America

[Which Tyler]

Great way to depress tourism, JD. Hope the teams don't mind playing to empty stadiums. You'd have to be pretty football crazy to go and risk watching the matches from a detention centre. Or El Salvador jail.

I do hope this fucks their world cup.

Never fear, there are enough rapid-fans out there who will go watch their team anyway. And enough idiots out there who think it's only "bad hombres" to have to be worried, the "them" not the "us" - even if the "us" is a "them" to ICE

[Son of Mathonwy]

Great way to depress tourism, JD. Hope the teams don't mind playing to empty stadiums. You'd have to be pretty football crazy to go and risk watching the matches from a detention centre. Or El Salvador jail.

I do hope this fucks their world cup.

Never fear, there are enough rapid-fans out there who will go watch their team anyway. And enough idiots out there who think it's only "bad hombres" to have to be worried, the "them" not the "us" - even if the "us" is a "them" to ICE

Reckon anyone who uses the word hombre is at high risk entering the USA for the foreseeable!

Yeah, they'll probably get some people in but they'll have to give the tickets away. Or round up the homeless.

Annoying timing, though. Trump will have the football world cup and the Olympics. As a silver lining we can watch him getting pissed off* at all the diverse athletes winning gold, just like Berlin 1936.


* or pretending to enjoy.

[Which Tyler]

Stephen Miller Suggests Trump Administration Could Suspend Habeas Corpus To Detain Immigrants—Here’s What That Means

[Which Tyler]

Denmark summons US diplomat over reports of increased intelligence gathering in Greenland

[morepork]

Are there any South Africans on here that can clarify the optics of this move?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... cans-trump

[Son of Mathonwy]

Are there any South Africans on here that can clarify the optics of this move?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... cans-trump

It's certainly interesting that he says there's a genocide going on in South Africa but not in Gaza.

Maybe he should bring a case to the ICJ.

[Puja]

Are there any South Africans on here that can clarify the optics of this move?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... cans-trump

It's certainly interesting that he says there's a genocide going on in South Africa but not in Gaza.

Maybe he should bring a case to the ICJ.

I had not made that connection . I had assumed this was about American politics and that South Africa was a random selection of punching bag - that this was a mixture of Trump's mental deterioration confusing various African countries and decades, combined with looking to confuse the refugee issue by finding and obsessing over the whitest, blondest haired "refugees", combined with the horror of a country where rich white people have had to give up a mild amount of power and privilege to the poorer majority.

Had not made the connection that SA were the ones leading the ICJ case against Israel's genocide and thus this propaganda to traduce them and muddy the waters is probably the main point, with the rest of it being a side-effect.

Puja

[Son of Mathonwy]

Are there any South Africans on here that can clarify the optics of this move?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... cans-trump

It's certainly interesting that he says there's a genocide going on in South Africa but not in Gaza.

Maybe he should bring a case to the ICJ.

I had not made that connection . I had assumed this was about American politics and that South Africa was a random selection of punching bag - that this was a mixture of Trump's mental deterioration confusing various African countries and decades, combined with looking to confuse the refugee issue by finding and obsessing over the whitest, blondest haired "refugees", combined with the horror of a country where rich white people have had to give up a mild amount of power and privilege to the poorer majority.

Had not made the connection that SA were the ones leading the ICJ case against Israel's genocide and thus this propaganda to traduce them and muddy the waters is probably the main point, with the rest of it being a side-effect.

Puja

They're the most well-fed, best dressed and generally unharrowed looking genocide victims I've ever seen.

No doubt Trump will fool a section of his ignorant MAGA base with this (those who will not question why they haven't seen any images of dead, white children coming out of South Africa) but the blatant lying and stunning inversion of this description might open a few eyes. Like there are many who've willingly fooled themselves that what Israel is doing is self-defense who might get a bit of cognitive dissonance trying to convince themselves that there's really a South African genocide in progress on top of the non-genocide in Gaza. If you've mentally raised the bar for genocide so high that Gaza isn't one, believing that there's one happening in South Africa is a bit of a tough sell.

[paddy no 11]

Ah this is Musk's brainwave without doubt and it just works perfectly for the don and his loopers

[Which Tyler]

https://www.thenation.com/article/polit ... has-a-job/?

Hegseth is a liability in every possible sense. So why is he still here? The leading explanation—that Trump doesn’t want to appear acquiescent to liberal demands—carried a lot more weight before the administration canned national security adviser and fellow Signal enthusiast Mike Waltz. Some think this is the first of many Signal-­related firings and that Hegseth will be next. Personally, I doubt it. Trump clearly did not pick Hegseth for his leadership skills, or his experience, or his ability to keep track of classified information. Trump picked Hegseth because both men believe the military is a threat to the regime’s authoritarian ambitions and must be neutralized, purged, and remade in Trump’s own image.

Like Trump, Hegseth believes the military has been compromised by the left-wing “enemy within.” His opposition to women in combat roles and the alleged pussification of Our Boys in Uniform are part of something far larger than the typical culture-war grift. He understands that if the commander in chief were to, say, invoke the Insurrection Act and order the military to round up immigrants on American soil, the Pentagon might say no. His idea of Making America Great Again involves changing that “no” into a “yes,” and he’s working hard to make that happen.

[Son of Mathonwy]

https://www.thenation.com/article/polit ... has-a-job/?

Hegseth is a liability in every possible sense. So why is he still here? The leading explanation—that Trump doesn’t want to appear acquiescent to liberal demands—carried a lot more weight before the administration canned national security adviser and fellow Signal enthusiast Mike Waltz. Some think this is the first of many Signal-­related firings and that Hegseth will be next. Personally, I doubt it. Trump clearly did not pick Hegseth for his leadership skills, or his experience, or his ability to keep track of classified information. Trump picked Hegseth because both men believe the military is a threat to the regime’s authoritarian ambitions and must be neutralized, purged, and remade in Trump’s own image.

Like Trump, Hegseth believes the military has been compromised by the left-wing “enemy within.” His opposition to women in combat roles and the alleged pussification of Our Boys in Uniform are part of something far larger than the typical culture-war grift. He understands that if the commander in chief were to, say, invoke the Insurrection Act and order the military to round up immigrants on American soil, the Pentagon might say no. His idea of Making America Great Again involves changing that “no” into a “yes,” and he’s working hard to make that happen.

One glimmer of hope is that Hegseth is such an undisciplined idiot he can't be earning much respect from the actual military, which would make it harder for him to persuade them to act unconstitutionally.

[Which Tyler]

DOJ 'weaponization' group will shame individuals it can't charge with crimes, new head says
As Jeanine Pirro prepares to become U.S. attorney in D.C., Trump loyalist Ed Martin is taking over the Justice Department's effort to investigate Trump's investigators.
So if you've done nothing wrong, but it hurt Donald's ego, then you'll be named and shamed, and we'll let Trumps' vigilantes do their thing - they've been pardoned once already, after all.

[Son of Mathonwy]

DOJ 'weaponization' group will shame individuals it can't charge with crimes, new head says
As Jeanine Pirro prepares to become U.S. attorney in D.C., Trump loyalist Ed Martin is taking over the Justice Department's effort to investigate Trump's investigators.
So if you've done nothing wrong, but it hurt Donald's ego, then you'll be named and shamed, and we'll let Trumps' vigilantes do their thing - they've been pardoned once already, after all.

Trump will get his revenge, one way or another, court of law or court of public opinion.

[Son of Mathonwy]

USA, bastion of free speech:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... aza-speech