counter-narrative to the wholesale nastiness cooking out of the Republican Party. Instead of pushing back, the Democratic just followed the lead of republicans with same negative attack adds backed by oppositional research. As a result, American politics has become more about how well we trash our opponent and opposing party than how well we earn the respect and trust of the voter. We have been in downward spin for decades now, and this alone has co tributes greatly to the meanness, cruelty and violence that seem to define so much of our nations political actions and reactions today - and it’s taking our entire society along with it.
I hope that enough of us understand that a big part of what needs to be done is to counter this negative, destructive path America is on today.
Btw, in my conversations with people here in Florida and on the west coast when I’ve visited, most people from both sides of the political spectrum are so sick and tired of the ugly, negative political campaigns. And today, with ICE’s violent assault on our states & cities, I suspect those feelings are more common and more intense. This is the perfect time to counter that ugliness, with positive, for-the-people, campaign that focuses on the majority of American’s shared needs and interests (our Rights, our Liberty, and the responsibility of government to support & protect our general well-being, our Freedom, and our security from Internal and external Threats - which would include the current rejection of fundamental Constitutional Law.
I managed a local campaign using these types of strategies - genuine & based on working with the people in the community - and my candidate won, against the incumbent who had the full support of the state and local Republican Party offices, in a Republican county in a Republican state. He was the only non-Republican to win in the county, and he did so without party support, and by using more foot in the ground, gave to face campaigning instead of expensive campaign advertising.
So I know that genuine public servants, who are able to earn the respect and trust of voters, and who has defined their campaign on basis of needs and interests of the People, can work. In fact, I’d go so far as to say the people in America are craving just that (the NYC mayor race is further proof; although if anyone who runs on this kind of campaign ends up acting with same indifference we see on so many other regular politicians, it might break us).
We fought a pipeline. It was a Canadian owned project. The corporation hired ex-military people to investigate us. We found out when there was an article in The Guardian. My joke was that I wanted them to listen to calls and read emails, so they could learn something about the environment.
No joke this time. At least we know, thanks to Thom and others. Pretty sure Thom already had an FBI file, hopefully they will archive every Hartmann Report and maybe some of them will take to heart what is in them. FBI agents are college educated and law enforcement. Some are going to resist, report, and maybe do "other things". Allegedly.
Who will watch the watchers? We will. We won't forget these crimes. See you in the streets.
You place to much faith in education and professionalism Alis. It is the FBI that persecuted MLK, investigated "antifa" and BLM, and leftist activist, while ignoring right wing seditionists.
The FBI is, and always has been, and enclave of right wing extremists
Now besides being a harbor right wingers, it is staffed with sycophants. Didn't you see the FBI logos on jackets that were arresting Latino's in LA.
They will come for you, Thom, as a major voice telling the truth and warning about the facsist takeover, before they come for me. I suppose there will be a time when even very minor voices warning about Trump like me will be on the list. Maybe they will decide to sanitize Portland and herd us into a big bad bus for a major photo op as they disappear us, so we'll meet up again. Today I wrote: Forking Polls, Trump gives himself A+++++, on the economy. He doesn't give a fork what polls say Americans think. >> https://halbrown.substack.com/p/forking-polls-trump-gives-economy
I started being concerned about Thoughtcrime back when His Orangeness first started having stuff pulled out of the Smithsonian for "improper ideology." At the time, nobody else seemed to find that phrase alarming. Okay, better late than never. I started doing research on Supreme Court opinions involving "viewpoint discrimination," which is what lawyers call Thoughtcrime, and what (until recently) we used to consider protected by the First Amendment.
So, i guess the essential question is, when will a sufficient number of people recognize just how mind-boggingly stupid and dangerous these people are and rise up to stop them with whatever it takes? How totally divorced from reality does one have to be to even imagine that they can wave their magic wand and 20 million people will be removed from this massive country and many more will be severely limited in their speech and movement and their participation in activities they like or consider important before those same people and others put them in a cell or a box and close the lid? It is true that Native American Indians were killed off centuries ago. But to believe that ethnic cleansing and "purifying the race" and deporting ten or 15% of the population will ever happen is to be bat-s*** crazy and certifiable. Trump, Musk, Vance, Theil, etc., etc., all live in an alternate universe and are crying out to be stopped. We may be approaching the number of people who see how insane they truly are and will take action, but can we get to the magic number soon enough or will the action taken be adequate? I do not think we can wait for the 2026 elections. (Are you listening, Ms. Bondi? Come and get me.)
The ICE budget provides approximately $75 billion to ICE over four years (through September 30, 2029) in supplemental appropriations, which is in addition to its standard annual budget of around $10 billion. This sum nearly triples the agency's previous annual funding.
The funds are earmarked for specific areas of immigration enforcement:
Detention Capacity: $45 billion is dedicated to expanding ICE's detention system, including building new facilities for single adults and families. This funding could potentially double the agency's detention capacity to over 100,000 individuals.
Enforcement and Removals: Nearly $30 billion is allocated for operations related to arrests and deportations, including the hiring of 10,000 new ICE officers and personnel.
$40 billion builds a lot of concentration camps, more than enough to hold more than just immigrants, but also enemies of the state. Which is what Trump and the techfascists declare us.
I do too much reading and scrolling, I am sure. There are opportunities everywhere now for organizing and resisting.
