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Open in TheBrain

militarization

disambiguation?

this is for the larger concept beyond tanks for cops

merri ok

primary 7/20 on Portland BLM

SEE MALE/ STRICT FATHER

SEE TRUMP FLYNN XO POSSE COMITATUS HEGSETH AND BRO

SEE ACTIVIST SUPPRESSION

SEE VIOLENCE, FRCE TAG

SEE MILITIA ex- wannabe warrior

SEE AUTHORITARIAN/ Fascist patriot

SEE EXTRA-JUDICIAL KILLING

SEE POSSE COMMITATUS

SEE MARTIAL LAW = TWO

SEE BORTAC BOVINO SECRET POLICE PARAMILITARY

SEE RACISM/ BORDER WALL/ REFUGEES OTHER POC border patrol Portland goons

see EMAC

see SWAT 220 DHS

SEE RAYTHEON RTX

NO BAK

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mma

Benny Johnson: “Islam is here to kill us and convert us”

  1. 08/17/26

Trump ally Laura Loomer calls for using “military force” to round up Muslims

08/17/26

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AHA DOH NEGLECTED NOTE MILITARISM TRUMP 2ND TERM: ICE MURDER GOOD, RAPELL BLACKHAWK CHIC FALLUJAH BATTLE RATTLE BLUE CITIES // VENEZ BOAT STRIKE JSOC KIDNAP 1 26 TAKE GREENLAND THE HARD WAY, PANAMA, MEX

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an 8 26

Trump throws tantrum after rebuke of his National Guard deployments

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trump 1.8 b slush fund for paramilitary; bbb ice funding; tarrio 3% convictions erased?

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an 7 26

President Donald Trump could use the military to steal the 2026 midterms, which he and his fellow Republicans have panicked about losing, according to legal experts — although they emphasize that doing so would break centuries of precedent.

“Just this year, President Trump said he regrets that he did not order the National Guard to seize voting machines after the 2020 elections,” wrote Lawfare’s Natalie K. Orpett, Molly Roberts and Loren Voss on Wednesday. “Steve Bannon urged Trump to ‘call up the 82nd and 101st Airborne’ in 2026 to ‘get around every poll’ and make sure that only citizens are voting. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, when asked whether he would refuse an order to deploy troops to polling places during the midterms, avoided answering—and falsely claimed that troops were deployed to polling places in 15 states under Joe Biden.”

The scholars pointed out that “the Constitution mostly reserves to the states the authority to administer elections, with a role for Congress” but that the Elections Clause is limited enough that a sufficiently creative person could try to poke holes in it.

“It defines only states’ power to ‘prescribe’ the ‘Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections’ and Congress’s power to ‘make or alter such Regulations,’” Lawfare explained. “It says nothing about other actions that might affect elections—ensuring security, for example. However, neither the Constitution nor any founding-era law affirmatively authorizes the president to involve the military in U.S. elections, and the few statutes that address the question at all prohibit it in most circumstances.”

After reviewing the evolution of election law in terms of this issue from the Constitutional era through the early republic, the Jacksonian era, the Civil War and Reconstruction, they focused on the bill often cited as a rationalization for using the military for domestic law enforcement.

“The Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C. § 1385), enacted in 1878, ensured that the military could be used for law enforcement only in a set of drastic situations explicitly defined in law,” Lawfare wrote. “By the late 1880s, all major cities had civilian police forces.”

They continued, “Today, the Posse Comitatus Act is widely regarded as the critical limitation on domestic military deployment. The current version of the statute bars the use of any part of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, or Space Force ‘as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws.’ Posse comitatus literally means ‘power of the county’; legally, it refers to a group of people mobilized by officials such as a sheriff to enforce the law or keep the peace. The Posse Comitatus Act exists to keep troops—as opposed to civilians—from filling that role. But the rule isn’t ironclad: As described in our companion piece, the act itself carves out explicit exceptions, such as the Insurrection Act.”

The military is barred from following illegal orders in terms of domestic election interference, but statute does not provide for a specific cause of action. It serves as an affirmative statement of the law — and as further proof that Congress gives elections a special status. The standard limitations on domestic use of the military were apparently insufficient to safeguard elections; Congress deemed it necessary to pass three separate statutes to confer additional protections.”

Lawfare concluded, “These laws have survived more than 160 years, across roughly 80 or so election cycles. And they haven’t gone unnoticed. The Justice Manual sets forth specific procedures for enforcing § 592. The Defense Department Directive on Defense Support of Civil Authorities, last updated in 2018, forbids ‘DoD personnel and National Guard in Title 32 status’ from ‘conduct[ing] operations at polling places and strictly refrain from activities similar to those prohibited by’ 18 U.S.C. §§ 592-594.”

Speaking with AlterNet in June, Democracy Defenders Fund Senior Counsel/Deputy Legal Director Pooja Chaudhuri explained that sending troops to the polls could very well intimidate citizens from voting.

“I think there are two things to consider,” Chaudhuri, who specializes in voting rights as well as election law litigation and advocacy, told AlterNet. “One is that the election is made up of voters, and so the outcome depends on people turning out to the polls and voting. The problem is ... the chilling effect on voters.”

Chaudhuri continued, “When voters hear that ICE may be deployed to the polls, that mail-in voting rules are changing close to the election, a lot of voters might say, ‘I'm just not going to go out and vote.’ That could happen in many different ways. There are vulnerable communities — people may come from mixed-status families — they're US citizens, but they might decide, "I'm not going to vote." So one aspect is the chilling effect on voters that all of these actions would have.”

Dan Vicuña, the Senior Policy Director for Voting and Fair Representation at Common Cause, a nonprofit good government group, elaborated on other ways Trump is meddling with America’s free elections.

“What they all add up to is a desire to avoid any accountability to the voters in the midterm elections — to ensure, to preordain the outcome of a midterm that he thinks is going to go badly for him,” Vicuña told AlterNet. “We know, from the Big Lie of the 2020 election to spurring on a violent revolt to overthrow a free and fair election, that he has no respect for democratic norms, for the voice of the people. This is entirely about his own power and his own ego. He will even invest in protecting that ego and protecting his power at the expense of the needs of the public. People are suffering with high gas prices and affordability issues, and he does not care. All that matters is protecting his power, and he has no interest in whether he does that through democratic means.”

He added, “I think this all adds up to a desire to ensure that his party stays in power and his ability to do what he wants — to attack vulnerable communities — remains intact.”

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GGL 4 26

AI Overview

+6

Gregory **Bovino, a high-ranking U.S. Border Patrol official and key figure in the BORTAC (Border Patrol Tactical Unit), announced his retirement in March 2026 amid controversies, lawsuits, and federal scrutiny over his tactics in leading immigration enforcement, including "Operation Metro Surge". Known for aggressive techniques, he was chastised by a judge for using chemical agents and, according to reports, providing false testimony.

Key Details on Greg Bovino:

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CAlMatters +6}:

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AN 4 26

WIRED sifted through the identities of federal agents sent to Chicago in Donald Trump's "Operation Midway Blitz," and they've been able to identify some of them as a "heavily armed paramilitary unit."

"A WIRED analysis of DHS records identified dozens of specialized federal agents who used force against US civilians during the largest known deployment of its kind in U.S. history," the outlet reported Thursday.

The ongoing mass deportation efforts come from Trump's pledge to deport millions of people he claimed entered the U.S. in the four years between his administrations. He's come up against the problem, however, that there aren't millions of criminals for his agents to nab and deport one *Washington Post* report explained. The campaign has led to hostility and protests that took the lives of two Americans when federal agents opened fire on them.

One PBS/NPR/Marist poll in February showed two-thirds of Americans think Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CPB) have "gone too far."

Four of the men WIRED found are "members of the Border Patrol Tactical Unit, or BORTAC." It's a specialized federal law enforcement force based mainly at Fort Bliss. They've been sent out to at least 11 "detachments" around the U.S. The report described the agents as, at one time, being "reserved for desert rescues, executing high-risk warrants, conflicts with armed drug cartels and manhunts."

One of those unmasked was John Bockstanz, WIRED said. The Marine veteran is from Michigan, and also runs a company as a side hustle that sells "pre-workout supplements." Essentially, they're "testosterone supplements."

"Conquer each day with unparalleled potency," promises the “Alpha Testosterone Booster."

Bockstanz was in an SUV with "agent John Leslie from BORTAC’s Detroit detachment."

Another agent was identified as Javier Puente, who was in the U.S. Army. The body camera he wore showed him gripping a 40-mm grenade launcher while sitting in the back of an SUV. It wasn't used for grenades there, however, they used it to launch "less lethal" pepper-spray rounds into crowds, the report said.

While BORTAC is described as an elite unit, that isn't a sentiment embraced by others in the top forces.

One former Special Forces member was critical of BORTAC when speaking to WIRED.

“They go in real hot — in my opinion, too hot and too unruly,” the veteran said about his experience with the agents. They tend to be “ego-driven hotheads.” While they might be "highly trained," they have little or no actual war-fighting experience.

“Even then, they’re definitely not the people I’d want in any sort of civilian law enforcement context," he added.

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REF WIRED NO LNX

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Unmasking the Paramilitary Agents Behind Trump’s Violent Immigration Crackdown

A WIRED analysis of DHS records identified dozens of specialized federal agents who used force against US civilians during the largest known deployment of its kind in US history.

Documents and body camera footage released by the Department of Homeland Security reveal the paramilitary agents who used force against civilians during Operation Midway Blitz.Composite: WIRED Staff; Source materials: Department of Homeland Security

In the early morning last September 30, hundreds of federal agents swarmed the South Shore Apartments, a beige brick building on Chicago’s South Side. As feds in body armor rappelled down from a Black Hawk helicopter overhead, others crashed through the building’s doors with battering rams, rounding up residents at gunpoint.

A group of burly, masked agents wearing helmets and bulletproof vests, and toting suppressor-equipped M4 rifles, moved through the hallways in a rapid, tightly organized file. Padraic Daniel Berlin, a 34-year-old Michigan native and son of a Detroit firefighter, held Yoda, his Belgian Malinois, on a leash. David Dubar Jr., a 53-year-old onetime construction worker, followed closely behind him. Their team leader, Corey Myers, a Marine veteran from the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector, checked apartment doors. Paul Delgado Jr., a standout cross-country runner in high school, was the final member of the entry team.

The four men are members of the Border Patrol Tactical Unit, or BORTAC. Based mainly out of Fort Bliss, with at least 11 detachments stationed around the United States, BORTAC and its sister unit, Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue, or BORSTAR, were once reserved for desert rescues, executing high-risk warrants, conflicts with armed drug cartels, and manhunts.

Under Donald Trump, however, they have been sent into the streets of major US cities. The result is the largest known deployment of BORTAC and BORSTAR agents in US history, a fact made difficult to pin down due to the government's secrecy around their operations. Many of the agents’ identities have remained hidden from the public. The decision to use offensive, heavily armed paramilitary units for street-level immigration sweeps in American cities is a first—a bellwether of the Trump administration’s project to militarize domestic law enforcement operations.

Myers, Berlin, Dubar, Delgado, and their teammates seemed keyed up. The intelligence briefing they received claimed the building was controlled by Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan street gang the Trump administration categorized—despite contrary evidence amassed by its own intelligence services—as a foreign terrorist organization. Gang members were supposedly occupying the building and storing grenades, handguns, and rifles on the second floor, where a suspect with an open warrant for firearms possession lived. This intelligence was never released or substantiated, and Illinois later launched an investigation into whether the property owner had sent baseless claims to the feds. But at that moment, it didn’t matter.

At every door approached by his team, Berlin yelled, “Police! Speak to me now or I’ll send the dog!” In a second-floor unit, the BORTAC team detained one man. Further down the hall, Myers noticed “signs of forced entry” and smashed open the door. Tolulope Akinsulie, an undocumented immigrant from Nigeria, happened to be hiding in the bedroom. Without issuing a warning or verbal command, Berlin let go of Yoda’s leash and the Malinois pounced, sinking its teeth into Akinsulie’s leg as he screamed in agony. Yoda bit Akinsulie repeatedly in the leg, hip, and hands before Berlin called the dog off and his team placed the man in cuffs. Akinsulie, who was not a target of the raid and has no known history of violent crime or gang affiliation, was treated for his injuries and taken to the Broadview Processing Center to face removal proceedings.

Berlin’s actions that morning were not isolated. He was involved in at least five uses of force during Operation Midway Blitz, the Trump administration’s 2025 surge of hundreds of immigration agents into Chicago and surrounding communities. Nor were the actions of his team, according to a WIRED analysis of US government records, which appeared to escalate tensions with civilian onlookers rather than quell them. Since last year, BORTAC and BORSTAR have fronted several of the US government’s invasions of its own cities, often engaging in almost theatrical uses of force that litter newscasts and social feeds, adding a new salience to US Border Patrol Special Operations Group’s self-proclaimed status as the “tip of the spear.”

The agents sent to Chicago—and Los Angeles, North Carolina, Boston, Minneapolis, New Orleans, and Sacramento—come from a secretive, tightly knit world. Their names, many of which are available in a narrow set of court records and reported here for the first time, are typically excluded from official documents and shielded from public records requests. In the streets of American cities, they are usually masked, identified only by “call signs” that are sometimes visible on their uniforms and mean nothing to people demanding badge numbers.

One BORTAC agent is married to a TV news anchor who reports on the Border Patrol. Another, who also engaged in a gun battle with a school shooter in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022, has posted frequently in an online gun forum with thread titles like “Whipping Haitians.” Many are military veterans, some of whom saw combat during the Forever Wars. Several have histories of domestic violence or sexual assault. Others are former cops who joined the Border Patrol after questionable uses of force. BORTAC and BORSTAR agents are not police—they are paramilitaries who operate by a different standard and with different rules of engagement, trained and suited not for law enforcement but for war.

A WIRED review of over 78 incident reports from Operation Midway Blitz found that BORTAC and BORSTAR agents were, as a group, the most violent of the hundreds of federal agents deployed to Chicago. In these documents, CBP employees recorded over 144 discrete uses of force by CBP personnel from September through early November. Sixty-two BORTAC and BORSTAR personnel were involved in these incidents over an eight-week period. Of that group, 25 were involved in two or more incidents, and 16 more used force at least once during this period. Of the 234 federal law enforcement personnel WIRED identified in these reports, BORTAC and BORSTAR agents represent almost a quarter of all personnel involved in documented confrontations with civilians during Operation Midway Blitz

Hennepin County attorney Mary Moriarty is actively investigating 17 separate incidents involving federal agents for potential criminal conduct. At least two of those incidents—the January 21 gassing of a crowd in South Minneapolis and a chaotic enforcement action outside Roosevelt High School—involve BORTAC personnel, per videos and photographs taken on scene.

The Department of Homeland Security has kept data and documents about the federal immigration deployments closely guarded, disclosing records only in response to litigation. US senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina has been wrestling with DHS over data regarding last fall’s Operation Charlotte’s Web in his state. Tillis requested records on stops, detentions, questioning, searches, releases, uses of force, and property damage incidents, as well as the total number of detentions and a tally of all encounters with American citizens.

During Operation Midway Blitz, incidents beyond the South Shore Apartment raids included the gassing of an affluent Northside Chicago neighborhood right before a children’s Halloween parade, a chaotic car chase on the city’s South Side, and clashes with protesters outside the Broadview immigration detention facility.

BORTAC’s and BORSTAR’s uses of force in Chicago included punching and kicking protesters, throwing tear gas, macing civilians, firing pepperballs and 40-mm foam rounds into crowds, shocking people with tasers, unleashing dogs on deportation targets, and shooting unarmed civilians, killing at least one of them. This violence tracks with a loosening of the Border Patrol’s use-of-force guidelines following Gregory Bovino’s directives, as reported by the American Prospect.

“I think if we push this whole fucking block back, that ought to teach ’em a lesson,” says Bovino on an agent's body camera recording from September 27, during clashes with demonstrators at Chicago’s Broadview detention facility. “And if it doesn't, we arrest.” Bovino, the now-retired face of Trump’s immigration surges throughout 2025 and early 2026, is a longtime BORTAC member who led dozens of these agents on incursions into Southern California, Chicago, and Minneapolis, putting them front and center at some of the most high-profile clashes between immigration enforcement and the public during the past nine months.

Other body camera footage from nearly a month later captured one BORTAC agent, Edgar Vazquez, telling his colleagues that he planned to refuse Bovino’s directives. “The chief wanted us to throw gas, and I was like, we can’t!” said Vazquez. “Nah, I’m not gonna fucking do it—I’m gonna stay within policy.”

“It’s clear the administration likes the optics of BORTAC—the long guns, the camouflage, the body armor. They certainly did for Trump’s first go-round,” says John Sandweg, who was director of ICE from 2013 to 2014. However, he says, the unit is not generally familiar with urban policing, and its record in Chicago demonstrates the poor fit of borderland tactics for densely packed cities. “It’s malpractice to have paramilitary teams try to impose order by force,” he says.