Have you watched Inequality Media's Coffee Klatch on Saturday, the 13th? Prof Reich and company are staying resolutely affirmative, while acknowledging the long, hard road to the midterms 11 months from now.
Speaking of reading -- I recommend Senator Bernie Sanders's recently published (and very affirming) book, Fight Oligarchy. See if you can find it at your local bookseller.
Push is coming to shove as more and more Americans are waking up to this new reality. Since Americans typically get to a point that enough is enough and do things about it, it's coming. Voting isn't going to help much anymore as the red states are gerrymandering like crazy and Trump is decertifying voting machines in cities and states he doesn't like.
We're near the point where the only thing left to do is nationwide labor strikes and protests that seriously disrupt the economic engines of the country. And yes, we can expect Trump to declare martial law and send out the troops. We have to be prepared for that also. It will come down to Americans fighting Americans eventually. There is no longer any doubt. We're sort of there now with the resistance picking up against ICE and CBP picking up.
Chris Armitage keeps writing about a soft secession that needs to take place. I watched a segment on MS Now that interviewed someone also mentioning this. It is beginning to register that the state governments are going to have to step up and start separating themselves from Trump's federal government in order to provide for their citizens and in order to do that, they will have to start holding onto the money they are sending to Washington D.C. in order to do that. There are laws on the books, supposedly, that allow for that.
Is that where we're heading? For a break up of the union in order for the states to take back their autonomy as granted to them in the constitution? It's certainly starting to look like certain states run by democrats may end up backed into a corner so badly by Trump, that they are forced into making one of two choices. Give Trump what he wants or do a soft secession in order to protect it's citizens. What will you do if your state government decides to defy Trump? Will you be prepared to make the adjustments that something like this will force on people? Or will you migrate to a state that caves to Trump and everyone loses what's left of our civil rights?
Americans are very close to being forced to make one of two choices. Give up your constitutional freedoms and try to live your normal life under authoritarianism or fight and stand a chance on having to make sacrifices for the cause of freedom. If you had to make such a choice, what would you do? How far are you willing to go in order to remain free?
Please explain what stand and fight actually looks like and also what sacrifices means. My very minimal experience with stand and fight, at a very local level of the school board, showed me that people with homes and mortgages, with children in the school system that could be targeted, with jobs and positions not easily replaceable were very un-prone to buck the system out loud with something as simple as a school strike. There was eventually some success but only after weeks of serious personal /social disruption as everyone in this small town knew everyone else. The animosity and suspicion never really went away - although people started to move away for their children's sake.
Stand and fight comes in many different flavors. I do understand what you're saying though about small town mentality and politics. I grew up in, and lived in, for many years, a very small town on the Canadian border and little things could easily turn into big things quickly there.
For myself, stand and fight means I'm ready to physically defend myself, my family and my home from invaders, both foreign and domestic. It also means being somewhat involved in the political discourse going on around me. I'm a big 'No Kings" supporter. Then, I also produce and host a weekly podcast, plus write the occasional article, to fight back against the government's authoritarianism.
That also means that I can't be afraid of anyone who wants to attack me for what I believe in, even if they're close family members (Yeah, I have a sibling and a son in-law who are rabid MAGA believers).
Everyone has to decide for themselves what sacrifices they feel comfortable making in order to "Stand your Ground" these days. After fighting in America's wars of aggression for nearly thirty years, my comfort level may be different than most other people's.
I left Texas when living there became more that I could put up with a few years ago, so I sympathize with those who've felt the need to emigrate across state lines for a better life. Not everyone can do that.
Even now, I am still making little sacrifices to ensure the safety and security of my family and home. Sometimes, just the little things, like stocking up on non-perishable foods, making big purchases now ahead of a coming recession, stocking up on ammunition for my guns, and preparing for emergencies, may not seem like much in the larger scheme of things but it can make you feel better, and if you feel good about yourself, and what you're doing, you can pass that on to family members and close neighbors.
Remember gerrymandering only works if enough people in these states still support MAGA. Which means we should working as hard at finding common ground with the growing of people who are becoming disillusioned with MAGA as we are at fighting gerrymandering.
I totally agree with you, then I read my little brother's Facebook posts about wanting to deport all Muslims and communists and I ask myself, are these the kind of people I want to try to engage with?
I’m a retired college professor and I learned a great deal about how to talk WITH people, listen, probe, learn more about their world view, the way their relative social position has likely shaped both availability of opportunities as well as their relative political visibility. Why? Because the political rhetoric that people recite is not necessarily the actual issues that are important to them. A large fortune has been paid for effective propaganda that nearly substitutes anger and hate for genuine frustrations tied to very real increasingly predatory nature of the American Political economy.
When I’m out running errands, just talking to whoever happens to be standing near me, all I have to do is talk about the cost of goods, or the low wages for labor even as their employers demand a greater proportion of total energy of the day, or any of the very real “kitchen table” issues facing Americans.
This immediately leads to great conversations with people from a variety of partisan identities - and I don’t take a partisan view / I don’t belong to a party, in part bc over the last forty years, I’ve watched both parties allow the supper wealthy transform our economy from a system that functions in service of society and the people with some advantage to the wealthy, into a privatized, predatory economy that now works solely in the interests of the majority shareholders. Consider that pretty much every US Institution, in the not so distant past, was mostly run by non-profit organizations to privatized, profit before people enterprise.
If I emphasize that my interest is in the well being of the people, all of the people (which is ideally what our Politicians are supposed to be focused on), and I don’t trigger the normal defensiveness that we all resort when we feel, even pretty conservative people are willing to engage thoughtfully in a conversation.
Over the last tens years, I have yet to be yelled at, attacked, called names or anything else. But I’ve learned a lot, and I’ve been able to share alternative, fact based views with other people who may never hear them anywhere else.
I know that if someone talking to me offered an alternative view about something, even one that is compelling, I’m not going to alter my viewpoint on the spot. I have to think it over, do some research, etc. So I don’t expect the same from anyone else. Listen, I’m a very well educated person, and I suppose reasonably intelligent, but that doesn’t mean I think I’m not so great that everyone around me should immediately accept and adopt anything and everything I say. And I know enough to know I don’t know everything.
So what I guess I’m saying is o don’t have huge expectations for every interaction with other people. I treat people that way I’d like to be treated, with respect & empathy. And I try really hard not to assume too much about others just because they are reciting something they keep hearing over and over, or because they perceived the much desired attention of a rather charismatic politician’s as genuine interest.
There is no bright line that divides the people in some absolute way. To presume so is for us to fall for the same MAGA propaganda - that the people are so thoroughly divided that we have nothing f in common.
There is a saying in Sociology - that we believe is true becomes true in its consequences. We don’t need to help reinforce the divisiveness of MAGA politics; when we do so, we are just helping MAGA, and making more real a notion that is not that hard to be proven wrong by indicating that we don’t want to see anyone - regardless of their political identity - be further harmed, and that we believe that every person in America deserves, at minimum, a decent life.
I’m not suggesting ignoring or even embracing the hate and prejudice. And there are some people who are so deeply lost in those behaviors, that we disagree and that we would fight for the rights of those immigrants every bit as hard as we would fight for the rights of the prejudiced person (remember rights are absolute and universal, regardless of what Trump et al would have us believe). But I think very often if we probe a little deeper into those recited hateful words & comments, we’d find that they are not so solid, but merely parroted statements, covering a set of real concerns and worries thT has nothing to do with immigrants or people of color or transgendered people.
Maybe my approach ain’t for everyone. But I do live in central Florida, in one of the most corrupt Republican controlled counties in the state. I managed a local political campaign six years ago, based in part on the above ideas, and my candidate won, the only non-Republican candidate to win in the county and with the highest voter turnout ever in the city. While anecdotal, we’ve tested some of my observations, and ideas, and even I was surprised by how effective they were (we also ran an explicit non-partisan campaign, w/no party money)
Does this mean pedophilia is considered a family value? (Trump and others)
And just remember, the majority of the Supreme Court are Catholic. I have hope with the current and last popes especially, but the Catholic Church has been fascist.
Margaret,I have though this but have been refuted by some catholics,they say the Cathoic Church is very supportive of the Hispanics. Where I live, almost every last one of them identify as Trump supporters and while I have looked to find out where Catholics are supporters Hispanics,I have yet to find out where.
But historically I blame Emperor Constantine who made it a state religion. It then was usurped from original practices to support those in power and became very intolerant to any other religion. ( I’m Catholic).
Thanks,it is so sad. I actually thought they supported a " Nazi"like Trump because he was to some extent responsible for overturning " Roe v Wade. I guess supporting the end of abortion is more important than returning to the Hitler era of 1934-41. I may be missing something..
Just like everything else, there are more liberal Catholics who look at the bigger picture, and conservative ones who seem to believe in the old hellfire and brimstone and only see things in black and white. I think Frances was a good start, and Leo is going to hopefully continue this.
Read or listen to John Fuglesong. Raised by a priest and nun, he knows his bible . And very progressive. Helps you counter the conservative talking points .
No need to blow them up, and anyway if they planted explosives in all cell phones, they can't control who they go to, and they could blow themselves up.The US is not Lebanon
What should alarm you all is that your cell phone can be used to track your movements, and everything that you send out, DM or say on your cell phone and even your tablet or computer, is stored in the National Security Data center in Bluffdale, AZ and immediately screened, flagged and tagged by AI.
In other words if you comunicate electronically, they know all about you. I think there is a problem they have with land lines, the comms of land lines that get sent out over the air, is captured, but they can't trace them back to the telephone, for that they need an old fashioned wire tap.
Yep, shoot one, warn a thousand and it works. worked in Germany, works in Russia, will work here too, already has. Universities and corporations have folded, media has folded, your neighbor next.
As long as dullard Kushner and his more dull brothers-in-law can still leverage Donald's aura to make three billion more, what are a few murders of upright citizens?
As long as no one pulls another Mangione and takes out one of the 0.01%..
Sir,not certain the % of people that supported Mangione,last count seemed to be about 48%. Should that send a message to corp America that if you screw large#s of people,there could be significant pushback.
They should build more affordable housing, but not in the form of the thousands of prisons it would take to house all of us "terrorists" for doing what is only natural to freedom and democracy--disagreement with those in authority.
The dark forces dream of destroying the lives of the people while they have orgasms at the destruction they inflict. When law is put back in place these nuts will all be rounded up for crimes against humanity and the Constitution. They know they are doing wrong because most of what they are doing they do in the dark. ICE as the new SS troops will all go into prison and likely never come out unless there is a reconciliation program like South Africa did. It maybe that Krasnov will not last out this year. He is very unlikely to last out the next year so I doubt he will be able to inflict his dark dreams. The Chosen One is here and the dragons will support the people over tyranny. Praise God from whom all Blessing flow.