In a response to WIRED’s requests for comment, CBP cited the threat of “doxing” and refused to confirm employment of the Border Patrol agents identified in the government’s own records. CBP personnel are “trained to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations to prioritize the safety of the public and themselves,” a spokesperson wrote in a statement.

CBP also declined to comment on whether any of the use-of-force incidents from Operation Midway Blitz are the subject of internal investigations, stating that the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility handles all such probes before submitting them to CBP’s Use of Force Review Boards.

The documents, body camera footage, and other material WIRED used to identify more than 60 BORTAC and BORSTAR operators were pried loose during litigation against DHS over alleged First Amendment violations, unconstitutional arrests, and grievous uses of force during Operation Midway Blitz, including the killing of Silverio Villegas González and nonfatal shooting of Marimar Martinez by ICE and Border Patrol agents, respectively.

No BORTAC or BORSTAR agent named in this story responded to WIRED’s request for comment.

In Illinois, civil rights attorneys and civic organizations are pressuring the Cook County state’s attorney to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and potentially prosecute ICE, CBP, and Border Patrol agents for uses of force and wrongful arrests during Operation Midway Blitz.

To date, no Border Patrol, CBP, or ICE agent has faced criminal charges for their conduct during the operation in Chicago.

The full force of the paramilitary surge into American cities was on open display the morning of October 25, 2025, when a convoy of BORTAC and other Border Patrol agents swept through the tranquil North Side Chicago neighborhood of Irving Park, trailed by whistle-blowing “ICE watchers” in cars and on bicycles.

Shortly before 10 am, a gray Suburban with BORTAC agents Andy Chavez and Tee Rico riding in the back seat cruised through Irving Park’s tree-lined streets. A black Wagoneer filled with Border Patrol agents followed closely behind, carrying BORTAC agent Javier Puente, an Army veteran, in the rear seat. All the agents wore masks and camouflage tactical gear, with pistols at their hips and M4-pattern rifles near at hand. Puente’s body camera video shows him gripping a 40-mm grenade launcher intended to fire pepper-spray-loaded “less lethal” rounds.

On the sidewalks around them, Irving Park residents gathered for the community’s Halloween parade. Before the hour was up, chaos would erupt in the residential neighborhood.

Chavez and Rico spotted a Latino man running from their convoy, leaped out of their vehicle, and tackled the man on the front lawn of a white townhouse. The home’s owner, Brian Kolp, an attorney and onetime Cook County state’s attorney who used to represent Chicago police officers in civil litigation, stormed out of his house, barefoot, screaming at the feds to get off his property and take their masks off.

“This has nothing to do with enforcing the law, and everything to do with intimidating citizens with military tactics,” Kolp tells WIRED of the incident.

Other residents and members of ICE-watch groups joined in, blowing whistles, cursing out the agents, and recording the incident on their phones. As the Border Patrol convoy attempted to leave the scene, enraged onlookers—at least one still wearing a bathrobe—moved to block their path.

As the crowd grew more hostile, agents ramped up their uses of force. Michael Brosilow—a photographer, Irving Park resident, and decorated long-distance runner—pulled into his neighborhood after returning from a training session. Rico and Chavez confronted the 68-year-old man, who yelled, “Fuck you!” as he stepped out of his silver Toyota. Rico then tackled Brosilow, planted his knee in his back, and handcuffed him. “This is my block!” Brosilow screamed. Six of Brosilow’s ribs were broken in the encounter, and he suffered internal bleeding.

Chavez pulled the pin on a can of tear gas and tossed it into the street as bystanders screamed. Puerte, meanwhile, spotted 25-year-old ICE watcher Maria Bryan allegedly hit Rico in the head and slammed her and her bicycle to the ground, fracturing seven of her ribs.

The agents eventually loaded into the vehicle, drove off, and radioed in that they had arrested two US citizens for “impeding” and “assault.” (Neither Brosilow nor Bryan were charged.)

As the agents moved out of Irving Park, the horns of trailing cars and whistles from ICE watchers were clearly audible. When the SUV stopped at a red light, two men on the sidewalk stepped up to remonstrate with the feds.

Puente photographed one with his iPhone, then rolled down his window and pointed his grenade launcher at a second man.

“Get the fuck out of the way!” he yelled, aiming his muzzle at the civilian as the vehicle pulled away. “Fuck you!”

Created in 1984 to deal with riots in immigration detention camps, BORTAC has been sent to South America for narcotics interdiction missions alongside the Drug Enforcement Administration; conducted missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Jordan; and, in the recent past, raided desert aid stations. While BORTAC is designed for close combat, BORSTAR, which was created in 1998 in response to a rise in migrant deaths on the southern border, specializes in open-country operations. Members of both teams undergo Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape training, are taught complex military surveillance and countersurveillance tactics, and tend to be recruited from specialized military units like the Army Rangers.

“They go in real hot—in my opinion, too hot and too unruly,” says a former Special Forces member, speaking on condition of anonymity. This veteran says that in his experience, BORTAC members tend to be “ego-driven hotheads” who are highly trained but have little or no operational war-fighting experience. “Even then, they’re definitely not the people I’d want in any sort of civilian law enforcement context.”

Beginning in February 2020, the first Trump administration sent BORTAC into Democrat-run “sanctuary cities” for civil immigration enforcement, a surge that was short-circuited by the Covid-19 pandemic. Later that summer, BORTAC agents were documented snatching protesters off the streets of Portland, Oregon, during the George Floyd protests.

Since the start of the second Trump administration, BORTAC and BORSTAR agents have participated in immigration blitzes in California, North Carolina, Minnesota, and Vermont. Since October, the Border Patrol’s paramilitary units, led by Timothy P. Sullivan, the head of the Fort Bliss–based Border Patrol’s Special Operations Group, have also commanded the federal presence at an ICE facility in Portland, Oregon, that has been a constant target of protests, often resulting in violent clashes. More recently, in mid-March, agents from one of the Border Patrol’s local Special Operations detachments used crowd control munitions on protesters in South Burlington, Vermont, during a chaotic immigration arrest.

Peter Kraska, a professor at Eastern Kentucky University’s School of Justice Studies who has studied police militarization and paramilitary units for decades, says that BORTAC’s presence in Chicago was a textbook case of authoritarian overreach. “Why are they enforcing civil immigration violations with paramilitary teams?” Kraska says. “Armored personnel carriers, hostage rescue tactics, Special Forces–grade weapons, SEAL-style tactics—why do you need all that for civil violations?”

A week and a half before the Irving Park incident, another event between Border Patrol agents and a Latino couple shows how quickly Border Patrol agents escalated to tear-gassing dozens of civilians and Chicago police officers.

On October 14, Border Patrol agents were involved in a car chase and a collision with a Latino couple. One of the agents involved in the crash, Carlos Chavira Jr., radioed for help, and several BORTAC agents drove to the scene.

One of the SUVs that arrived was driven by John Bockstanz, a Michigan resident and former Marine who runs a company that sells pre-workout supplements on the side—“Conquer each day with unparalleled potency,” promises the “Alpha Testosterone Booster.” With him was agent John Leslie from BORTAC’s Detroit detachment.

The other agents who answered Chavira’s call for help were Derek Volmering, a 39-year-old Michigan native, BORTAC supervisor, and onetime Buffalo Bills linebacker prospect; Paul Beaulieu, a New England native assigned to the Border Patrol’s rough-country search and rescue team; Edgar Vazquez, a 39-year-old firearms instructor from BORTAC who joined the Border Patrol in 2007; Padraic Daniel Berlin, who sicced his dog on a Nigerian immigrant during the South Side apartment raid two weeks earlier; David Dubar Jr., the BORTAC Michigan agent who’d also been on the South Side Apartments entry team, and supervisory agent Warren Becker from the Del Rio BORTAC detachment, who exchanged gunfire with the Uvalde school shooter in 2022 after the gunman executed 19 children.

The crew met a furious and growing civilian crowd. Television news crews arrived on the sidewalks. A CBP helicopter circled overhead. “It’s gonna be a nightmare getting out of here,” Volmering grumbled.

“Yeah, we’re probably going to get stuff thrown at us,” Bockstanz replied.

They immediately began positioning themselves around the scene. Two combat veterans, who reviewed incident body-camera footage for WIRED, said the agents moved in the same way that active-duty troops would to protect and extract a disabled vehicle from a hostile crowd in a war zone.

Tensions between the agents and the crowd escalated as someone threw an egg into the mass of feds, and agents tackled one of the onlookers to the ground in response. By then, Border Patrol agents had already donned gas masks and retrieved gas canisters from their vehicles in preparation for their exit.

Bockstanz heard an object strike one of the CBP vehicles and walked over to Volmering, who was speaking to a group of Chicago police commanders. “Hey, they’re starting to throw rocks,” Bockstanz said, his voice muffled by his gas mask. “I’m gonna have to deploy gas,” he told CPD deputy chief Dan O’Connor, who appeared to object. “We gotta worry about ourselves.”

“Well, give us a minute to talk to ’em and let’s go get you guys out of here,” O’Connor replied.

Bockstanz and Volmering ignored him. As projectiles sailed overhead and struck their cars, Bockstanz took a step forward, pulled the pin on a can of tear gas, and skipped it along the pavement towards the crowd without a warning, right through a line of unmasked Chicago cops.

Bockstanz waved to a Border Patrol SUV to leave and tossed another can of gas as the first one was thrown back, yelling, “Get the fuck out of here” at his colleagues. At the skirmish line, Dubar tossed his canisters into the crowd. Demonstrators began throwing and kicking gas canisters back toward the feds, prompting Vazquez, who had previously been involved in clashes with the public in Southern California and would later use less-lethal weapons on civilians in Minneapolis, to fire a round of tear gas at the fleeing crowd before the agents sped away.

More than a dozen cops and an unknown number of residents were sickened by the tear gas, with three American citizens arrested for “assaulting” federal agents, in addition to the two “deportable” people detained. No criminal charges were filed.

The operation tapered down by mid-November amid a national backlash and a series of adverse legal rulings that restricted the feds’ ability to use less-lethal and crowd-control munitions on civilians. While a key court decision was later overturned, the judge said in her opinion that Border Patrol, ICE, and CBP used force without clear warnings, failed to wear marking insignia, and failed to justify uses of force.

At least 3,800 people were arrested during Operation Midway Blitz as of late last year. More than 2,500 have been deported, and more than a hundred may have been illegally removed from the United States. None of the dozens of people whom BORTAC and BORSTAR agents arrested for alleged assaults or other crimes against them appear to have been convicted.

Six of the BORTAC agents involved in Operation Midway Blitz—Michael Sveum, Dubar, Vazquez, Delgado Jr., Belen Lleras, and Chavez—were involved in immigration enforcement operations in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Charlotte, Boston, and other cities. Vazquez and Sveum used force on angry Minnesotans in the immediate aftermath of Renee Good’s killing, per reporting by Chicago outlet Unraveled. It does not appear that they have faced any internal discipline or criminal charges.

For Brian Kolp, the Chicago lawyer whose Irving Park street was shaken by the October 25 BORTAC raid, the incident had a “radicalizing effect” on him. He still seethes with rage about the masked Border Patrol agents, and has been working overtime to research legal strategies that would hold the feds accountable for brutalizing his neighbors and terrifying their children.

“I’m never gonna be satisfied,” Kolp says, “until there’s some kind of accountability and justice for what happened on my street.”

Additional reporting by Tim Marchman, Matt Giles, Samantha Spengler, and Andrew Couts.

Ali Winston is an independent reporter covering criminal justice, privacy, and extremism. He has written for The New York Times, Rolling Stone, New York magazine and has reported documentaries for BBC Panorama and PBS Frontline. His work has earned several honors, including a George Polk Award for Local Reporting, an ... Read More

Contributor

Maddy Varner is a senior reporter for WIRED. In the past, she was an investigative data journalist at The Markup, where she brought numbers to stories about labor, education and politics. Before The Markup, she was a researcher at ProPublica, where she was on a team that won a Loeb ... Read More

Senior Writer, Investigations

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see BORTAC

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RTX Corp | AFSC Investigate

QUAKERS

BDS SHORTLIST

The world's second-largest military company, formerly known as Raytheon Technologies. It makes missiles, bombs, components for fighter jets, and other weapon systems used by the Israeli military against Palestinian civilians. Its surveillance technology is also used to monitor the U.S.–Mexico border.

Gaza Genocide

Weapons and Military Equipment

Raytheon Technologies Corp, headquartered in Arlington County, Virginia, designs, manufactures, and sells military weapons and equipment, including combat aircraft, avionics, missiles, bombs, battlefield fighting vehicles, and cybersecurity systems. It was formed in 2020 as a merger of Raytheon Company and United Technologies Corporation. The merger made it the world's second-largest military company, with $64.4 billion in revenue as of 2022, 96% of which derives from its defense sector. Among its notable subsidiaries are Collins Aerospace Systems and aircraft engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney.

The company has long supplied U.S. and international militaries with weapon systems and equipment. Between 2008 and 2021, it signed contracts worth $52 billion with the Department of Defense (DOD). Additionally, the company was one of the top contractors of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in the agency's efforts to erect a "smart/virtual" wall on the U.S.–Mexico border between 2005 and 2019 (see below for more details).

War Crimes Against Palestinian Civilians

Surveillance of the US–Mexico Border

Raytheon has been one of the main contractors of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). It was highlighted as one of 14 "giants in the border security business" in a 2019 report by the Transnational Institute and No más Muertes. Between 2005 and 2021, the company held contracts worth $67.9 million with CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for tracking and monitoring devices, satellites, ground sensors, surveillance and radar systems for maritime drones, and other technologies.

Two Raytheon systems are installed in CBP's Guardian Predator B, a maritime variation of General Atomics' MQ-9 Reaper drone. One of the systems, the MTS-B Multi-Spectral Targeting System, is the same technology that is used to guide munitions in killer drones. Although CBP has yet to arm its drones, it has previously considered adding "non-lethal" weapons to its Predator drones in order to "immobilize" people trying to cross the border. In 2013, CBP stated that it did not have plans to arm drones and was using Raytheon's technology only to perform "surveillance and reconnaissance."

The second Raytheon system installed in CBP's Guardian drones is the SeaVue marine search radar, which allows CBP agents to "spot small targets" at sea. The SeaVue system is also installed in CBP's fleet of Lockheed Martin P-3 Orion and Bombardier DHC-8 (Dash-8) planes. CBP acquired at least $33 million of SeaVue radars from Raytheon between 2010 and 2015. In 2023, CBP's budget will include a $10 million increase for its drone program and its continuity of "SeaVue usage."

In addition to patrolling U.S. borders, CBP's aircraft fleet has also been used to assist local law enforcement agencies, including in monitoring civilian protests. In 2020, the Department of Homeland Security deployed its helicopters, airplanes, and drones over at least 15 U.S. cities during protests following the murder of George Floyd. A CBP Predator drone was flown, for example, over Minneapolis. These aircraft logged at least 270 hours of surveillance. Out of 92,800 hours of flight logged by CBP's Air and Marine Operations in 2020, 8,000 hours were spent responding to requests for assistance from law enforcement agencies around the country.

Raytheon also had one major contract with ICE from 2011 to 2013. ICE awarded Raytheon a $45 million contract to develop its Investigative Case Management (ICM) system and allow the agency to collect data and share information across more than 100 databases with local law enforcement agencies in order to surveil, track, report, and detain undocumented people. ICE terminated the contract with Raytheon in 2013 due to delays and hired the software company Palantir to complete the ICM system, which has become the "engine" of the U.S. deportation and detention machine and is critical to ICE's functioning.

Pain/Heat Ray Less-Lethal Weapon

Raytheon's Active Denial System (ADS), nicknamed the "pain ray," was developed for the U.S. Department of Defense for use in Afghanistan and Iraq. A less-lethal directed energy weapon, the pain ray emits targeted radiation that penetrates under the skin and causes an intense burning sensation. According to Physicians for Human Rights, use of the weapon is "disproportionate by design" and introduces "very serious concerns about prolonged exposure, the risk of cellular damage and high degree burns, and the potential for abuse." Since 2010, Raytheon has marketed the ADS, as well as a smaller mobile version called the Silent Guardian, to non-military prison, police, and security authorities.

Raytheon first sold a Silent Guardian weapon, to the Los Angeles County Jail, in 2010. According to the ACLU, introducing this weapon created "a wholly unjustified risk that detainees [would] be needlessly subjected to excessive force -- indeed, a use of force tantamount to torture." In 2013, the company was sued by a man incarcerated at the Los Angeles County Jail who suffered from serious burns and long-term health complications after sheriff's deputies shot him with a Raytheon heat ray weapon.