They will be so busy chasing the imagined terrorists they will completely miss the actual terrorists. The USA has never been in such danger
If you aren't one of them, then you are a terrorist. They have the guns and the gold.
Gonna have to target Rand Paul, Laura Loomer. Loomer on boat strikes: ‘Fentanyl isn’t being manufactured in Venezuela’?
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5638688-laura-loomer-trump-venezuela-drug-strikes/
Here in Baghdad By the Sea, we have a schism in our MAGAT delegation:
Miami [Republican] Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar on Sunday called the Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown “un-American” in a biting statement to the Miami Herald.
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article313495430.html#story
It is well known that fentanyl isn't being manufactured in Venezuela, nor is it a source of Cocaine, that comes from Bolivia and Columbia.
It is all a ruse, an excuse to bring Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela to heel
Heres the plan, actually revealed in the National Security Strategy :https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf#:~:text=President%20Trump%20has%20proven%20that,least%20the%20end%20of%20the
Here is what it looks like:https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:34227574
Russia gets Eurasia and China East Asia and the western Pacific
The global south to be exploited for natural resources, and of course a battle ground as the hegemon's compete for resources.
I printed that Technate of America map several months ago and stuck it up on the fridge, after reading about Elon Musk's grandfather's ties to it, in an article by Gil Duran (The Nerd Reich)
What bothers me is that there is no discussion about it, anywhere, Also Trump has been able to move the Epstein files off the news, by bombing fishing boats. Soon it will go the way of the Mueller Files, the Documents case, any and all things Trump
Trump tried to sell out Ukraine to Putin, with that Putin originated 28 Points, failing that he is going to use his National Security Strategy of Nov 2025, Here is one analysis of it: https://www.mind-war.com/p/national-insecurity-strategy-the
He calls Europe weak, say it is going to be a shithole and basically hands it over to Putin: https://www.mind-war.com/p/national-insecurity-strategy-the
Here as well:
https://michaeldsellers.substack.com/p/trumps-national-security-strategy
I see no discussion of this, here or over at Robert Reich's substack
Thank you Thom that was a real eye opener. Is NSPM-7 the tool Trump, Bondi, GOP, will use to keep us bad guys from voting? Skip old fashioned gerrymandering and label anyone against them subversives and therefore undeserving of the right to vote. In my estimation Trump and friends are simply a criminal organization, they have no intention of having free and fair elections. Losing would end their gravy train. Guess I'll check and see if I've been removed from the voter roll.
Last week, Trump also released the new National Security Strategy, which basically cedes Europe to Russia. Among other things. https://www.csis.org/analysis/national-security-strategy-good-not-so-great-and-alarm-bells
PDF here: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf#:~:text=President%20Trump%20has%20proven%20that,least%20the%20end%20of%20the
Basically it is Orwellian, Oceania being the Technate of America: https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:34227574 this link is a map. Notice it includes Greenland and Canada, and Ecuador,Colombia and Venezuela (the three countries that he is attacking).
The technate doesn't have to rule by imposing a government, but by satrapy, just as Persia once ruled most of the known world..
You can even consider the 50 states as satraps, and to that I mention that the White House has 51 Xmas trees, but only 50 states, guess which is the 51st: Canada.
Looks like Trump and Putin among other dictators want to carve the world up like the Thanksgiving turkey. Thanks for the information.
Our fifty-first state is Israel.
No. Kushner/Saudi Arabia is our 51st state. Making the war discussion in Ukraine/Russia transactional (Saudi Arabia gets something out of their transaction), and now the possible hostile takeover of WB. And this is while Kushner is an advisor to Trump. Oh, what does that matter, they say in response. What’s a little money between friends? Huh?
In this context it is Canada. Trump has not ever declared that he wanted to annex Israel,and Israel is not contiguous, also not a Xtian oriented Xmas tree.
While I consider myself anti Zionist, and totally opposed to the current Trumpian government, but not the state of israel. your comment is a little to antisemitic for me (and I abhor that made up word)
People were warned. They didn't listen. Egg prices were more important than freedom of speech.
Actually, we wuz robbed.
And?
It’s so easy to just blame people for not paying attention to correct issue, “if only people weren’t so worried about the price of food.”
What worries me is that the Democratic isn’t paying enough attention to price of food eggs, and the general defunding of American households. For the last forty years, the Democratic Party (I’m speaking of the Party itself, not all Democrats) has been using much of the same election strategies as the Republicans - increasing focus and reliance on $ and Power, and less energy actually representing their constituency - albeit without sacrificing quite so many values and norms in the process as Republican MAGA seems to be doing.
I left the Democratic Party largely because I grew frustrated with their “look at what we accomplished lists” that tended to focus primarily on the needs & interests of the upper middle class.
And democrats are still doing this
- did anyone notice that after Senate Dems agreed to end their resistance and pass the funding bill, all their talk about Medicaid just stopped? When they came back, it was all about ACA.
As I see it, once again the Democratic Party “sacrificed” the interests of the more vulnerable groups in their negotiated compromises with Republicans . They have been doing this for years - because they don’t want to lose the donor money & what they consider to be the guaranteed vote of middle and upper-middle class voters. (I don’t understand this - if that money and the votes are so certain, shouldn’t they be focusing their resources on those voters they have, and are still, losing to progressive alternative parties, independent status, and as MAGA Trump supporters - - the latter of which are becoming increasingly disillusioned w/Maga, yet may have trouble believing that the Democratic Party will do much better in protecting their general well-being).
What do they need all that money for? About 70% of campaign funds go to media - ads, political propaganda, etc. Every year, candidates from both parties break records on how much they spend on political campaigns. What they aren’t doing is spending much time doing the old-fashioned work associated with campaigns - spending time, and talking with their constituents.
The only group in society that is being helped by our new modern, distant campaigning, based largely on campaign propaganda and oppositional research, are the wealthy donors who have been able to purchase via their politicians donations considerably more control in our governments these last few decades.
As for the rest of us, is there any surprise that the number of people who actually vote became and remains quite low. Most of us have never met our districts elected politicians, and the closest we can get to being heard is to bombard their office with phone calls, letters and emails in hopes of convincing them that enough of their constituency are dissatisfied with their job performance, hat they will reconsider their actions.
The fact is both parties have worked - whether deliberately or not, it doesn’t really matter - to distance the parties and the politicians from the people they are supposed to be Representing. This has resulted in a rather invidious kind of disenfranchisement of American voters - which has contributed the perfect environment for the divisive, hateful politics of modern authoritarianism (something I say coming five years before Donald Trump went public with his plan to run for president).
So many of us are looking for the source, or cause, of the current threat to our Constitutional Democracy, instead of realized that this moment has been a long time coming, and there were plenty of red flags all along the way to the Republican MAGA takeover of our nations government. We - the American people - didn’t just stand by as the conditions for authoritarianism ripened, we went along with it. And the only solution must likewise come from We The People.
I understand Power, and that there is a high risk of violence against Americans who resist the MAGA vision of America. Just the same, that vision will not be made a reality without the cooperation of the people. Just as the economy functions today only because the people sell their labor (for far less than its actual value) and buy the goods we produce, Social Institutions and the daily functioning of society equally depends on us. No matter how much the wealthy would have us believe that The People are on verge of being obsolete, the fact is, all of their wealth accrued because of our cooperation in their predatory business practices.
But first, we The People should probably stop doing the bidding of our would-be emperors, and end the divisiveness, the blame games, the righteous superiority of some over others. It’s time that we help our fellow Americans see that our only chance to save America, and her unique Democratic Republic, is to work together. We have earn each others trust and we have to have tolerance - something that Thomas Jefferson argued strongly for in his discussions of Religious Freedom - in which Freedom is limited only when our actions cause harm or injury to another. As Jefferson put it, when “it picks my pocket or breaks my leg” (paraphrased from his words from the section on Religious Freedom in The State of Virginia)
Thank you for your thoughtful and comprehensive comment. I agree wholeheartedly with what you've said, particularly in your last paragraph, and also that the Democrats over the last several decades have been complicit in the creation of the situation in which The USA now finds itself. What concerns me, and what prompted me to make my original comment, is that a disturbingly large number of voters have not made it their business to fully understand the important issues around the time that elections happen. They just assume that if Party A isn't getting the job done, then they might as well support Party B, even if Party B has made no secret of their diabolical plans to remake the world order. It is contingent upon those of us who are conversant in politics to engage in dialogue with our friends and neighbors, daunting as that may seem.
I agree. So many contributing variables that have led to this place - from defunding and dismissing education to a growing focus on money instead of people. And with new high tech, propaganda is more effective and pervasive than ever.
For years, it has driven me nuts that the Democratic Party has not bothered to create a meaningful, genuine and positive, productive counter-narrative to the wholesale nastiness cooking out of the Republican Party. Instead of pushing back, the Democratic just followed the lead of republicans with same negative attack adds backed by oppositional research. As a result, American politics has become more about how well we trash our opponent and opposing party than how well we earn the respect and trust of the voter. We have been in downward spin for decades now, and this alone has co tributes greatly to the meanness, cruelty and violence that seem to define so much of our nations political actions and reactions today - and it’s taking our entire society along with it.
I hope that enough of us understand that a big part of what needs to be done is to counter this negative, destructive path America is on today.
Btw, in my conversations with people here in Florida and on the west coast when I’ve visited, most people from both sides of the political spectrum are so sick and tired of the ugly, negative political campaigns. And today, with ICE’s violent assault on our states & cities, I suspect those feelings are more common and more intense. This is the perfect time to counter that ugliness, with positive, for-the-people, campaign that focuses on the majority of American’s shared needs and interests (our Rights, our Liberty, and the responsibility of government to support & protect our general well-being, our Freedom, and our security from Internal and external Threats - which would include the current rejection of fundamental Constitutional Law.
I managed a local campaign using these types of strategies - genuine & based on working with the people in the community - and my candidate won, against the incumbent who had the full support of the state and local Republican Party offices, in a Republican county in a Republican state. He was the only non-Republican to win in the county, and he did so without party support, and by using more foot in the ground, gave to face campaigning instead of expensive campaign advertising.
So I know that genuine public servants, who are able to earn the respect and trust of voters, and who has defined their campaign on basis of needs and interests of the People, can work. In fact, I’d go so far as to say the people in America are craving just that (the NYC mayor race is further proof; although if anyone who runs on this kind of campaign ends up acting with same indifference we see on so many other regular politicians, it might break us).
Giving them an earful.....
We fought a pipeline. It was a Canadian owned project. The corporation hired ex-military people to investigate us. We found out when there was an article in The Guardian. My joke was that I wanted them to listen to calls and read emails, so they could learn something about the environment.