While there is no evidence of current use of this weapon against civilians, law enforcement has still considered it to be a viable option for use in border policing and crowd-control. In 2018, CBP officials suggested deploying it to prevent asylum seekers from crossing the U.S.–Mexico border. In 2020, a lead military police officer attempted to secure the weapon to disperse protests in Washington, DC, following the police murder of George Floyd. In both cases, the weapon was not ultimately deployed.

Other Controversies

Economic Activism Highlights

Unless specified otherwise, the information in this page is valid as of

29 October 2022

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an 2 26

Past U.S. presidents, both Democratic and Republican, sounded much different at military gatherings than they did at campaign events. When addressing members of the U.S. Armed Forces, they were careful to avoid the type of overtly partisan comments they typically made during campaign speeches.

But MS NOW's Steve Benen, in an opinion column published on February 16, warns that President Donald Trump is ramping up his push to overtly politicize the military.

"When the Republican meanders his way through partisan red meat when speaking at a political rally," Benen explains, "it's tiresome but predictable. When he delivers the same message to active-duty military personnel, it's a qualitatively different kind of story."

Benen cites specific examples of Trump bringing partisan politics to speeches in military settings.

"The president, speaking at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, seemed especially focused on the state's U.S. Senate race, condemning the leading Democratic candidate, former Gov. Roy Cooper, while touting the likely GOP nominee, former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley, who shared the stage with Trump during the on-base political rally," Benen notes. "'You have to vote for us,' Trump told the troops, referring to his party and the 2026 midterm elections. There is no modern precedent for any American president engaging in such radical politicking with active-duty servicemembers, though over the last several months, it's become a more common sight."

The "Rachel Maddow Show" producer continues, "In June, for example, Trump also spoke at Fort Bragg and treated U.S. troops like they were just another MAGA audience, even goading troops to boo Joe Biden, the free press and American elected officials whom the president doesn't like."

Benen points out that during an event celebrating the U.S. Navy’s 250th anniversary, Trump declared, "We have to take care of this little gnat that's on our shoulder called the Democrats."

"An apolitical military is a foundational, bedrock principle of the United States," Benen writes. "Partisan, ideological and electoral considerations must be utterly irrelevant to what the military is and how it functions. It is nevertheless a principle for which Trump appears to have no use, creating an untenable dynamic."

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AN 126 ROBT R

At the same time agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol are swarming into Minnesota and other states and cities, Trump is planning bombing raids on other countries.

Domestically and internationally, he is putting America on a war footing.

ICE is reportedly investing $100 million on what it calls “wartime recruitment” of 10,000 new agents, in addition to the 20,000 already employed. Its recruitment is targeting gun and military enthusiasts, people who listen to right-wing radio, who have gone to Ultimate Fighting Championship fights or shopped for guns and tactical gear, live near military bases, and attend NASCAR races. It’s calling for recruits willing to perform their “sacred duty” and “defend the homeland” by repelling “foreign invaders.”

Meanwhile, Trump has announced that he’ll ask Congress for a $1.5 trillion defense budget for the next fiscal year — a 66 percent increase over the 2026 defense budget Congress just authorized.

There’s coming to be no difference between Trump’s foreign and domestic policies.

Both are based on the same eight maniacal ideas: (1) Might makes right. (2) Law is irrelevant. (3) America is at war with the world’s “radical left,” who are defined chiefly by their opposition to Trump. (4) Fear and force are better weapons in this war than hope and compromise. (5) The U.S. stock market is the best measure of Trump’s success. (6) Personal enrichment by Trump and other officials is justified in pursuit of victory. (7) So are lies, cover-ups, and the illegal use of force. (8) Trump is invincible and omnipotent.

These ideas are at such fundamental odds with the norms most of us share about what America is all about and how a president should think and behave that it’s difficult to accept that Trump believes them or that his White House thugs eagerly endorse them. But he does, and they do.

Rather than some “doctrine” or set of principles, they’re more like guttural discharges. Trump is not rational, and the people around him trying to give him a patina of rationality — his White House assistants and spokespeople — surely know it.

The media tries to confer on Trump a coherence that evaporates almost as soon as it’s stated. The New York Times’s breathless coverage of its recent Oval Office interview with Trump — describing his “many faces” — is a model of such a vapidity.

According to the Times, Trump “took unpredictable turns” during the interview. But instead of seeing this unpredictability as a symptom of Trump’s diminishing capacities and ever-shorter attention span, the Timesreported it as “a tactic he embraces as president, particularly on the world stage. If no one knows what you might do, they often do what you want them to do.”

Attempts to show inconsistencies or hypocrisies in Trump’s domestic or foreign policies are fruitless because they have no consistency or truthfulness to begin with.

Nor is it possible for the media to describe a “big picture” of America and the world under Trump because there is nothing to picture other than his malignant, impulsive, unbridled grandiosity all the way up and all the way down.

Trump has unleashed violence on America’s streets for much the same reason he has unleashed violence on Latin America and is planning to unleash it elsewhere: to display his own strength. His motive is to gain more power and, along the way, more wealth. (On Sunday, he even posted an image referring to himself as the “Acting President of Venezuela.”)

“Policy” implies thought. But under Trump, there is no domestic or foreign policy because it is all thoughtless. It is not even improvised. It is just Trump’s ego — as interpreted by the toadies around him (Miller, Vought, Vance, Kennedy, Rubio, Noem) trying to guess what his ego craves or detests, or fulfilling their own fanatical goals by manipulating it.

We must stop trying to make rational sense out of what Trump is doing. He is a ruthless dictator, plan and simple.

All analyses of what is happening — all reporting, all efforts to understand, all attempts at strategizing — are doomed. The only reality is that an increasingly dangerous and irrational sociopath is now exercising brutal and unconstrained power over America and, hence, the world.

Trump is putting America on a war footing because war is good for him as it is for all dictators. War confers emergency powers. It justifies ignoring the niceties of elections. It allows dictators to imprison and intimidate opponents and enemies. It enables them to create their own personal slush funds. It distracts the public from other things (remember Jeffrey Epstein?).

War gives dictators like Trump more power and more wealth. Period.

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THREAT JAIL PRITZkER CHIC MAYOR

AN 10 25

'Wannabe dictator': Governor dares 'unhinged' Trump to carry out threat to jail him

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an 10 25

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker issued a new warning on Wednesday about President Donald Trump’s efforts to deploy the American military in US cities against the wishes of local elected officials.

Hours after Trump called for Pritzker’s imprisonment in a Wednesday morning Truth Social post, the Illinois governor claimed in an interview with MSNBC that the president’s ultimate goal with sending troops into US cities was to control the outcomes of future elections.

”He wants to militarize major cities across the United States, especially blue cities in blue states, because he wants us to get used to the idea of military on the streets,” he said. “2026 elections, I believe he’s going to post people outside ballot boxes and polling places, and, if he needs to in order to control those elections, he’ll assume control of the ballot boxes and count the votes himself.”

Pritzker pointed out that Trump considered ordering the military to seize ballot boxes after he lost the 2020 presidential election, but he was met with resistance from officials in his own administration.

However, Pritzker said that “I believe he would do it in 2026” to help Republicans maintain control of Congress.

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Pritzker also struck a defiant tone when asked about Trump’s call to imprison him.

”This guy’s a convicted felon who’s threatening to jail me!” he exclaimed. “This guy is unhinged. He’s insecure. He’s a wannabe dictator. And there’s one thing I really want to say to Donald Trump: If you come for my people, you come through me. So come and get me.”

Pritzker’s remarks come as Trump and his administration have deployed Texas National Guard soldiers to Chicago over the objections of both Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. The state and city are challenging the deployment in court.

Federal immigration officials have been employing increasingly aggressive and violent tactics in the Chicago area in recent weeks, including attacking a journalist and a protesting priest with pepper balls outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility; slamming a congressional candidate to the ground; dragging US citizens, including children, out of their homes during a raid in the middle of the night; and fatally shooting a man during a traffic stop.

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hegsCALL ALL SR OFFICERS TO MTG 9 25TRUMP ENEMY WITHIN, INVASION FROM WITHIN, USE DEM CITIES TO TRAIN SOLDIERS TO KILL, PETE SAYS = MISSION

women recruit bd set up by truman cut 9 25

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AN COMM DR 10 25

Top Trump administration adviser Stephen Miller was accused of spreading dangerous “propaganda” Saturday night regarding the federal judge who ruled that the White House could not deploy 200 National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon.

The White House deputy chief of staff accused US District Judge Karin Immergut, who was appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term, of “legal insurrection” after she found that the president’s claims about violent protests at a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland were “untethered to facts,” and that residents’ expressions of opposition to ICE do not meet the high legal standard for calling the National Guard.

Miller claimed authorities in Oregon and Portland are aiding “an organized terrorist attack on the federal government and its officers” by refusing to aid ICE agents, and claimed Immergut was attempting to assume the role of “commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces” by siding with state officials and issuing a temporary restraining order blocking the National Guard deployment, which was expected to begin this weekend.

Immergut said the state had provided “substantial evidence that the protests at the Portland ICE facility were not significantly violent or disruptive in the days—or even weeks—leading up to the president’s directive.”

Portland residents who oppose Trump’s mass deportation agenda began holding nightly demonstrations at the ICE facility over the summer, with some trying to block vehicles from entering and exiting the property. Crowds have dispersed quickly during the daytime, while at night federal officers have sometimes used tear gas and other weapons to move people away from the building. The Portland police have reported 27 arrests since early June at the protests, and at least two dozen people have been arrested by federal officers.

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While the president has described Portland as “war-ravaged,” Immergut said that the protests fall far below the threshold for ordering federal troops to Portland, which the president has the authority to do only in times of foreign invasion, a rebellion, or when local authorities are unable to maintain order.

“The protests have been such a minor issue that the normal nightlife in downtown Portland has required more police resources than the ICE facility,” said Immergut.

The judge added that the US “has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs... This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: This is a nation of constitutional law, not martial law. Defendants have made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power—to the detriment of the nation.”

Miller’s accusation that Immergut was taking part in a “legal insurrection” by rejecting Trump’s false claims about the nature of the protests was “reckless,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“It’s authoritarian propaganda, plain and simple. Stephen Miller should be fired,” said the Democrat.

New York Timescolumnist David French added that Miller’s claims put Immergut in potential danger, as right-wing counterprotesters have arrived in Portland in recent days.

Immergut’s temporary order is set to expire in two weeks, but she is expected to rule on the state’s request for a more permanent injunction barring the deployment of the National Guard.

The Trump administration on Saturday night appealed Immergut’s ruling to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which previously ruled that Trump could send the National Guard to Los Angeles to stop anti-ICE protests after a federal judge had decided that deployment should be halted.

In addition to seeking the National Guard deployment, the administration has reportedly discussed sending the Army’s 82nd Airborne division, which is typically deployed in hostile foreign territory, into Portland.

On Saturday, Miller repeated claims that “there is a large and growing movement of left-wing terrorism in this country” that is “well organized and funded” and ”shielded by far-left Democrat judges.” Immergut is a Republican.

“The only remedy is to use legitimate state power to dismantle terrorism and terror networks,” said Miller.

Since the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk last month, the president and his allies have insisted that left-wing groups are fomenting violence, with Trump signing an executive order falsely claiming he has the authority to designate “antifa” as a “domestic terrorist organization”—despite the fact that no “antifa” organization exists.

The president also signed National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), which mandates a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”

On Saturday, Miller said on Newsmax that the administration intends to apply NSPM-7 in Portland, initiating investigations into what he called a “domestic terrorist network” whenever federal agents make an arrest at a protest.

Miller, said investigative reporter Jim Stewartson, “collapsed Democrats, ‘far-left Democrat judges’, and ‘antifa’ into a single domestic terror threat as a pretext for mass arrests.”

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no lnx

Dictators have a playbook — but the media seems oblivious to it

Thom Hartmann

October 03, 2025

Most jobs have a “playbook,” a sort of instruction manual or checklist for how to do the job right, whether it’s running an assembly line, piloting an aircraft, or redoing a house’s plumbing.

Although our media seems oblivious to it, dictators have a playbook, too.

It’s one that’s been carefully followed in recent times by Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Rodrigo Duterte, Jair Bolsonaro, and numerous initially-elected leaders of other smaller nations. In previous generations the Dictator’s Playbook was followed, step-by-step, by Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, Ferdinand Marcos, Agustin Pinochet, Josef Stalin, and Hideki Tojo (among others).

And now it’s being followed by Donald Trump and JD Vance, who are a bit more than halfway through the list. Trump’s speech on Tuesday before our assembled generals and admirals — telling them they should use our American cities as “training grounds” for the military whose job is to “kill people and break things” — is getting us closer to the final steps.

“We are under invasion from within,” Trump said, “no different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways, because they don’t wear uniforms. … We’re under invasion from within.”}:

And who is this enemy that’s so bad, so evil, that Trump just declared war against? He was explicit that the “enemies” are his political opponents and average people who live in our big cities:

“The ones that are run by the radical left Democrats ... what they’ve done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they’re very unsafe places. And we’re going to straighten them out one by one. This is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war too. It’s a war from within.”}:

What’s most astonishing about the reporting on this meeting is that none of the media I follow have even once mentioned that militarizing the nation’s cities is one of the most significant steps in the Dictator’s Playbook.

Combine that with the demand for absolute loyalty to the Dear Leader — Trump told the generals “If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room” THEN ThREateded their careers? — and he’s declared himself the absolute ruler of America wielding the most lethal military in the history of the world against our nation’s own citizens.

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow recently laid out five moves that dictators reliably make.

First, they identify an internal enemy to blame for social ills; Trump has spent years turning immigrants, big cities, and universities into scapegoats. Now, like every dictator listed above has done, he’s claiming that the opposition political party, the Democrats, are an “enemy within.”

Second, they turn security forces inward, exactly what Trump’s new call for turning our military against our cities represents. The moment a dictator turns military forces built to destroy foreign adversaries against his own people, the rest of the transformation becomes easier.}:

Third, they criminalize dissent and protest, insisting that when people show up in the streets it is not constitutionally protected free speech and the right “peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances” but a security “threat” to be crushed rather than heard and responded to.}:

Fourth, they intimidate or capture the press and punish truth-telling, as we’re seeing now with rightwing billionaires capturing virtually every major traditional and social media source in America.

Fifth, they seize control of independent institutions like universities, law firms, or the civil service to eliminate any professional standards that interfere with Dear Leader’s will.}:

Overlay that list with the work of historians and political scientists like Timothy Snyder, Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Jason Stanley, and M. Gessen. Their research on how democracies die all point to the same ingredients:

Deny or rewrite election results to delegitimize democracy itself.}:

Declare political opponents enemies of the state.}:

Turn independent institutions like the Department of Justice, the civil service, and the military into personal tools.}:

Flood the public square with lies so thoroughly (Steve Bannon proudly called it “flooding the zone with ----") that reality itself becomes negotiable.}:

Tolerate or celebrate political violence on behalf of the dictator, and demonize violence against his followers and mouthpieces as sedition and treason.

Demand personal loyalty instead of constitutional duty.}:

Invoke a mythic past and promise national rebirth if only the strongman is given total sovereignty.:

Use his office to rapidly enrich himself and his family while creating a patronage network of loyalists who owe their fortunes to him.}:

There is also the money. Autocrats rarely forget to convert state power into private wealth. Trump’s hotels, golf courses, and commercial properties brought in millions from foreign governments during his first time in office, as documented by House Oversight Committee findings.

His son-in-law Jared Kushner secured a two-billion-dollar investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund almost immediately after leaving the White House. Ivanka Trump picked up fast-tracked Chinese trademarks while advising her father in government.

Kleptocracy is not a side effect of authoritarianism or fascism: it’s essential, particularly when some of that fortune is shared with those willing to break the law to support Dear Leader. So far, according to reporting, Trump and his family have made at least $5 billion from his 9-month-long presidency. It’s a core feature of the Dictator’s Playbook.

And when people protest the theft of the nation’s resources and the personal enrichment based on handing out favors, dictators go after them in the most brutal ways imaginable. It begins with investigations, but never ends there. Just look at what he’s doing to James Comey and Miles Taylor.

And now Trump has issued a National Security Presidential Memorandum that essentially says Democrats, atheists, Muslims, Jews, socialists, and queer people are terrorists. Not because of anything they’ve done, but because of who they are or what they believe.

It directs the FBI, DOJ, and over 200 Joint Terrorism Task Forces coordinated with police forces across the country to investigate anybody who meet it’s “indica” (indicators) of potential terrorism. They include, as Ken Klippenstein reported:

“[A]nti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, support for the overthrow of the United States Government, extremism on migration, extremism on race, extremism on gender, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.”

Do any of those sound like you? If Trump and Republicans continue down this road, get ready to have your life turned upside down as they tear apart your social media profiles, search your email and postal mail, surveil you, and one day bang on your door in the middle of the night.

And you don’t have to have actually done a thing. Trump’s order explicitly calls on the FBI and local police coordinating with them to “intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”

To go after you before you do anything, based entirely on who you are, who you love, what you believe, and what you say.

That is not the America our Founders, or the men and women who’ve fought and died to keep us free for 249 years, envisioned. And, again, the mainstream media almost entirely missed it while rightwing media ignored it altogether. Even though one day it may be directed against them if they say or do anything to offend Trump or his henchmen.

When Trump told the generals he would remove anyone who does not “agree with everything I say,” he also embraced the logic of tyrants who treat disagreement as insubordination.

Democracies rely on officers sworn to the Constitution, not to one man. Trump is trying to undo that distinction. He’s demanding personal loyalty backed by the threat of firing, demotion, or public shaming. Civilian control of the military that George Washington and James Madison insisted on becomes a hollow phrase when the civilian in charge demands the military serve his whims.

What once sounded like fringe rhetoric is now proclaimed loudly to the uniformed leadership of the United States. The generals who heard him are not hypothetical. They command forces, oversee operations, and embody the principle that the military does not exist to occupy American streets.

The notion that they should roll tanks into urban neighborhoods to harden troops for foreign war is not law enforcement: it’s preparation for ruling America by force, a force that may well be preparing for the November 2026 elections.

This is the kind of moment historians point back to later with disbelief. The warnings have been clear for years, but now the mask is off.

Even though our media insists on ignoring it, the Dictator’s Playbook has always included using a nation’s biggest cities as the stage for demonstrating power. It’s always required replacing officers and officials who follow the laws and traditions of a nation with loyalists who obey without question. It’s always depended on turning people against one another so Dear Leader and his lickspittles can step in as the only source of safety or authority.

Nobody can say this is a surprise: Trump pretty much campaigned on exactly what he’s doing now, and people from former intelligence, military, and FBI leaders to scholars of fascism warned us this was coming if Republicans suppressed enough votes for him to win. (Without the GOP having prevented 4.2 million registered citizen voters from voting or having their votes counted, Kamala Harris would have won and the House and Senate would today be under Democratic control).

The question now is whether Americans will accept a president who treats their hometowns as battle simulations and sees disagreement by generals and agency leaders as an offense punishable by firing, imprisonment, or exile.

As I point out in my new book The Last American President, it’ll depend on whether we’ll stand up and speak out. Or whether, like our media and so many universities, law firms, media outlets, and giant corporations, we’ll cower in fear and submit to Trump’s demands.

That is not law and order, and it’s not democracy in a free republic. It’s the language of autocracy that yesterday was spoken out loud in front of the armed forces of the United States and is echoed every time Trump attacks a reporter, media outlet, or one of his many “enemies.”

Will American democracy survive this onslaught, straight out of the Dictator’s Playbook? To a large extent, that will depend on you, me, and our elected officials summoning the courage to resist and protest loudly. And our media to call it out for what it is.

The clock is ticking, and these guys are racing for the finish line.

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MMA

September 25, 2025, edition of Vigilance Elite's The Shawn Ryan Show

SHAWN RYAN (HOST): What does it look like if they get into, I mean — I don't even know what we would call it here. I was just gonna call it a TIC, a troops in contact. But I mean, you know, with the MS-13 gangs, the cartels, the Bloods, the Crips, I mean, you know, Hell's Angels, I don't know. You know, there's gang members all over the place, you know, tons of different gangs — I mean, what does it look like if MS-13 pushes back against the National Guard and happens to fire upon them? I mean, do they have ROEs or?

DANIEL DRISCOLL (SECRETARY OF THE ARMY): Yeah, I mean, I think, I think they would see the full might and fury of our United States Army. They would see the full might and fury of the most powerful government in the history of the world. And, I think the president and secretary of war have been very clear that we — they are taking a hard line, and that kind of violence is no longer acceptable in our nation.

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mma

Fox News embeds with feds bringing the war on terror to Trump’s invasion of Chicago

The military created its modern embed program to sell the post-9/11 wars. Now, as Trump unleashes his deportation machine on Chicago and beyond, Fox News is along for the ride.

Written by John Knefel

Published09/17/25

Men in military fatigues loitered out of focus as Fox News national correspondent Griff Jenkins, in an understated, earth-toned shirt, somberly described the launch of a new, multi-agency operation in a city one of his colleagues had recently described as “a war zone.” Jenkins was on what Fox anchor Bill Hemmer referred to as an “exclusive ride-along,” embedded with militarized forces in tactical gear as they — in the words of their top commander — went hunting.

“Operation Midway Blitz is fully underway,” Jenkins intoned during the September 9 segment. “They are surging in this elite team of ICE agents behind me, just moments ago executed a criminal arrest warrant for an illegal Mexican agent.”

Although Jenkins was in Chicago, not the outskirts of Baghdad in 2003, the optics couldn’t have been any clearer if former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were holding a special deck of 55 cards. Operation Midway Blitz was MAGA’s updated take on Operation Iraqi Freedom’s “shock and awe,” and compliant media were along for the ride.

As former President George W. Bush launched his global war on terror after the attacks on 9/11, the U.S. military modernized its approach to journalistic access and created an embed program — attaching reporters to front-line units with the ultimate goal of selling the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. While journalists had a modicum of freedom from military censorship during the Vietnam War, which resulted in negative coverage that the brass blamed for the U.S. failure there, the model was different by 2003.

The new approach was to stymie critical reporting before it went public, what some researchers refer to as a “precensorship” regime. The predictable result was coverage that legitimized the Iraq War and deemphasized stories that centered on Iraqi victims and exposed the horrors of the occupation.

Now, Fox News and the Trump administration are bringing that paradigm to U.S. cities as the wars on terror, drugs, and immigrants congeal into an all-purpose authoritarian campaign on domestic soil.

Trump hasn’t deployed National Guard troops to Chicago yet, though he has repeatedly made that threat. His new target is Memphis, Tennessee, in part because Republican Gov. Bill Lee supports the effort, which will include other federal agencies as well. Operation Midway Blitz, on the other hand, is an element of Trump’s mass deportation campaign, which is spearheaded by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The stakes for Trump’s militarized approach were made plain on September 12, when an ICE agent shot and killed a man after a vehicle stop just outside Chicago.

Jenkins’ report was filed three days earlier, but it clearly showed how such stops and arrests can quickly escalate.

Video

Citation

From the September 9, 2025, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom

“Take a look at this video,” Jenkins said, describing the violent detention of a Chicago resident. “Early they captured him coming out of his house. He got into his vehicle and tried to hide in there.”

“The ICE agents were forced to break the window and extract him,” Jenkins continued over footage of agents wearing camouflage and body armor — some in masks — throwing the man to the ground and handcuffing him.

“Griff, you saw some action — immediately,” Hemmer said to close out the segment.

Fox News helped bring the war on terror to the southern border

Jenkins’s stunt represents an escalation from Fox News in that it imposes the logic and aesthetics of foreign war reporting on a major U.S. city, but the network has a long history of working alongside armed agents of the state to produce what are essentially press releases, most recently as it pertains to immigration enforcement.

The parallels between the heady days of the George W. Bush administration and Trump’s second term are everywhere, for those curious to look.

As the industrial base of the war on terror evolved to focus on the U.S. southern border, so too did the complimentary media coverage. The center of gravity for the right’s national security priorities shifted from places like Fallujah to places like Texas’ Eagle Pass, and Fox News reporters and producers could titillate their audiences with dramatic, war-like footage much closer to home.

Fox’s Bill Melugin, who served for years as a border correspondent, frequently embeds with ICE units and state law enforcement like the Texas Department of Public Safety. Like Fox’s recent Chicago footage, Melugin’s coverage has served to reinforce the right-wing argument that the border was a war zone where only a militarized response would suffice.

Melugin’s own reporting helps illustrate how the war on terror metastasized to fit the needs of the Republican Party — and Fox News — in the Trump era. As Media Matters previously reported:

Melugin was the key driver of one of the biggest immigration stories of 2021, the perceived crisis of Haitian migrants who had established a small camp under the International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas. There was a crisis, but it was for the Haitians who were relegated to extreme deprivation, humiliation, and stigma — not for the residents of Del Rio or for the United States more broadly.

Melugin initially used an airborne drone to cover the story, later appearing on Tucker Carlson Tonight repeatedly to discuss his footage. When the Federal Aviation Administration instituted a two-week flight restriction over Del Rio, the Texas Department of Public Safety allowed him to embed in an agency helicopter to continue his coverage. The FAA later gave Fox clearance to fly the drone again, which Melugin did, keeping the manufactured crisis in the headlines.

…

He regularly refers to families as “family units,” the official, and dehumanizing, term used by the Department of Homeland Security. His reports often sound like he’s on safari, hunting prey. “Just a short time ago we had a group of runners come zipping right by us,” he said in November. “We found two of those runners hiding in a bush. Very difficult to see them.” Later in the segment, Melugin referenced a “remarkable” video published by far-right website Breitbart that showed a man trying to sink rafts migrants were using to cross the Rio Grande.

In April 2022, Melugin co-bylined an article warning that “Border Patrol apprehended at least 23 people coming across the southern border whose names are on the terror watchlist in 2021.” The story served as the basis for at least seven segments the day it was published, part of a longrunning and false right-wing narrative that terrorists were widely attempting to infiltrate the United States through the southern border.

Fox News makes the war on terror great again

Jenkins’ embed is play-acting, another form of threat inflation that simultaneously casts Chicago as a war zone — despite the city’s historically low rates of gun violence — and Trump as its liberator. His performance is an attempt to legitimize Trump’s campaign, and to naturalize the full importation of war on terror logic to U.S. streets. Beyond Chicago, Fox has supported Trump’s threats to other cities, including sending in troops to Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and New York City.

And if Melugin’s vague fearmongering about terrorists at the border in the early 2020s felt like an afterimage of the 9/11 era, Fox’s coverage of the first six months of Trump’s second term is more like a targeting scope coming into focus. The parallels between the heady days of the George W. Bush administration and Trump’s second term are everywhere, for those curious to look.

The war on terror is back, and this time it's wearing a bright red MAGA hat.

Fox anchor Harris Faulkner recently echoed Bush’sformulation that “either you are with us or with the terrorists” when she responded to Trump’s extrajudicial killing of 11 people on a boat off the coast of Venezuela on September 2. Addressing critics of Trump’s order, Faulkner asked: “Are they working against America and for the drug cartels?” (Trump has since targeted a second boat, killing three people, and claims to have “knocked off” a third without offering further details.)

Fox celebrated the initial strike itself and has been pushing for military escalation in Venezuela — up to and including regime change. The playbook is so familiar Fox’s Jesse Watters reanimated one of the key phrases used to sell the invasion of Iraq. “That drugged out dinghy was a floating weapon of mass destruction packed with enough poison to kill countless Americans,” Watters said on September 3.

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From the September 3, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

A range of Fox personalities celebrated Trump’s decision just days after taking office to send people to Guantanamo Bay, perhaps the defining symbol of both the beginning of the war on terror and its seeming permanence. Pete Hegseth, the former Fox & Friends Weekend co-host now serving as Trump’s secretary of the newly renamed Department of War, deployed to the Guantanamo detention camp with the National Guard following 9/11. Two decades later, he returned there in his official capacity “to speak to service members who are currently supporting the illegal alien holding operations being led by the Department of Homeland Security.”

The war on terror is back, and this time it's wearing a bright red MAGA hat. But for those not attached — in every sense of the word — to the government forces currently terrorizing U.S. cities, it’s clear the war never even ended at all.

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September 5, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Faulkner Focus

HARRIS FAULKNER (ANCHOR): We begin with this Fox News alert. The Trump administration ramping up its mission to stop narco-terrorists who are bringing in deadly drugs to the United States. Now he has slowed things down to a crawl at the border. So that has helped. But we have a tremendous amount of things coming into the country in other ways. I mean, you know, they are being pushed from China, we know that. That's where the original sourcing is. The Pentagon is reportedly deploying ten advanced fighter jets to Puerto Rico now to join the fight against the drug cartels. Those jets will join a growing military build-up into the Caribbean. So I want to get into how this is still getting into the country. We will. I'm Harris Faulkner. You are in the Faulkner focus.

This week the U.S. Military took out a vessel the administration says was carrying Venezuelan gang members and drugs. It's hard to believe that that wouldn't be a good thing for everybody — because it is. Somebody's not really telling the truth on this. Under a Trump administration, the people on the left and the legacy media say this is a bad thing. Why?

...

FAULKNER: I love that part about: It feels to me. That's not exactly how any of this works. So are they just fooling around on the left or do they realize what they actually sound like? Are they working against America and for the drug cartels with their support? These are questions they need to answer.

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As the Trump administration continues to push the boundaries of centuries-old constraints on domestic power, the Pentagon is reportedly developing a multi-million-dollar plan to create a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force”—armed with weapons and riot gear, ready to be deployed instantaneously to quell civil unrest anywhere in the nation.

An exclusive Washington Post report reveals that two National Guard teams of hundreds of troops, designed to be ready around the clock, would be stationed on opposite sides of the country, able to cross state lines on command.

“The plan calls for 600 troops to be on standby at all times so they can deploy in as little as one hour, the documents say. They would be split into two groups of 300 and stationed at military bases in Alabama and Arizona, with purview of regions east and west of the Mississippi River, respectively,” the Post reported on Tuesday.

READ MORE: Trump Melts Down Over Elizabeth Warren’s Accusations

The price tag? Potentially hundreds of millions of dollars.

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The Post calls it “another potential expansion of President Donald Trump’s willingness to employ the armed forces on American soil,” and notes that once again, the Trump administration is on “shaky” legal ground.

Legal experts are warning against the plan.

“You don’t want to normalize routine military participation in law enforcement,” Joseph Nunn, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice, told the Post. “You don’t want to normalize routine domestic deployment.”

“When you have this tool waiting at your fingertips, you’re going to want to use it,” Nunn added. “It actually makes it more likely that you’re going to see domestic deployments — because why else have a task force?”

READ MORE: ‘All of Christ for All of Life’: Hegseth Under Fire for Endorsing Christian Nationalist

The news follows President Trump’s unprecedented decision on Monday to federalize the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police force to combat what he claims is out-of-control violence, despite the nation’s capital city having decreased violent crime by double digits in 2024 and again in the first half of 2025.

In response to the Post’s report on Tuesday, The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol noted, “So of course it’s not just D.C.”

Former constitutional law professor David Wemhoff, now the editor of The American Proposition, wrote that President Trump’s “purpose is to crush, fight Americans. He has no interest in fighting much less opposing China and Russia.”

“Ah, yes,” remarked former Trump national security official Miles Taylor, “nothing says ‘land of the free’ like a standing army ready to put down the people who disagree with you.”

Progressive researcher Derek Martin, formerly of the National Security Agency (NSA), commented: “President Trump is so afraid of protests he’s preparing to use the military to suppress them. Only tyrants think this way.”

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August 11, 2025, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show, streamed on Rumble

CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): This is President Donald Trump saying once we liberate DC — and by the way, I guarantee the crime's gonna go whoop. It's gonna go way down.

And then the media will say, oh, it's only going down because he brought in the military. Exactly. We need full military occupation of these cities until the crime desists. Period.

We need a desisting of crime in our cities. We're not gooing to put up with it. I want to be able to walk Magnificent Mile in Chicago without having to look over my shoulder. Do you know crime is so bad in Chicago that if you get a fender bender — there's a new thing that the youths are doing. Remember, we have a big teenage problem of crime in our country, that teenagers will bang the back of your car as a fender bender. You come out to go trade insurance, and then they steal your car. In Chicago, the new guidance is that if you get a fender bender, drive to the nearest police station to trade insurance just in case they're there to steal your car. It's a real thing. It's happening all the time. By the way, get a burner. We advertise it all the time here on our program.

I don't want to live in that country. You shouldn't either. Simple fix. You steal a car, 25 years in prison. I don't care if you're a teenager. I don't care if — well, I was raised without a dad. Well, you're going to go meet a new dad in jail. We're done. We're not putting up with it. We need more prisons, and we need more prisoners.