No joke this time. At least we know, thanks to Thom and others. Pretty sure Thom already had an FBI file, hopefully they will archive every Hartmann Report and maybe some of them will take to heart what is in them. FBI agents are college educated and law enforcement. Some are going to resist, report, and maybe do "other things". Allegedly.
Who will watch the watchers? We will. We won't forget these crimes. See you in the streets.
You place to much faith in education and professionalism Alis. It is the FBI that persecuted MLK, investigated "antifa" and BLM, and leftist activist, while ignoring right wing seditionists.
The FBI is, and always has been, and enclave of right wing extremists
Now besides being a harbor right wingers, it is staffed with sycophants. Didn't you see the FBI logos on jackets that were arresting Latino's in LA.
I say again "Some are going to resist, report,.....".
They will come for you, Thom, as a major voice telling the truth and warning about the facsist takeover, before they come for me. I suppose there will be a time when even very minor voices warning about Trump like me will be on the list. Maybe they will decide to sanitize Portland and herd us into a big bad bus for a major photo op as they disappear us, so we'll meet up again. Today I wrote: Forking Polls, Trump gives himself A+++++, on the economy. He doesn't give a fork what polls say Americans think. >> https://halbrown.substack.com/p/forking-polls-trump-gives-economy
I started being concerned about Thoughtcrime back when His Orangeness first started having stuff pulled out of the Smithsonian for "improper ideology." At the time, nobody else seemed to find that phrase alarming. Okay, better late than never. I started doing research on Supreme Court opinions involving "viewpoint discrimination," which is what lawyers call Thoughtcrime, and what (until recently) we used to consider protected by the First Amendment.
So much for the Bill of Rights. Our Republic died the day the corrupt, illigitimate USSC gave Trump immunity.
So, i guess the essential question is, when will a sufficient number of people recognize just how mind-boggingly stupid and dangerous these people are and rise up to stop them with whatever it takes? How totally divorced from reality does one have to be to even imagine that they can wave their magic wand and 20 million people will be removed from this massive country and many more will be severely limited in their speech and movement and their participation in activities they like or consider important before those same people and others put them in a cell or a box and close the lid? It is true that Native American Indians were killed off centuries ago. But to believe that ethnic cleansing and "purifying the race" and deporting ten or 15% of the population will ever happen is to be bat-s*** crazy and certifiable. Trump, Musk, Vance, Theil, etc., etc., all live in an alternate universe and are crying out to be stopped. We may be approaching the number of people who see how insane they truly are and will take action, but can we get to the magic number soon enough or will the action taken be adequate? I do not think we can wait for the 2026 elections. (Are you listening, Ms. Bondi? Come and get me.)
The ICE budget provides approximately $75 billion to ICE over four years (through September 30, 2029) in supplemental appropriations, which is in addition to its standard annual budget of around $10 billion. This sum nearly triples the agency's previous annual funding.
The funds are earmarked for specific areas of immigration enforcement:
Detention Capacity: $45 billion is dedicated to expanding ICE's detention system, including building new facilities for single adults and families. This funding could potentially double the agency's detention capacity to over 100,000 individuals.
Enforcement and Removals: Nearly $30 billion is allocated for operations related to arrests and deportations, including the hiring of 10,000 new ICE officers and personnel.
$40 billion builds a lot of concentration camps, more than enough to hold more than just immigrants, but also enemies of the state. Which is what Trump and the techfascists declare us.
William:
Yet the fabulous new budget for ICE operations and facilities comes as the Department of Justice is dismissing dozens of immigration judges.
Hard to miss the message. We don't need no stinkin' judges applying the law! We are the law!
\Vince S
You and I got the message, tis a shame that others haven't. The only option is 1789 French style.
Guillaume!
Sacré bleu!
I'm not prepared to stomach rivers of blood in the streets. Not yet.
So far, the state and federal trial courts appear to be honest and alert to the danger.
Can we take a strain and hold fast as we approach the 2026 November elections?
\Vince S
We have no other choice, Vincent. Let's see what NOV 2026 brings.
William:
In the meantime, let's speak up and engage.
I do too much reading and scrolling, I am sure. There are opportunities everywhere now for organizing and resisting.
Have you watched Inequality Media's Coffee Klatch on Saturday, the 13th? Prof Reich and company are staying resolutely affirmative, while acknowledging the long, hard road to the midterms 11 months from now.
Speaking of reading -- I recommend Senator Bernie Sanders's recently published (and very affirming) book, Fight Oligarchy. See if you can find it at your local bookseller.
\Vince S
William,I think you've got it.
The Trump regime is the now the MAGA Cartesians: We think, therefore IT IS!
Push is coming to shove as more and more Americans are waking up to this new reality. Since Americans typically get to a point that enough is enough and do things about it, it's coming. Voting isn't going to help much anymore as the red states are gerrymandering like crazy and Trump is decertifying voting machines in cities and states he doesn't like.
We're near the point where the only thing left to do is nationwide labor strikes and protests that seriously disrupt the economic engines of the country. And yes, we can expect Trump to declare martial law and send out the troops. We have to be prepared for that also. It will come down to Americans fighting Americans eventually. There is no longer any doubt. We're sort of there now with the resistance picking up against ICE and CBP picking up.