:{:{Enough of this — and I honestly you know, I was once part of this whole prison reform thing. I look back at it, and I just cringe at myself. It's a totally wrong premise. We are soft on crime in this country. We need discipline. We need — honestly, we need the humiliation of criminals. We need order. You don't live in a nation if you can't walk the streets of San Francisco at night. You don't live in a country when young teenage girls can't walk the streets of LA. How is that a free society? You are appeasing the criminals.}:

Stop coddling criminals because they happen to be a protected class. We don't believe in protected classes anymore, by the way. We're done with that. Game over. No more protected classes. We are all citizens made in the image of God. Oh, you're protected class because, you know, different skin color. Wrong. That regime was defeated back in November. That whole worldview was gone. Over. Done. Kaput. Sayonara. Instead, a new worldview has ascended, which is we're not going to make accommodations for criminals. We're going through mass deportations. If you're Black and commit a crime, you go to jail. If you're white and you commit a crime, you go to jail. Human equality, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter your background. We are all treated equal under the law, and that is a biblical principle.}:

So once we liberate Washington DC, and we will liberate it. Now, again, I want to say, President Donald Trump, he's gotta go play to win here. The one piece of caution we'd have to say is that if we just kind of do this symbolically, we will lose. The criminals will win. We got to go hard. We gotta go big league. We're talking national guard, tanks — every street, you need military.

And if people are afraid, oh, well, Donald Trump is a fascist because he's bringing the military. Well, you're an anarchist. We're not fascist. We're order. Call them a name right back. You're an anarchist. You want the criminals, the thugs, the gang members, and the worst of society to run the streets of DC. We're not going to put up with it.

By the way, spare me the lecture. You guys militarized Washington DC after January 6, but you wouldn't move them a couple blocks north to the criminals because you acted as if, oh, all the people in on January 6 are the greatest threat ever because they went in with a pocket Constitution to go say a prayer in the US Capitol. Once we liberate DC, you better believe it — Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco. We got a big military. We should be willing to use it.

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New reporting based on a leaked briefing memo from a recent meeting between high-level officials at the Department of Homeland Security and Defense Department sparked fresh warnings on Saturday about the Trump administration's internal plans to increase its domestic use of the U.S. military.

According to Greg Sargent of The New Republic, which obtained the memo, the document "suggests that Trump's use of the military for domestic law enforcement on immigration could soon get worse."

The "terrifying" memo—which the outlet recreated and published online with certain redactions that concealed operational and personnel details—"provides a glimpse into the thinking of top officials as they seek to involve the Defense Department more deeply in these domestic operations, and it has unnerved experts who believe it portends a frightening escalation."

Circulated internally among top Trump officials, TNR reports the memo was authored by Philip Hegseth, the younger brother of U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. The younger sibling, though lesser known by the public than his controversial brother, currently serves as a senior adviser to Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem and acts as DHS liaison officer to the Pentagon.

The meeting between DoD and DHS officials and the memo centers on Philip Hegseth's push for closer collaboration between the two departments, especially with regard to operations on the ground, like those that happened earlier this year in Los Angeles when National Guard units and later U.S. Marines were deployed in the city to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and local law enforcement put down local protests sparked by raids targeting immigrants and workers.

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As Sargent noted in a social media post:

Strikingly, the memo says straightforwardly that what happened in Los Angeles is the sort of operation that may be necessary "for years to come." As one expert told me: "They see Los Angeles as a model to be replicated."

"To Make America Safe Again, DHS and DoD will need to be in lockstep with each other, and I hope today sets the scene for where our partnership is headed," states the memo, which also compares transnational criminal gangs and drug cartels to Al Qaeda.

Lindsay Cohn, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College, was among the experts TNR spoke with who called that comparison particularly worrying. "The conflation of a low-level threat like transnational criminal organizations with Al Qaeda, which was actually attempting to topple the United States government, is a clear attempt to use excessive force for a purpose normally handled by civil authorities," said Cohn.

Sociology professor Kim Lane Scheppele, a scholar who studies the rise of autocracy at Princeton University, was among those who raised alarm in response to the published reporting and the contents of the memo.

"Here it comes," wrote Kim Lane Scheppele. "The worst we've been waiting for."

According to TNR:

The memo outlines the itinerary for a July 21 meeting between senior DHS and Pentagon officials, with the goal of better coordinating the agencies' activities in "defense of the homeland." It details goals that Philip Hegseth hopes to accomplish in the meeting and outlines points he wants DHS officials to impress on Pentagon attendees.Participants listed comprise the very top levels of both agencies, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and several of his top advisers, Joint Chiefs chairman Dan Caine, and NORTHCOM Commander Gregory Guillot. Staff include Phil Hegseth and acting ICE commissioner Todd Lyons.

"Due to the sensitive nature of the meeting, minimal written policy or background information can be provided in this briefing memo," the memo says.

Joseph Nunn, counsel for the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told TNR it was "disturbing to see DHS officials pressuring the U.S. military to turn its focus inward even further." Nunn added that the memo suggests that "military involvement in domestic civilian law enforcement" is set to become "more common" if the policy recommendations put forth by Phillip Hegseth take hold.

Following publication of his reporting, Sargent said he wanted to flag something specific for readers.

"It looks plausible that the Hegseth brothers are trying to push military leaders further on involving military in domestic law enforcement," he noted. "Two experts I spoke with read the memo that way. There may be a bigger story here to get."

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Home | Trump just got a wake up call as he tries to escalate his war on defiance

Sabrina Haake, Raw Story June 15, 2025

Ever since he was ignominiously blocked from shooting George Floyd protesters, Donald Trump has been itching to sic the military on U.S. citizens. Seizing California’s National Guard and sending U.S. Marines into Los Angeles to deliberately escalate violence brings his long-festering fever dream closer to life.

Trump’s former Defense Secretary Mark Esper has recounted how, during a White House meeting in 2020, Trump looked at Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and asked why he couldn’t just shoot protesters, adding, “It was (both) a suggestion and a formal question. And we were just all taken aback at that moment as this issue hung very heavily in the air.”

Milley pushed back on that suggestion and other illegal Trump impulses, eventually leading Trump to call for Milley’s execution and revoke his security detail. During Trump 1.0, Trump apparently suggested shooting protesters enough times that Esper issued a public statement opposing the use of the Insurrection Act against protesters, enraging Trump.

Trump made sure that would not happen again in his second administration by appointing a dangerously unqualified defense secretary with few moral qualms. As a Fox News host, Pete Hegseth echoed Trump’s desire to deploy the military against protesters. He defended war criminals who ‘killed the right people in the wrong ways,’ advocating “total war against our enemies… All of ’em, you stack bodies, and when it’s over, then you let the dust settle and you figure out who’s ahead.”

A trillion-dollar defense budget to kill whom, exactly?

Even though the U.S. is not at war, and Trump has shamefully abandoned our NATO military alliances, Hegseth waxes hard on “lethality,” and rails against “woke” laws that punish soldiers for indiscriminate killings. Trump/Hegseth seek a trillion-dollar defense budget, not to defend America from foreign enemies who are now Trump’s mentors, but to attack “enemies within,” i.e., Americans who oppose Trump’s agenda.

None of this, including Trump’s deliberate escalation of violence in LA, was unforeseen. Who can forget how Kamala Harris was panned as histrionic when she said Trump would sic the military on U.S. citizens, following his promise to do just that? In October, 2024, Trump said he’d use the military against the biggest threat to America — Americans who don’t support him.

“I think the (main problem we face) is the enemy from within,” Trump said, adding: “We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

Both he and Hegseth have already weeded out military officers who would honor their oaths to the Constitution over illegal orders from Trump. This week, Hegseth inadvertently confirmed that the military, under Trump, will become a domestic force when he testified before Congress, saying, “We’re entering another phase, especially under President Trump with his focus on the homeland, where the National Guard and Reserves become a critical component of how we secure that homeland.”

It’s galling that no congressman has connected the dots and asked about explosive military spending that Trump/Hegseth have signaled will be used against Americans.

Dubious legal grounds

As of this writing, Trump has not declared martial law, but recent Trump history, paired with his glaring mental illness, suggests it’s “when,” not “if.”

Trump’s plan to use troops to impose his domestic agenda is decidedly un-American. Today it includes deportations and manufacturing civil unrest; tomorrow, Trump’s goons will round up journalists who criticize him, judges, Democrats, and political opponents, as just happened Thursday when Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) was tackled to the ground for trying to ask Kristi Noem questions.

If you have any doubt, watch Trump’s illegal and partisan address at Ft. Bragg, where he led troops in uniform to wildly “boo” journalists, California’s governor, and LA’s mayor. If you have any lingering naivety, still hoping soldiers will honor their oaths and not follow America’s Hitler, that speech will erase it.

For now, Trump is acting in LA pursuant to a presidential memorandum deploying the National Guard under a rarely used federal law, 10U.S.C.§12406. Under that code, a president possesses the power to federalize the National Guard only when there is “a rebellion or danger of rebellion” against federal authority, or when the president cannot execute federal laws. As Trump sees it, this assessment depends on his own untrained and undisciplined opinion. Under that statute, however, the National Guard can only support other law enforcement officers and defend federal property.

The Posse Comitatus Act also remains in effect, prohibiting the use of the military as a domestic law enforcement agency, except in extraordinary circumstances not yet present in LA despite Trump’s best efforts. The Insurrection Act of 1807, the authority under which Hegseth sent active Marines to LA, is a broader set of statutes granting Trump the power to use military force in specific circumstances, including suppressing armed rebellion, civil disorder, or other extreme circumstances where the states are unable to maintain public order.

Gov. Gavin Newsom formally objected to Trump sending troops, because California in general, and LAPD in particular, have sufficient resources to maintain order. Newsom knows that when US Marines start shooting civilians, whether in LA, Chicago, or New York, violence will ratchet up to the necessary threshold to circumvent Posse Comitatus and allow Trump to declare martial law.

Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her columns are found @ Alternet, Chicago Tribune, Howey Political Report, Indiana Democrats’ Kernel of Truth, Inside Indiana Business, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story,Salon,Smart News, South Florida Gay News, State Affairs, and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

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In his 2022 book "The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future," Canadian journalist/author Stephen Marche argued that the U.S. was on its way to becoming a far-right dictatorship. And his view of the United States' political environment hasn't grown any more optimistic since then.

Marche, in an op-ed published by The Guardian on June 16, points to the weekend of June 14-15 as a troubling demonstration of the "political violence" that is accelerating in the U.S. And he views President Donald Trump's military/birthday parade as an example of threatening imagery.

"Do not confuse Trump's debased parade with a joke or an innocent piece of entertainment," Marche warns. "The Trump parade took place in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Melissa Hortman, a Minnesota state representative. While it was underway, security forces were firing teargas on protesters in Los Angeles. Violence is coming to define American political life — spectacular violence, including the parade and real violence like the assassination of Hortman."

READ MORE:'We held our ground: CA health clinic describes close encounter with Trump's agents

Marche continues, "Political destabilization is arriving far too quickly to be perceived in its entirety. So much is happening so fast that it’s impossible to keep track of the decline. Increasingly, the question is becoming: when are we going to start calling this what it is?"

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According to Marche, "American political life" is "moving away from discourse altogether."

"Don't like what the senators of the other party are saying? Handcuff them," Marche laments. "Don't like protestors? Send in the Marines. Don't like the makeup of the House of Representatives in Minnesota? Kill the top Democrat."

The Canadian journalist/author adds, "The political purpose of the parade, from Trump's point of view, was to demonstrate his mastery of the means of violence. He needed to show, to the military and to the American people both, that he can make the army do what he tells it, and established traditions and the rule of law will not alter his will. But the primary effect of the parade was to demonstrate an immense weakness, in Trump and in the American people."

READ MORE:Trump and the 2020 election: We’re witnessing the rewriting of history in the making

*Stephen Marche's full op-ed for The Guardian is available at this link.

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Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of remaining in office after his second term ends in 2029. Since the 22nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1951, no U.S. president has challenged the two-term limit it established.

However, attempts to circumvent constitutional term limits are not unprecedented elsewhere.

Virtually every country in Latin America has enshrined constitutional term limits as a safeguard against tyranny. These rules vary: some allow only a single term, some permit two, while others enable non-consecutive re-election. Yet several presidents have managed to defy these provisions.

Recent examples include Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador.

Although the institutional norms and political cultures of these countries differ from those of the U.S., examining how term limits have been dismantled offers valuable insights into how any similar efforts by Trump might unfold.

How presidents have overstayed their term

The most common tactic is for presidents to first ensure their political party in the legislature is fully subservient to them, and then leverage a loyal majority to amend the Constitution — a move that has already been initiated in the U.S.

Ortega and Correa successfully used their legislative majorities to pass constitutional amendments that eliminated term limits in Nicaragua and Ecuador.

Whether Trump has achieved the same level of unwavering loyalty among Republicans is debatable, but getting amendments through the U.S. Congress is significantly more difficult. The process requires a two-thirds majority vote in both houses, followed by ratification from three-quarters of state legislatures.

In contrast, Nicaragua’s constitution can be amended with a 60 per cent majority and, as in Ecuador, sub-national jurisdictions have no say in the matter.

Another crucial step involves co-opting or capturing the judiciary. In Bolivia, Morales achieved a controversial third term in 2014 supported by a partisan Constitutional Tribunal. More recently, El Salvador’s Bukele secured a 2021 Supreme Court ruling (from judges he appointed) allowing him to seek immediate re-election in 2024, despite a constitutional prohibition on consecutive terms.

We have seen a worrying pattern of subservience to Trump by the U.S. Supreme Court. The limits of this deference are increasingly uncertain.

Securing popular support

Some presidents have turned to plebiscites to legitimize constitutional tampering by appealing directly to the electorate and framing the move as a democratic exercise. Chávez employed this strategy in Venezuela, winning a 2009 referendum to abolish term limits.

The absence of a national referendum mechanism in the U.S. — where popular consultations are organized at the sub-national (state) level — limits the options available to a president seeking to remove term limits through this type of populist ploy.

Related to this, populist presidents who have successfully circumvented term limits have typically done so while enjoying extraordinarily high levels of public support.

Correa maintained approval ratings near 70 per cent during much of his presidency, while independent polls have put Bukele’s support at well over 80 per cent. Both, along with Morales and Chávez, leveraged their popularity to justify constitutional changes through legislative and judicial channels, framing their actions as carrying out the will of the people.

In contrast, Trump’s approval ratings have consistently remained far lower. Currently, his favourability sits in the low 40s, making any attempt to claim a broad popular mandate for a third term both dubious and precarious.

The military matters

Due to inevitable opposition, military support is central to any leader’s attempt to defy the constitution. In much of Latin America, the military is highly politicized, and armed forces have historically been shaped by doctrines of internal control rather than external defence.

Rooted in Cold War-era national security ideologies, this orientation casts domestic dissenters (“socialists,” Indigenous movements, unionists) as internal enemies, legitimizing repression as a patriotic duty.

In some countries, military oaths reflect this politicization. In both Nicaragua and Venezuela, these oaths increasingly emphasize loyalty to the president or ruling party and their revolutionary legacy, undermining institutional neutrality.

By contrast, in the U.S., military personnel swear an oath to defend the Constitution, not the president. While they must follow orders, these must align with constitutional and legal boundaries.

The absence of a tradition of using soldiers against American citizens and an institutional culture of constitutional loyalty and political neutrality may, at least in principle, provide some protection against the authoritarian overreach that has allowed certain Latin American presidents to remain in power indefinitely.

But a substantial portion of the U.S. armed forces leans politically to the right, like their counterparts in Latin America, raising concerns that partisan sympathies within the military could influence its response to a constitutional crisis.

Furthermore, the increasing use of non-military security forces — such as local police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — against civilians demonstrates that the state has a range of instruments at its disposal for exercising control.

The U.S. government’s use of ICE is reminiscent of how governments in countries like Venezuela and Nicaragua have used police and paramilitary units loyal to the president with impunity to suppress dissent.

The perils of complacency

Many in the West still hold on to the belief that constitutional erosion is something that only happens in the Global South. Some believe that American institutions are uniquely resilient and therefore capable of withstanding any attempt to subvert the Constitution.

For much of U.S. history, this confidence may have been justified, but today, it’s not only complacent but dangerous.

The strength of democratic institutions depends on the political will to defend them. Time will tell if the barriers that exist in the U.S. are strong enough to withstand the pressures now being placed upon them. What is clear is that relying on increasingly tenuous institutional resilience or historical exceptionalism is no substitute for vigilance and active defence of democratic norms.

Pascal Lupien, Associate Professor, Political Science, Brock University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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SNOPES 2025 NOT DEFAULT?

March 7, 2023,

By Ja'han Jones

The progressive veterans advocacy group VoteVets is out with a new ad that calls for military bases to stop airing Fox News given its tendency to push disinformation.

“The most valuable weapon to the enemy is disinformation," a narrator says inthe ad. "That’s why the Pentagon spends hundreds of millions of dollars training our troops to resist it. Yet, at the same time, the U.S. military uses taxpayer-funded facilities to broadcast disinformation on military bases, knowingly letting false propaganda infiltrate the ranks."

The ad specifically references Fox News prime-time hosts Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, each of whom was accused in recent court filings of knowingly spreading Donald Trump's false claims of 2020 election fraud.

The hosts “have open access to spread their conspiracy theories to U.S. troops,” the ad states. “And now we know they knew they were lies — just to boost their ratings.”

According to the ad, "the lies help violent extremist groups recruit service members and veterans to turn on their oaths" — a factI’ve covered previously on The ReidOut Blog.

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For more on the potential for extremists to lure military members, check out my post from last year on a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing about the current and former members of the armed forces who participated in the Jan. 6 riot.

As then-committee Chair Mark Takano, a Democrat from California, said at the time:

These groups value the leadership skills, combat experience and the weapons training that veterans possess. Having veterans among their ranks also gives these groups an air of credibility. It allows them to project a false appearance of patriotism and duty that belies their true anti-government views, and racial, ethnic and religious hatred.

Marcus Childress, a former staffer on the House Jan. 6 committee, also referenced the threat extremist disinformation poses to national security. Childress, who previously served in the Air Force, explained during a panel at Georgetown University last month why so many veterans showed up at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“A lot of these individuals felt that they had served their country and sacrificed — which they had — for their country in certain ways,” Childress said. But they were manipulated by a “strong leader who made them feel needed," he added.

Suffice it to say, there’s ample reason for military officials to reconsider their stance on Fox News. The bipartisan efforts to curtail TikTok’s influence in the United States suggest federal officials have no problem targeting media companies deemed dangerous over their ability to manipulate and misinform.

Fox News embodies that exact same problem. I suspect there are some people in the military who look to the network as a source of information. That's an issue that needs to be addressed. And it begins with military officials acknowledging Fox News for what it's largely shown itself to be: a propaganda network.

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AN 6 25

Military and political experts, veterans, and journalists are condemning President Donald Trump’s political rally at Fort Bragg on Tuesday, warning he crossed a critical line by delivering overtly political and authoritarian-themed remarks before U.S. Army troops. They also expressed alarm that uniformed soldiers appeared at ease booing his political opponents—another troubling breach of military norms. Some now say the time has come for generals to publicly speak out.}:

The commander in chief entered the event to "Hail to the Chief," and as he took to the stage, his "MAGA anthem," "Proud to Be an American," played. For nearly one hour, in about 9,000 words, Trump delivered a political stump speech. He attacked his political opposition, Democrats, including President Joe Biden and his administration, California Governor Gavin Newsom ("Newscum") and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. He attacked transgender Americans. He attacked the Democratic U.S. Senators who opposed the nomination of Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary, calling them "a very hostile group of people that I think really don't want to see America be great again."

He got the soldiers to boo "the fake news" media, and President Joe Biden. He told them the 2020 election was "rigged and stolen."

READ MORE: ‘Show. Us. The. Plan.’: Pentagon Chief Ripped for Dodging Budget Details in Heated Hearing

He attacked the people in Los Angeles protesting his deportation policies, describing it as "anarchy," while telling the soldiers that defending their civil rights was not the reason Americans fought overseas:

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"Generations of army heroes did not shed their blood on distant shores only to watch our country be destroyed by invasion and third world lawlessness here at home like is happening in California. As Commander in chief, I will not let that happen. It's never going to happen. What you're witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and on national sovereignty carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion of our country."

He thanked the generals, and mentioned some by name. He talked about "the real generals," as opposed to the ones Americans see on television.

Critics are warning of grave consequences.

"This is the most unacceptable and egregious politicization of our troops we’ve ever seen," wrote veterans' activist Paul Rieckhoff, an Army combat veteran, responding to video of Trump getting the soldiers to boo the press, President Joe Biden, and the mayor of Los Angeles.

Trump goaded active duty troops at his Fort Bragg speech to boo:

The Media, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Mayor Karen Bass, and Joe Biden pic.twitter.com/1v9amsi7rv

— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) June 10, 2025

"And it’s not a one off. It’s a strategy," added Rieckhoff, who is also the founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). "And one we’ll see in full and dangerous display this weekend at his military birthday parade for himself. Trump wants the world to think our great military is HIS military. And wants to coerce and manipulate troops into making them think it is too. And driving down their public trust and approval by the minute. Trump has created America’s greatest civil-military relations crisis since the Civil War. And it’s just getting started."

Retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel Alexander Vindman, a former Director of European Affairs for the National Security Council (NSC), warned: "America’s Generals and Admirals are terrified. They are cowed. They seem unlikely to hold the line and live up to their oaths to serve the U.S. Constitution."

Lamenting that "the Generals stay silent," he added: "Our democracy is in great danger. This morning I wonder if we crossed a line and there’s no going back."

Army combat veteran Fred Wellman, a graduate of West Point and the Harvard Kennedy School who is now the host of the podcast “On Democracy.” responded to Vindman by saying, "The silence is deafening."

READ MORE: Trump Mixes Up World Wars, Days, Civil Rights in Latest Remarks

Retired U.S Army lieutenant general Russel L. Honoré, who served as the commander of Joint Task Force Katrina, blasted Trump's speech: "Damn @POTUS Speech At #FortBraggwas inappropriate, criticizing previous administration, and Generals while speaking to troops , I never witnessed that S..t like this in 37 years in Uniform."

Author and former Under Secretary of State Richard Stengel observed, "Unlike other militaries, American soldiers do not swear an oath to the state, or a person, or a monarch, but to the Constitution. Trump calls them 'his' military—but they are ours, and they swear to 'support and defend the Constitution,' not one man."

Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and Russia expert, at The Atlantic targeted the generals for staying silent.

He wrote, "senior officers of the United States military have an obligation to speak up and be leaders. Where is the Army chief of staff, General Randy George? Will he speak truth to the commander in chief and put a stop to the assault on the integrity of his troops? Where is the commander of the airborne troops, Lieutenant General Gregory Anderson, or even Colonel Chad Mixon, the base commander?"

"Where is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dan Caine? He was personally selected by Trump to be America’s most senior military officer. Will he tell the man who promoted him that what he did today was obscene?"

Retired U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey, often seen on cable news, called Trump's speech "a disgraceful politicization of the active Armed Forces. He is the Commander in Chief. The only loyalty of the Armed Forces is to the Constitution. Their focus is on protecting America from foreign enemies. Grave danger."

Watch the video above or at this link.

RELATED: ‘Doesn’t Even Know Who He’s Talking to’: Newsom Scorches Trump Over Military Deployment

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an 6 25

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem reportedly requested that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth grant law enforcement powers—including the authority to detain and arrest—to the thousands of military troops President Donald Trump deployed to Los Angeles to suppress anti-deportation protests. Such powers are typically barred under federal law, and experts warn the move marks another step toward the administration invoking the Insurrection Act.

In a memo, Secretary Noem alleged protestors included "invasive, violent, insurrectionist mobs that seek to protect invaders and military aged males belonging to identified foreign terrorist organizations, and who seek to prevent the deportation of criminal aliens,” as the San Francisco Chronicle first reported.

"The military is generally barred under federal laws from taking part in domestic law enforcement. Noem’s request may be a step toward the administration sidestepping those laws by invoking the Insurrection Act, two legal experts said in interviews," the Chronicle added.

RELATED: ‘Looking for an Excuse’: Trump Under Fire for Violent Slogan as He Sends Marines to LA

Syracuse University Professor of Law Emeritus William Banks told the Chronicle that Noem's move is "a grave escalation" that "may presage the invocation of the Insurrection Act.” Professor Banks is an internationally recognized scholar on constitutional law, national security and counterterrorism law, as well as emergency powers and government surveillance and privacy, according to his biography.

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Secretary Noem also requested “drone surveillance support” and weapons and logistics assistance. President Donald Trump has ordered 700 U.S. Marines and federalized up to 4,000 National Guard troops to go to Los Angeles to help tamp down the protests.

The Associated Press on Monday suggested the protest area itself was small: “Protests over the president’s immigration crackdown spared much of Los Angeles from violence. Weekend clashes swept through several downtown blocks and a handful of other places.”

Other experts weighed in as well.

READ MORE: House Republicans Quietly Slip Anti-LGBTQ ‘Religious Freedom’ Clause Into Funding Bill

Vermont Law and Graduate School professor emeritus Stephen Dycus, an expert in national security law and the Insurrection Act, told the Chronicle that "this could be viewed as a preparation for invoking the Insurrection Act, or it could be viewed as part of a larger effort to frighten people who otherwise would exercise their first amendment guarantee of free speech and protest.”

California Democratic state Senator Tom Umberg, a retired Army colonel and JAG officer, "said he found the letter’s requests alarming."

“It looks like a preparation for a military assault,” Umberg said. “This looks like a subterfuge to create some sort of rationale for some sort of invocation of the Insurrection Act.”

Attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration expert and senior fellow at the American Immigration Council explained that the "reason that there is civil unrest in multiple cities throughout the country is because the Trump administration ordered ICE to engage in near-indiscriminate arrests, rounding up otherwise law-abiding people with no criminal records."

Political scientist Dr. Norman Ornstein, a contributing editor for the Atlantic, wrote, "this is a prelude to invoking the insurrection act and declaring martial law."

READ MORE: ‘Completely Obliterated’: Trump Claims LA Saved From Ruin by His National Guard Action

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AN 6 25

President Donald Trump's critics, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, are deeply troubled by his response to the tense protests that are rocking Downtown L.A. in response to immigration raids being carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

Trump ordered 2000 California National Guardian troops to the area, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is talking about sending in 500 U.S. Marines. According to Trump's critics, he is crossing a dangerous line by federalizing National Guard troops — whose deployment to Downtown L.A., they argue, should only be ordered by Newsom if he decides it is necessary.

New York Times national security reporter Helene Cooper discussed the [VID] volatile situation during aMonday morning, June 9 appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," expressing fears that things could turn ugly if Trump uses the military against civilians.

READ MORE:'Can't you just shoot them?' Inside Trump's threat to deal with 'radical left thugs' in America

During his first presidency, Cooper noted, traditional conservatives in the White House would push back against his worst ideas—whereas now, he is surrounded by loyalists who encourage him.

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Cooper told "Morning" host Mika Brzezinski, "I'm a little worried this is not heading anywhere good…. President Trump doesn't have (former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman) Mark Milley or (Defense Secretary) Mark Esper or any of the people from his previous administration who sort of acted as the brakes on this. Pete Hegseth…. sort of made up that Marines are on high alert, which is not necessarily a formal thing. He tweeted that on Saturday, (June 7) and then doubled down on Sunday, saying Marines are standing by."

The Times reporter continued, "We know that to put active-duty troops on the streets…. President Trump would have to — most likely have to — invoke the Insurrection Act, which to my knowledge, he has not done yet."

During the interview, Cooper drew a distinction between the "political Pentagon" and Trump loyalists like Hegseth and the "military people and career Pentagon."

READ MORE:Trump's latest move is a danger to all of us

Cooper told Brzezinski, "The Pentagon was sort of scrambling last night to figure out what to do. The last thing they want is active- duty troops taking on protesters on American streets. They fought mightily against that during the George Floyd protests…. There's a very real worry, again, among the career and professional military of this sort of look that we are militarizing the country…. If you get to the point where American troops are being asked or tasked with shooting protesters, you will then see this discomfort manufacture in public."

Cooper noted that Los Angeles is heavily Latino and that the military is also racially diverse.

Cooper told Brzezinski, "Right now, the orders are lawful. Right now, they have not been asked to do anything that I can see that could be interpreted as an unlawful order, but I think things could come to a head pretty quickly. You talk about the demographic demographics of Los Angeles — well, the demographic of the American military is pretty diverse, despite all of Pete Hegseth's attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion and DEI and so-called woke policies. You're looking at one of the most, if not the most diverse, institutions that America has. So, you know, there's going to be a lot of conflict there when you start dragging troops who are not prepared to do law enforcement, domestic law enforcement on the streets of America into this."

READ MORE:'It's pathetic': Right-wing red state Republicans are being ripped apart — by football

*Watch the full video below or at this link.

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AN 4 25

On Monday, President Donald Trump issued a new executive order just shy of the 100th day of his second term that has some experts and academics sounding the alarm.

Trump's new order, which is entitled "Strengthening and Unleashing America's Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens," makes various declarations about the administration's commitment to supporting law enforcement professionals in the opening paragraphs. However, one section further down specifically mentions the U.S. military and the administration's intent to have enlisted service members participate in civilian law enforcement actions.

"Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security and the heads of agencies as appropriate, shall increase the provision of excess military and national security assets in local jurisdictions to assist State and local law enforcement ... [and] shall determine how military and national security assets, training, non-lethal capabilities, and personnel can most effectively be utilized to prevent crime."

READ MORE:'Terrible idea': Republican senator slams Mike Johnson's 'dishonesty'

"The Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall utilize the Homeland Security Task Forces (HSTFs) formed in accordance with Executive Order 14159 of January 20, 2025 (Protecting the American People Against Invasion) to coordinate and advance the objectives of this order," the order continued.

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That section in particular prompted Lead Matthew Noe, who is the lead collection & knowledge management librarian at Harvard Medical School, to call the order "legitimately frightening." Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based writer Susan Keiser posted to Bluesky: "Serious Question: Is this martial law[?]" Former criminal defense investigator Andrew H. Sowards responded to the order by simply declaring: "Not good."

"We're already a police state," Daily Beast columnist David Rothkopf skeeted (the accepted term for Bluesky posts). "But now, thanks to this EO, moreso."

Deploying the U.S. military within American borders to act as a police force would be a direct violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, which is a 143 year-old law prohibiting the president from ordering the military to double as law enforcement. As the Brennan Center for Justice explained in 2021, Congress passed the law during Reconstruction in order to prevent the military from being used to enforce Jim Crow laws in former Confederate states after the Civil War. Additionally, deploying the military to conduct law enforcement activity violates parts of the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution — which were ratified in direct response to the British military's abuse of colonists prior to the Revolutionary War.

READ MORE:'Destroyed for no reason': Trump fires would-be mom hour after she nabs foster parent slot

Click here to read the full executive order.

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AN 4 25

It was 218 years ago that President Thomas Jefferson signed into law the Insurrection Act of 1807, which has only been invoked on rare occasions since then. Under the Insurrection Act, a president can deploy the U.S. military nationally and federalize the National Guard units of individual states.

The last president who invoked the Insurrection Act was George H.W. Bush during the Los Angeles riots in 1992. President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in 2020 during the George Floyd protests but didn't follow through.

But now, in his second term, Trump is threatening to deploy the military on U.S. soil on Sunday, April 20.

READ MORE:'Mugged by reality': How the 'dissident right' is rebelling against MAGA

After returning to the White House on January 20, Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency on the U.S./Mexico border. And he left open the possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act 90 days later.

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In an article published by Salon on April 15, legal expert Austin Sarat (who teaches jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College in Massachusetts) lays out some reasons why Trump invoking the Insurrection Act could be so dangerous.

"Given the breadth of the authority the Insurrection Act grants presidents," Sarat explains, "it is unsurprising that President Trump has long thought about using it…. And, make no mistake, the Insurrection Act grants the president broad authority. In 1827, the Supreme Court made that clear."

Sarat notes that in 2024, Trump proposed using the Insurrection Act against "the enemies from within" and "radical-left lunatics."

READ MORE:'Death Master File': How DOGE won 'a momentous internal battle' over an illegal 'novel strategy'

"The president alone gets to decide what constitutes an 'insurrection,' 'rebellion,' or 'domestic violence,'" Sarat warns. "And once troops are deployed, it will not be easy to get them off the streets in any place that the president thinks is threatened by 'radical-left lunatics.' That's why April 20 will be so consequential. If Americans take to the streets to protest the president's invocation of the Insurrection Act, the president might use those protests as an excuse to extend the deployment of troops."

Sarat continues, "The prospect of using the military against Americans is a nightmare and would mark a further descent into authoritarianism…. As we contemplate what might happen on April 20, Americans who object to the invocation of the Insurrection Act will be in something of a bind. If they take to the streets to protest, that may give the administration a pretext to expand its use further."

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aha 12 23

Trump worship military (went to boarding school) said better military strategest than generals, fire and fury bigger button VS dumb grunt enlist KIA wounded do not want to see them, gross? draft dodger bonespur chickenhawk; coup disobey Milley traitor execute

XIAN: interlocks with Strict Father, male

Free Market Capitalism deregulation favored by corporations/ oligarch/ Kochs VS FRICTION?

Military: is male, xian? chaplains; interesting that vilified when refuse trump coup, also (maybe in the wake of colin k NFl) corps become woke (Desantis Disney big booster) when move to DEI AA or take the wrong side on any wedge/culture war BS, which some CEO clearly recognize as bad for biz. They get feedback immediately and cannot ignore # from a broader base than trumpistas.

b/c WARRIOR is male preserve, any woke gets strong pushback // gamergate, incursion of female onto our turf.