Chris Armitage keeps writing about a soft secession that needs to take place. I watched a segment on MS Now that interviewed someone also mentioning this. It is beginning to register that the state governments are going to have to step up and start separating themselves from Trump's federal government in order to provide for their citizens and in order to do that, they will have to start holding onto the money they are sending to Washington D.C. in order to do that. There are laws on the books, supposedly, that allow for that.
Is that where we're heading? For a break up of the union in order for the states to take back their autonomy as granted to them in the constitution? It's certainly starting to look like certain states run by democrats may end up backed into a corner so badly by Trump, that they are forced into making one of two choices. Give Trump what he wants or do a soft secession in order to protect it's citizens. What will you do if your state government decides to defy Trump? Will you be prepared to make the adjustments that something like this will force on people? Or will you migrate to a state that caves to Trump and everyone loses what's left of our civil rights?
Americans are very close to being forced to make one of two choices. Give up your constitutional freedoms and try to live your normal life under authoritarianism or fight and stand a chance on having to make sacrifices for the cause of freedom. If you had to make such a choice, what would you do? How far are you willing to go in order to remain free?
Please explain what stand and fight actually looks like and also what sacrifices means. My very minimal experience with stand and fight, at a very local level of the school board, showed me that people with homes and mortgages, with children in the school system that could be targeted, with jobs and positions not easily replaceable were very un-prone to buck the system out loud with something as simple as a school strike. There was eventually some success but only after weeks of serious personal /social disruption as everyone in this small town knew everyone else. The animosity and suspicion never really went away - although people started to move away for their children's sake.
Stand and fight comes in many different flavors. I do understand what you're saying though about small town mentality and politics. I grew up in, and lived in, for many years, a very small town on the Canadian border and little things could easily turn into big things quickly there.
For myself, stand and fight means I'm ready to physically defend myself, my family and my home from invaders, both foreign and domestic. It also means being somewhat involved in the political discourse going on around me. I'm a big 'No Kings" supporter. Then, I also produce and host a weekly podcast, plus write the occasional article, to fight back against the government's authoritarianism.
That also means that I can't be afraid of anyone who wants to attack me for what I believe in, even if they're close family members (Yeah, I have a sibling and a son in-law who are rabid MAGA believers).
Everyone has to decide for themselves what sacrifices they feel comfortable making in order to "Stand your Ground" these days. After fighting in America's wars of aggression for nearly thirty years, my comfort level may be different than most other people's.
I left Texas when living there became more that I could put up with a few years ago, so I sympathize with those who've felt the need to emigrate across state lines for a better life. Not everyone can do that.
Even now, I am still making little sacrifices to ensure the safety and security of my family and home. Sometimes, just the little things, like stocking up on non-perishable foods, making big purchases now ahead of a coming recession, stocking up on ammunition for my guns, and preparing for emergencies, may not seem like much in the larger scheme of things but it can make you feel better, and if you feel good about yourself, and what you're doing, you can pass that on to family members and close neighbors.
Remember gerrymandering only works if enough people in these states still support MAGA. Which means we should working as hard at finding common ground with the growing of people who are becoming disillusioned with MAGA as we are at fighting gerrymandering.
I totally agree with you, then I read my little brother's Facebook posts about wanting to deport all Muslims and communists and I ask myself, are these the kind of people I want to try to engage with?
I’m a retired college professor and I learned a great deal about how to talk WITH people, listen, probe, learn more about their world view, the way their relative social position has likely shaped both availability of opportunities as well as their relative political visibility. Why? Because the political rhetoric that people recite is not necessarily the actual issues that are important to them. A large fortune has been paid for effective propaganda that nearly substitutes anger and hate for genuine frustrations tied to very real increasingly predatory nature of the American Political economy.
When I’m out running errands, just talking to whoever happens to be standing near me, all I have to do is talk about the cost of goods, or the low wages for labor even as their employers demand a greater proportion of total energy of the day, or any of the very real “kitchen table” issues facing Americans.
This immediately leads to great conversations with people from a variety of partisan identities - and I don’t take a partisan view / I don’t belong to a party, in part bc over the last forty years, I’ve watched both parties allow the supper wealthy transform our economy from a system that functions in service of society and the people with some advantage to the wealthy, into a privatized, predatory economy that now works solely in the interests of the majority shareholders. Consider that pretty much every US Institution, in the not so distant past, was mostly run by non-profit organizations to privatized, profit before people enterprise.
If I emphasize that my interest is in the well being of the people, all of the people (which is ideally what our Politicians are supposed to be focused on), and I don’t trigger the normal defensiveness that we all resort when we feel, even pretty conservative people are willing to engage thoughtfully in a conversation.
Over the last tens years, I have yet to be yelled at, attacked, called names or anything else. But I’ve learned a lot, and I’ve been able to share alternative, fact based views with other people who may never hear them anywhere else.
I know that if someone talking to me offered an alternative view about something, even one that is compelling, I’m not going to alter my viewpoint on the spot. I have to think it over, do some research, etc. So I don’t expect the same from anyone else. Listen, I’m a very well educated person, and I suppose reasonably intelligent, but that doesn’t mean I think I’m not so great that everyone around me should immediately accept and adopt anything and everything I say. And I know enough to know I don’t know everything.
So what I guess I’m saying is o don’t have huge expectations for every interaction with other people. I treat people that way I’d like to be treated, with respect & empathy. And I try really hard not to assume too much about others just because they are reciting something they keep hearing over and over, or because they perceived the much desired attention of a rather charismatic politician’s as genuine interest.