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note same time as razor wire kia texas

https://www.alternet.org/bombing-mexico-shoplifting-terrorist-activity/

an 7 23 no lnx

Fox hosts: Bombing Mexico 'a good idea' because shoplifting is 'terrorist activity'

Maya Boddie July 26, 2023

During the Wednesday, July 25, segment ofFox News' The Five, the conservative co-hosts Jesse Watters, Jeanine Pirro, Dana Perino and Greg Gutfeld suggested Mexican drug cartels are behind a shoplifting surge in America, and to combat the alleged issue — the U.S. military should bomb them.

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Host Jesse Watters began the conversation saying, "While the liberal media gets a crash course on crime, we're learning that Mexican drug cartels are fueling America's shoplifting surge. They're selling the stolen stuff online and then laundering the profits through, guess where?Chinese brokers. So, Dana, CNN finally discovered crime is a crisis in San Francisco."

Dana Perino replied, "This is after they made fun of us for pointing it out last year...On this point, I think that finding out that there areMexican cartels behind this, makes me feel maybe there's hope that we could figure out a way to do something about it. So the state attorneys general are banding together and they're like let's go after it. But also they need help from the retailers. The retailers don't want to be looted like this either. But the problem, to me, is that all this stuff gets taken and then it's resold online. Like on Amazon, for example. So can Amazon help us out? Somehow, can they figure out a way to track them? We've got AI, we've got all these other tools. There must be a way to try to prevent all of this from happening."

READ MORE: Donald Trump complains that 'somebody leaked' his plans to launch Patriot missiles at Mexican cartels

In April, CNN interviewed Mission Local managing editor Joe Eskenazi about San Francisco's surge in crime, and the editor noted, "There is crime in downtown San Francisco, but there always has been.I think the notion that these businesses were driven out by crime is frankly dishonest. That's always been a factor."

Eskenazi later added, "San Francisco also has lots of property crime because there's a great divergence of wealth and people steal things. But San Francisco’s violent crime rate is at a near historic low right now."

Watters then said, "You can put up the task force, maybe with the FBI, bring in the DEA, make it transnational Greg, since the cartels are involved."

Greg Gutfeldreplied, "It's weird to see these cartels diversify. They're almost like Amazon now. They're doing drugs, smuggling and theft, pretty soon they're gonna have their own podcast. There's another thing that we said a long time ago and I bet we don't -- bombing the car-- remember we said we were talking about bombing the cartels? And people were going, 'No, no, no, that's an act of war, that's in another country.' Yeah, but we do that to terrorists as well, and this is kind of a terrorist activity. And the thing is, now, we see this at least on the Republican side, a lot of candidates are talking about doing it and I think it's a good idea. I think we need to elect a president who values a border. That's the important thing. Bomb these. And there's, like, one cartel we can cooperate with, let them kill the rest. Encourage them to kill the rest."

READ MORE: MTG says U.S. should be 'bombing Mexican cartels' and 'Antifa BLM rioters' instead of 'aiding' Ukraine

Watters then asked Pirro, "Remember when theChinesewere ripping off our DVDs and we sent the entire federal government after them and we actually were pretty effective. This is pretty similar in terms of now it's shoplifting.

She said, "Yeah, and I remember prosecuting a case for the Motion Picture Association because what they were doing was people were going in and they were just making copies of movies," to which Watters replied, "I've watched a few movies like that where the guy just holds the camcorder and the finger? I mean, my friend watched it."

Pirro added, "This is part of a, you know, global organized criminal activity. The problem is that this organization is not just doing retail theft. They're also doing human trafficking. They're doing fentanyl. They're doing all kinds of crime and so they're expanding their criminal network. And now they're going to be so powerful, I don't know if we're ever going to be able to defeat them. Because we've got a president right now, who, you know, with the border -- and they're in charge at the border -- there is nothing going on that's preventing the fentanyl from coming in. We hear about an arrest every now and then. It's usually the locals making the arrests, not the federal government. But the issue is whether or not these criminals are being prosecuted. That guy walked out, right, and then the person in the store says it's a police state for everyone. So for the victims it's a police state, with the criminal, it's not a police state.

 That's the actual problem. It's low risk and it's high reward. Low risk because the employee's not gonna punch you out, you're not gonna get arrested, you're gonna make a fortune. You're gonna start this business and you're gonna launder your money through China. And unless we get serious about this, whether it's bombing or whatever -- you have to come up with something. These organizations are dangerous. They are absolutely dangerous. And for everybody at home, your insurance is gonna go up because of it. The cost of retail and consumer products are gonna go up. You're paying for this."

The New York Times' Maggie Haberman reported last year that "President Donald J. Trump in 2020 asked Mark T. Esper, his defense secretary, about the possibility of launching missiles into Mexico to “destroy the drug labs” and wipe out the cartels, maintaining that the United States’ involvement in a strike against its southern neighbor could be kept secret, Mr. Esper recounts in his upcoming memoir. When Mr. Esper raised various objections, Mr. Trump said that 'we could just shoot some Patriot missiles and take out the labs, quietly,' adding that 'no one would know it was us.'"

READ MORE: 'Bomb the Mexicans' is the GOP’s new 'build the wall': columnist

However, Haberman wrote experts argue that, "Patriot missiles are the primary surface-to-air missile used by the U.S. military, which is designed as anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic missile interceptors.As there are no reports of airborne drug labs in Mexican air space.

Trump supporter U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) complained earlier this year that American is "not bombing the Mexican cartels who are poisoning Americans every single day. And I know that sounds extreme. I'm not talking about the Mexican government or the Mexican people. I'm talking about the cartels. They're murdering Americans."

Miami Herald columnist Jean Guerrero notes the "Calls for U.S. attacks on Mexican drug cartels, recently discussed in secret if at all, have become a loudly expressed talking point for Republicans who are trying to exploit the violent rhetoric for political gain," highlighting Trump's 2024 GOP opponent and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' "recent promises to deploy the military against drug cartels, along with his support for executing smugglers and his assertion that 'you absolutely can use deadly force.'"

She argues, "Republicans aren't making a good faith argument, and that their rhetoric has more to do with racism than finding solutions to the ongoing opioid crisis."

Axios reports earlier this year, Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) said, "If my colleagues were serious about addressing the cartels, they would start with addressing guns here in America," noting that the cartels "are able to outgun Mexican local law enforcement because of American guns."

READ MORE: 'Time to reverse course': NYT Editorial Board endorses ending the War on Drugs

Watch Media Matters' video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Lawmakers readying bipartisan bills to authorize Pentagon resources to combat fentanyl: report

CNN's full report is available at this link. Axios' report is here.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Republican senator: Mexico 'would be eating cat food' without the United States ›

Arizona GOP 'voter fraud' witness implicates Trump-loving lawmaker in drug cartel bribe claims ›

'Bomb the Mexicans' is the GOP’s new 'build the wall': columnist ›

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an 223

Tyre Nichols getting beaten to death has sparked another round of debate over American policing. Let’s cut to the chase. First, very little will change as long as policing is determined by state laws and local authorities who are exquisitely attuned to the needs and desires of the white-power status quo.

Probably the best we can do is devise some sort of national system in which officers are recruited from around the country to create a body of police as diverse as the body of the republic. It should be thoroughly trained according to universally accepted law enforcement standards and socialized to accept and advance the immense honor of wearing a badge.

As it is, members of the US military show more grace, nobility and restraint than cops do. Army soldiers are trained to kill, but they are also trained to be responsible. Even lying is subject to military justice. Police officers, on the other hand, are under no such constraints, especially if they are white.

READ MORE: 'Performative disgrace': Marjorie Taylor Greene ridiculed for defending Ashli Babbitt while misspelling her name

The police are not an army.

But they act like it.

The petty aristocracy

The hardest truth is about public perception. Cops are the good guys to most people. At best, they are virtuous warriors against evil-doers. At worst, they are a “thin blue line” between civilization and barbarism.

READ MORE: Two layers of context needed to understand Tyre Nichols' murder

Police could devolve into occupying armies that, while operating above the law in the service of local elites, extract tribute from the local population as well as occasionally execute citizens without due process – don’t be naive. Eventhat wouldn’t stop Hollywood from portraying cops as The Good Guys

Despite the ubiquity of smartphones, and despite the ubiquity of smartphone video showing cops tasing, shooting and otherwise brutalizing people for meaningless infractions, white people, especially respectable white people, have continued convincing themselves the culture of cop shops always bends toward equal justice. They cannot, and probably will never, accept that police are agents of the state of political violence – violence made legitimate by the political will of respectable white people.

Respectable white people are the petty aristocrats of US localities. They are the business leaders, property owners, decisionmakers, public figures, political actors and so on. How they see police is linked to how they see themselves, and vice versa. If we get respectable white people to see authoritarian policing jeopardizes their respectability among other white people, we might see some reform. Remaining aristocratic depends on appearing democratic. Change their outward view, change the police.

Maybe.

The institution of the status quo

Fortunately, half the work is done. Petty aristocrats have already conceded that the white-power status quo that makes it possible for them to be petty aristocrats depends on police department maintaining the very same white-power status quo. They just haven’t admitted to having conceded it.

To illustrate, consider a particular moment in Bristol, Connecticut. In October, two city police officers were ambushed and killed by a deranged man. Their murders shocked Bristol, a white working class town whose majority usually endorses Republicans. It shocked much of the state, too.

At first, communities erupted in grief and gratitude. Businesses displayed banners thanking the slain cops for their sacrifice. Neighborhoods put out blue porch lights in honor of their memories. Then things took a turn.

Support for the families of the dead cops morphed into support for the Bristol Police Department. Blue lights blazed in solidarity. Banners exalted the “Brothers in Blue.” The celebration of the memory of the two police officers gave way to the celebration of the institution of the status quo.

With that turn, Bristol’s respectable white people conceded something – that their fates are tied to the fates of the Bristol Police Department. If you’re going to change policing, you have to make respectable white people understand their respectability is at risk. Then (maybe) we’ll see change.

Spectacular displays of violence

Which is why, in the beginning of this piece, I characterized police departments as occupying armies that extract tribute from the local population in the service of local elites, and that periodically hold public executions to force locals into accepting their dominance over them.

That is not what respectable white people say the police do.

But that is what they do.

Occupying armies – in order to keep the peace, uphold the law and preserve the order – periodically send a message to the local population that disorder will not be tolerated. To that end, they will seek out and destroy someone, usually the weak, with a spectacular display of violence.

That’s what happened last week in Huntington, California. The city’s occupying army made an example of a Black man with no legs. (They said was armed with a knife.) They shot to death Anthony Lowe, Jr., as he ran from them in terror on his stumps. Who’s in charge? The occupying army.

(Maybe) we’ll see change

America’s petty aristocrats (respectable white people) are linked directly to America’s occupying armies because occupying armies maintain the white-power status quo from which has arisen a petty aristocracy.

Direct links to an occupying army, however, endanger the respectable image of respectable white people among other respectable white people. This is America, after all. You can’t have armies occupying communities and murdering people at random. Theappearanceof democracy still matters.

Raise awareness of what police departments do in order to pressure respectable white people, whose political will legitimates the occupying army’s spectacular displays of violence. Make respectable white people see no one can be respectable when tied to an occupying army that randomly executes a community’s most helpless. Then (maybe) we’ll see change.

READ MORE: 'Depraved indifference to human life': Legal experts shocked by Tyre Nichols video

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/bill-barr-had-deep-links-to-the-origins-of-central-american-migration-crisis-long-before-trump/

...

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Roberto, you begin the book talking about a tour you were giving in 1992 in Los Angeles at the time you were working with the immigrant rights group CARECEN in Los Angeles. And you’re touring around a foundation program officer, one of these people who decides whether to give money to worthy organizations. And you had very mixed feelings taking him around the Pico-Union area of Los Angeles. There’s a sudden shootout at one point. Could you talk about that whole part of your work with CARECEN? Also, what lessons might be drawn for a lot of activists today, Black Lives Matter activists and prison reform activists, who are suddenly being courted by foundations who suddenly have discovered that they haven’t been properly funding antiracism programs around the country?

ROBERTO LOVATO: That’s a great question, Juan. Yeah, the opening, the introduction of the book, is 1992, right after the L.A. riots had hit. We had foundations and corporations come in, along with scholars, and it was just people interested in post-riot L.A. And we were in MacArthur Park touring, like we did. I felt like — and I say at one point I felt like, you know, I was getting tired of being like Virgil to these Dantes, you know, these aspiring Dantes wanting to see the underworld. And so, I’m showing this guy, Leland, MacArthur Park,when I’m approached by the first MS-13 member I ever met, this kid named José. And, you know, we were — and I could tell that Leland was scared out of his wits, like he was in a lion’s den or something, and he was looking to me for security.

And so, I open it that way because it shows kind of the way that the whole issue of youth and urban youth and gangs, even foundations and corporations will kind of shy away from, as do legislators, including legislators of color here in California, where the gangs were born, in fact, where MS-13 and 18th Street were born. And then, after they were born, they kind of adopted the structures of like the Mexican Mafia. And so, I’m there when this is starting to escalate and get more violent.

And then, Attorney General William Barr, again, and at the avatar, from the Bush administration, who’s now in the Trump administration, deployed all these FBI resources to L.A. and other cities to start the gang war, which, you know, we see the products as we speak, right? And so, then he also introduced the INS to then join the LAPD and law enforcement to deport the “problem,” the gang structures, to El Salvador.

...

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, William Barr, the current attorney general, the attorney general under George H.W. Bush — we just have a minute, but as you wrap up, Roberto, what is his connection to this story?

ROBERTO LOVATO: William Barr, as attorney general under the first Bush, redeployed FBI resources, in the greatest deployment of FBI resources up to that point, taking FBI agents who were fighting foreign — you know, looking at foreign “threats,” and started focusing them on gangs. And then he starts looking at MS-13 and other gangs right after the L.A. riots. You can see he was there in L.A., and he started us on the path to eventually, like, militarizing the police, that we have right now. And then, he then also had the INS deport the gang “problem” to El Salvador, and then he exported, after the war, U.S.-style policing. And then, I found out that military trainers from El Salvador actually came to train LAPD in counterinsurgency, and other police forces. It’s just when you start seeing the Robocopization of cop uniforms — right? — and that we have now. And William Barr had everything to do with — had not everything, but he had a lot to do with this. I had to sing his song, because he deserves all the credit he deserves for what he did to El Salvador and to L.A. and to our national situation long before Trump....

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authoritarian

combo of militarization and criminalization (of undoc immigrant, periphery, then sanctuary city, BLM ACTIVIST AND PRESS SUB-LETHAL WEAPONS)

why did portland get hit 1st by secret police vs seattle autonomous zone?

Washington enacted a measure in June 2019 in favor of sanctuary cities, similar to California and Oregon laws which are among the strongest statewide mandates in the nation.[186]

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https://theintercept.com/2020/08/24/fbi-fusion-center-environmental-wind/

fEDERAL AND STATE law enforcement officers gathered in the Midwest in February 2019 to practice their responses to a fictional threat: wind farm sabotage. They divided into four teams and pretended to be the bad guys, environmental saboteurs targeting the large grids of turbines that turn the wind into electric power. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Omaha, Nebraska, field office and the Iowa Division of Intelligence and Fusion Center had organized the “red hat” exercise, meant to provide insight into the minds of environmental activist adversaries that didn’t exist.

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Each team developed an attack plan. One proposed ramming wind turbine infrastructure with a vehicle. Another sought to plant explosives on electrical transformers. And — although U.S. environmental saboteurs tend to not use guns — two of the teams suggested using firearms to attack electrical substations from a distance. The fact that cops themselves planned the attacks may have created a “bias toward the use of firearms,” the FBI later acknowledged in a pair of reports on the exercise obtained by The Intercept. However, the federal agents also concluded that “Environmental Extremists Likely Would Use Firearms To Circumvent Perceived Electrical Infrastructure Site Security Measures.”

The exercise was not conducted due to any imminent threat — a carefully noted fact included in the December 2019 and March 2020 reports. “Neither FBI Omaha nor the Iowa DOI/FC has intelligence suggesting environmental extremists intend to attack wind farms in Iowa,” both reports repeatedly state.

Why, then, spend public dollars on FBI role-playing?Because the energy industry wanted it. The exercise came “at the request of an USBUS private energy sector partner, following 14 environmental extremist attacks against transportation infrastructure in Iowa that services the energy sector, particularly oil pipelines,” said one of the documents about the exercise. Privately owned and operated companies and industry groups — none of which were named in the reports — were intimately involved in the exercise: An Iowa utility company and a wind energy lobbyist group provided information to help judge the fake attack plans and assess the fake “threat environment,” and an industry representative joined two of the teams, posing as an insider accomplice.

Though there was no indication an attack on wind power sites would occur, the report went on to say, if one hypothetically did, it could proliferate into many, with each set of attackers becoming more skilled in evading security and capture. “As attack methods become more sophisticated,” the report warned, “the chance for large-scale failure of the electrical grid becomes more likely.” Law enforcement ought to be on the lookout for activists undergoing gun training,activists in rural locations with large infrastructure, and activists casing wind power sites, the report advised. Neither the FBI, the Iowa Division of Intelligence and Fusion Center, nor the federal Department of Homeland Security, which helps coordinate regional fusion centers, responded to the Intercept’s questions about the documents.