There is no bright line that divides the people in some absolute way. To presume so is for us to fall for the same MAGA propaganda - that the people are so thoroughly divided that we have nothing f in common.
There is a saying in Sociology - that we believe is true becomes true in its consequences. We don’t need to help reinforce the divisiveness of MAGA politics; when we do so, we are just helping MAGA, and making more real a notion that is not that hard to be proven wrong by indicating that we don’t want to see anyone - regardless of their political identity - be further harmed, and that we believe that every person in America deserves, at minimum, a decent life.
I’m not suggesting ignoring or even embracing the hate and prejudice. And there are some people who are so deeply lost in those behaviors, that we disagree and that we would fight for the rights of those immigrants every bit as hard as we would fight for the rights of the prejudiced person (remember rights are absolute and universal, regardless of what Trump et al would have us believe). But I think very often if we probe a little deeper into those recited hateful words & comments, we’d find that they are not so solid, but merely parroted statements, covering a set of real concerns and worries thT has nothing to do with immigrants or people of color or transgendered people.
Maybe my approach ain’t for everyone. But I do live in central Florida, in one of the most corrupt Republican controlled counties in the state. I managed a local political campaign six years ago, based in part on the above ideas, and my candidate won, the only non-Republican candidate to win in the county and with the highest voter turnout ever in the city. While anecdotal, we’ve tested some of my observations, and ideas, and even I was surprised by how effective they were (we also ran an explicit non-partisan campaign, w/no party money)
The Lame Duck Felon dare not come to Chicago -
We shall arrest him for his ongoing crimes againstthe Constitution.
Just one: he claimed to be living at 3 different residences to avoid paying taxes - He himself claims that is a Federal Crime.
Let him dare to visit a TRUE BLUE state. He will get a 1-way ticket straight to the Hague
Does this mean pedophilia is considered a family value? (Trump and others)
And just remember, the majority of the Supreme Court are Catholic. I have hope with the current and last popes especially, but the Catholic Church has been fascist.
Margaret,I have though this but have been refuted by some catholics,they say the Cathoic Church is very supportive of the Hispanics. Where I live, almost every last one of them identify as Trump supporters and while I have looked to find out where Catholics are supporters Hispanics,I have yet to find out where.
At least Sotomayor.
But historically I blame Emperor Constantine who made it a state religion. It then was usurped from original practices to support those in power and became very intolerant to any other religion. ( I’m Catholic).
Thanks,it is so sad. I actually thought they supported a " Nazi"like Trump because he was to some extent responsible for overturning " Roe v Wade. I guess supporting the end of abortion is more important than returning to the Hitler era of 1934-41. I may be missing something..
Just like everything else, there are more liberal Catholics who look at the bigger picture, and conservative ones who seem to believe in the old hellfire and brimstone and only see things in black and white. I think Frances was a good start, and Leo is going to hopefully continue this.
Read or listen to John Fuglesong. Raised by a priest and nun, he knows his bible . And very progressive. Helps you counter the conservative talking points .
Spy craft nowadays includes the ability to blowup cell phones and pagers.
How long before the Queen of Hearts [DJT] KABOOMS heads and buttocks?
Vote. Only You can "Prevent Totalitarianism."
No need to blow them up, and anyway if they planted explosives in all cell phones, they can't control who they go to, and they could blow themselves up.The US is not Lebanon
What should alarm you all is that your cell phone can be used to track your movements, and everything that you send out, DM or say on your cell phone and even your tablet or computer, is stored in the National Security Data center in Bluffdale, AZ and immediately screened, flagged and tagged by AI.
In other words if you comunicate electronically, they know all about you. I think there is a problem they have with land lines, the comms of land lines that get sent out over the air, is captured, but they can't trace them back to the telephone, for that they need an old fashioned wire tap.
It's the inability to learn from history that makes it repeat, yes?
The Queen of Hearts would not have to target "all," just KEY targets. That would cow the masses.
We still quake at the thought of Putin's Polonium tea. Not everyone had their tea poisoned.
VOTE. No matter what.
Yep, shoot one, warn a thousand and it works. worked in Germany, works in Russia, will work here too, already has. Universities and corporations have folded, media has folded, your neighbor next.
As long as dullard Kushner and his more dull brothers-in-law can still leverage Donald's aura to make three billion more, what are a few murders of upright citizens?
As long as no one pulls another Mangione and takes out one of the 0.01%..
VOTE !!!
Sir,not certain the % of people that supported Mangione,last count seemed to be about 48%. Should that send a message to corp America that if you screw large#s of people,there could be significant pushback.
Yes, they do get upset when one of their own is taken out.
They should build more affordable housing, but not in the form of the thousands of prisons it would take to house all of us "terrorists" for doing what is only natural to freedom and democracy--disagreement with those in authority.
George Orwell’s 1984 is happening right now
The dark forces dream of destroying the lives of the people while they have orgasms at the destruction they inflict. When law is put back in place these nuts will all be rounded up for crimes against humanity and the Constitution. They know they are doing wrong because most of what they are doing they do in the dark. ICE as the new SS troops will all go into prison and likely never come out unless there is a reconciliation program like South Africa did. It maybe that Krasnov will not last out this year. He is very unlikely to last out the next year so I doubt he will be able to inflict his dark dreams. The Chosen One is here and the dragons will support the people over tyranny. Praise God from whom all Blessing flow.