The red hat exercise was the product of a national network of public-private law enforcement and security partnerships forged in the wake of 9/11. The Iowa fusion center is one of 79 intelligence hubs like it, designed to enhance coordination between federal and local police as well as select private sector players. Given their close collaboration with corporate partners, the centers serve as a vector for transmitting industry interests to law enforcement.

Read Our Complete CoverageBlueLeaks

The reports on the joint wind power security exercise were obtained by The Intercept as part of BlueLeaks, a massive trove of law enforcement documents hacked from government web sites and published by the transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets. The documents provide a detailed picture of how state, federal, and local law enforcement agencies have used the label “environmental extremist”to guide their policing. More than a dozen documents collected and disseminated by law enforcement fusion centers and reviewed by The Intercept describe the wild speculation, threat inflation, and close collaboration with the private sectorinherent in law enforcement’s pursuit of eco-activists branded as extremists.

With industry encouragement and cooperation, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and local law enforcement agencies have long kept a wary eye on activists organizing against energy projects. Government officials have slapped the label of “environmental extremist” on individuals who have locked themselves inside oil and gas pipelines, turned off the valves controlling oil flow, or physically damaged construction equipment — as well as a range of people who have shared viewpoints or had contact with such activists. The moniker serves to place Indigenous and environmental defenders linked to relatively minor property damage or civil disobedience in a category alongside white supremacists conducting mass killings. Both are officially declared “domestic extremists” for the federal government’s purposes.

Information about such “environmental extremists” then gets shared, as it did in the wind power exercise, through the fusion centers, to both government officials and private sector partners. From the beginning, energy industry projects have received favored status and attention from the centers as “critical infrastructure.”

Brendan McQuade, a sociologist at the University of Southern Maine and the author of “Pacifying the Homeland: Intelligence Fusion and Mass Supervision,” said he had never seen anything like the Iowa fusion center documents. “It’s paranoid threat inflation and a totally indefensible depoliticization of what might be themost important political question of our time, which is, What are we going to do about climate change? This erases that question and views anyone who is seriously committed to it as criminal.”

“I’m worried about the way this will polarize the struggle and justify aggressive responses to direct action,” he said.

Mike German, a liberty and national security fellow with the Brennan Center, who formerly worked as an FBI agent, added that the collaboration with the private sector serves to misplace public resources. “There are many entities out there that are at possible risk of some kind of criminal act. And yet you don’t see community groups who are at a threat of white supremacy being invited by the FBI to talk about how they can protect themselves,” he said. “They’re spending security resources on hypothetical threats against favorite entities while ignoring real threats against other communities or private entities.”

The Elusive “Environmental Extremist”

“Environmental extremism” is among a handful of categories of so-called domestic extremism — including “racially motivated violent extremism,” “anti-government extremism,” “animal rights extremism,” and “abortion extremism” — that the FBI monitors closely.

Who exactly are these eco-extremists? Under a section titled “environmental rights extremism,” a November 2019reference guide to “violent extremism” published by the Colorado Information Analysis Center, a fusion center, and other state security agencies, which was released as part of BlueLeaks, lists a range of groups. Among others, they listed the animal liberation group Direct Action Everywhere, which has removed animals from factory farms in rescue actions, and the Earth Liberation Front, which had its heyday committing arsons in the ’90s. Also listed were East Boulder County United, a grassroots organization that promotes community consultation on oil and gas development; and 350 Colorado, the local chapter of a well-known national climate organization. Both groups have participated in and promoted nonviolent civil disobedience as a tactic to force public officials to appropriately address the climate crisis.

In a statement,Colorado Information Analysis Center spokesperson Micki Trost provided a justification for the labels, “We want to ensure that individuals have the opportunity to exercise their First Amendment rights in a safe and impactful manner,” Trost said. “We believe that information sharing on groups that have perpetrated crimes and disrupted peaceful protests helps local law enforcement better protect those that are lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights.”

According to an FBI and Department of Homeland Securitydocument, “environmental extremists” primarily target the “extraction, use, and transportation of fossil fuels.” BlueLeaks documents from various regional fusion and homeland security centers, as well as other federal agencies, point to an array of fossil fuel industry opponents, including the climate direct action group Extinction Rebellion; the Oglala Lakota opponent of the Dakota Access pipeline Red Fawn Fallis, who remains imprisoned after being accused of firing gunshots during a struggle with law enforcement at a Standing Rock protest; Arctic drilling protesters who chained themselves to a ship in Washington; and anti-oil industry activists, who shut off a pipeline by turning a valve.

the only recent U.S. incident listed in the documents that resulted in loss of life involved Rory Gunderman, who, according to the South Dakota Fusion Center and Wyoming Criminal Intelligence Center, wasassociated with the movement Deep Green Resistancebefore he allegedly attempted to carry out a plot in 2015 to shut down the power grid. After police attempted to apprehend Gunderman, he took his own life.

Indeed, in various documents law enforcement agencies underline something that many environmental activists have themselves pointed out: Unlike other types of extremism, “environmental extremism” is aimed at property, not people. One bulletin published by the FBI and DHS noted the threat that such activists pose has decreased over the years and is lower than other types of extremism. However, their “desire” to commit crime “has not waned.”

Nevertheless, authorities are keen to view “environmental extremists” as a major threat. An FBI memo urges partner law enforcement agencies to coordinate with the Bureau on any incident involving environmental extremism. Federal agents, the memo says, are interested in who is training “environmental extremists,” in addition to knowing which purported extremists are involved in domestic or international criminal organizations, where they have traveled, and how they communicate.

Protesters gather in front of San Francisco City Hall during a protest in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline on March 10, 2017.

Photo: Joel Angel Juarez/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

And so law enforcement has continued to monitor activists’ activity, including through an online discussion forum, an environmental organization’s web site, and a bulletin that described how tactics utilized in the resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline could be repurposed against the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands oil pipeline in Minnesota, documents show.

To prepare law enforcement for encountering such alleged extremists, police attended trainings, including one offered in October 2019 by the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center. According to one of the documents, a flyer, the training would be led by Steven Stanley, a “certified anti-terrorism specialist” working for the Sigma Group who planned to cover a remarkable range of “domestic terrorism topics.” His focus would be on ideologically left-leaning viewpoints, including “Global Anarchist Activity, Social and Global Justice Groups, Anti-War Activists/Militants, Anti-Nuclear Activists/Militants, Anti-Pipeline Activists/Militants, Anti-Police Movement, AntifaMovement (Antifascists), Animal Liberation Activists/Militants, Eco-Terrorism, Radical Environmental Groups, Radical Unions, [and] Protests Protest Activity/Dynamics.” Stanley also promised to show attendees a “private collection consisting of 40 years of radical books, magazines, patches, stickers, clothing, pictures, videos, DVD’S and much more.” Fifty-eight people registered for the course.

German, the former FBI agent, said that the result of so much attention on environmental activists is visible in police’s response to protests. “We’ve had a variety of unruly protests by armed, far-right militia groups that the police react to in a very calm manner,” he said. “And yet when you see a group of environmentalists or people who might look similar to the way environmentalists at a protest look, you see a hyper-aggressive police response, even though the level of violence coming from those groups is significantly lower.”

Comparing Pipeline Activists to Al Qaeda

In most of the fusion center documents revealed by BlueLeaks, it’s the language of “extremism” that suggests that law enforcement officers perceive a common thread between environmental activists and violent militants. One document, though, explicitly applied the lens the U.S. military used on groups like Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Iraq to community members opposing two natural gas pipelines in Virginia.

In September 2019, the Virginia Fusion Center issued a briefing titled “Criminal Environmental Groups Study and Adopt Militant Insurgent Strategiesto Advance Goals in Virginia.” The Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipeline projects were in the midst of approval processes and under construction in the state at the time. A range of activists, environmental experts, and neighbors had organized to observe construction, file lawsuits, voice their dissent at public meetings, and hold protests — including a series of tree sits, where project opponents camped out in trees in the pathway of the pipeline.

The document concluded that “criminal environmental groups” organizing against pipeline construction would likely use the same four tactics as Al Qaeda: provocation, intimidation, protraction, and exhaustion.

Asked for comment, Virginia State Police Public Relations Director Corinne Geller explained to The Intercept: “This particular report was designed to provide regional law enforcement with an enhanced awareness of criminal activity that has been associated with various groups protesting environmental interests nationwide and worldwide. Sharing common tactics and strategies associated with criminal activity is invaluable to law enforcement agencies’ efforts to engage with and for the protection of local citizens/communities, as well as for the purpose of officer safety.”

Related
How a Movement That Never Killed Anyone Became the FBI’s No. 1 Domestic Terrorism Threat

Provocation was used by Al Qaeda, the fusion center report claimed, when militants destroyed the Al-Askari Mosque in Karbala, Iraq, in 2004 in an effort to set off a violent response in the majority Shia country toward the Sunni minority. (The mosque bombing actually took place in Samarra in 2006.) In turn, provocation, the document claimed, was also used by “criminal environmental groups” in 2016 in North Dakota, when private security contractors unleashed their dogs on Dakota Access pipeline opponents —the suggestion being that the Indigenous water protectors strategically incited the dog attacks to stir up conflict.

Insurgent groups use the tactic of intimidation, the document continued, by threatening violence against local community members who don’t submit to their cause. An individual associated with a “criminal environmental group” deployed a comparable tactic in Virginia, the document suggests, when they posted a comment on the Facebook page of a hotel that provided rooms to pipeline construction workers. “I hope that money lasts you for a lifetime because the people will be there every day making sure you never earn another dollar for the rest of your existence,” the comment said. The threat of protest was apparently comparable to a threat of physical violence.

The fusion center even quoted 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden describing his goal of exhausting the U.S. government by “bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.” Then it went on to note that “criminal environmental groups” would likely try to exhaust law enforcement and private businesses’ resources by building camps and distributing “extremist propaganda” to residents impacted by construction. Although the document title suggested activists were studying these tactics, the fusion center provided no evidence that was so.

In small print at the bottom, the fusion center wrote, “This document is not designed to compare criminal environmental groups to al-Qa’ida and associated movements” — despite the fact that it did exactly that.

The report repeatedly cited the book “The Accidental Guerrilla,” by David Kilcullen, a senior counterinsurgency adviser to the U.S. during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as a source. “Overall, in terms of content, the document doesn’t strike me as objectionable,” Kilcullen said when asked to comment on the document. “I am sure if they knew it was going to be leaked the authors might have framed the language differently, but it is an accurate reflection of how things work in these kinds of situations.”

In a recent article for theFoundation for the Defense of Democracies, a neoconservative Washington think tank where he is an adviser, Kilcullen argued that, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, the U.S. might considered as being amid an “incipient insurgency.” He told the Intercept, “What’s perhaps a bit confronting is that people are now applying that logic to the United States — but the shocking thing is not that this is inaccurate, but rather that it’s now an increasingly accurate way of thinking about what’s happening on our streets and elsewhere.”

McQuade, the University of Southern Maine sociologist, said that, although this document was distinct from other fusion center documents he’s reviewed throughout his research, it shouldn’t be viewed as an aberration. “This is an insight into how security professionals view politics,” he said. “When your job is to defend the status quo at all costs, it isn’t a ridiculous overreach to apply a theory for defeating an armed movement in a developing country that has been in a civil war for decades against a protest movement in a country that isn’t at civil war.”

The danger, German said, was that law enforcement officers might unthinkingly take the document seriously. “I would put myself in the place of a brand-new police officer trying to protect his or her community, and not having a deep background in terrorism research, receiving this document,” German said. “Now anybody doing any activism in my community, I would automatically perceive as a threat — not just a threat of engaging in civil disobedience or vandalism but actually a terrorist threat.”

The fusion center claimed some individuals would be recruited into Virginia’s “criminal environmental groups” through what the unnamed author called “accidental guerrilla syndrome,” a process that leads someone who normally would not join an insurgent group to fight alongside one.

State and local law enforcement monitor an anti-pipeline protest site to make sure that no attempts are made to give protesters food or water. The pipeline opponents are occupying trees high above the ground outside Roanoke, Va., to protest the Mountain Valley Pipeline Project on April 2, 2018.

Photo: Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images

The proliferation of tree sits were signs that “accidental guerrilla syndrome” was already in the “contagion phase,” the document says. The memo pointed to Giles County, where tree-sitters with Appalachians Against Pipelines had gained support from neighbors, and Montgomery County, where a tree sit called Yellow Finch has been in place for two years. “If tree sits like these continue to develop, it may become more difficult for pipeline construction to continue and support for it may decrease,” the fusion center document concluded.

“If they can compare us to Al Qaeda, they can do anything to us,” said Dustie Pinesap, commenting from atop the Yellow Finch tree sit. “Last I checked we never picked up a Kalashnikov. We tend to see property damage or denial of use of property or any sort of damage or impeding of property rights as violent.”

Indeed, the document makes crystal clear that the fusion center conflated support for the projects with security. “Collaborative relationships between law enforcement and businesses, working with contractors or the energy companies may help identify criminal actors before violence or property destruction takes place,” the fusion center document says. It points to a suite of “counter insurgency strategies,” drawn from a Kunar Province road-building project in Afghanistan, that police — as well as the pipeline companies — could deploy to build community support.

“Organizations involved in pipeline construction” should consider “contracting local restaurants to provide lunch to pipeline workers each day,” the fusion center advises, in order to “spread economic engagement across the community.” Similarly, implementing the Kunar road’s “10 kilometer rule,” hiring workers within a certain radius of the construction zone, could “provide local residents a sense of pride and connection to the project.”

The pipeline companies might even consider a “youth employment campaign,” the publicly funded fusion center suggested. “If such a project was implemented in local Virginia communities, families would not support outside groups, individuals, or local opposition groups that hinder their children’s economic and skill gaining opportunities, much like the Afghan communities that rejected the Taliban and al-Qa’ida in their attempts to delay and disrupt the Kunar Road project because it directly affected their livelihood.”

“The constituency is clearly the private sector,” said McQuade, highlighting that the document’s goal did note even seem to be to protect the broader community that may be ambivalent about pipeline construction. “Those people are just pawns whose support needs to be won.”

German sees the fusion centers as captured by corporate PR campaigns seeking to portray themselves as victims of extremist violence. “Many of these are multinational corporations —they’re not even necessarily U.S. corporations — yet law enforcement seems to favor protecting them over their own communities,” German pointed out. “How many fusion center reports have we seen that document environmental damage done by criminal actions or negligent actions of corporations? Those are also criminal — those are within the jurisdiction of these law enforcement agencies — and arguably cost a whole lot more in economic damage to these communities than somebody turning a valve on a pipeline. Yet that’s not where we see law enforcement resources being spent.”

Law Enforcement Goes Don Quixote

Despite the comparisons to Al Qaeda and the descriptions of widespread monitoring of activists, several fusion center documents acknowledge that environmental defenders pose little threat to people — or even property. But intelligence analysts still had plenty of guesses about what might spark “environmental extremists” to commit so-called violence, defined to include property damage.

“Media attention given to related issues, such as exotic game hunting, may compel some individuals who had not been associated with the extremist movements to make threats of violence or commit other crimes,” a 2016 FBI report suggests.

The arrests of high-profile activists could also push people over the edge. When Ruby Montoya and Jessica Reznicek were arrested last October for using a welding torch to poke holes in the Dakota Access Pipeline, the FBI and DHS assessed that “it is possible environmental extremists may commit criminal acts potentially destructive of critical infrastructure, such as property damage, to express solidarity with those arrested in the near term.” However, the document adds, there existed “no specific targeting or threat information” suggesting that this was actually true.

In the eyes of some intelligence analysts, even Covid-19 provided potential spark for environmental extremism. A daily intelligence briefing by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Interagency Counterterrorism Task Force provided analysis about how “Europe’s terrorists” might take advantage of the pandemic. “The Covid-19 outbreak could also lead to a rise of violent actions by the hands of environmental extremists. Economic difficulties, a lack of public support, and more urgent needs might thwart advances in the global warming agenda and interrupt green investments by national governments,” the document states. “Moreover, having witnessed the immediate environmental benefits due to radical actions like a global lockdown and economic disruption, eco-activists could be triggered to resort to violence.”

German framed much of the speculation as noise. “One of the problems with the buildup of these intelligence reporting platforms and the information sharing environment that was built after 9/11 was that they hired all these analysts who aren’t given a very specific mandate on what to report,” he explained. “They’re measured by the number of reports. After you’ve written about one problem in the criminal justice system, you run out of things to write about.”

Ultimately, the wind energy exercise in Iowa was inconclusive. The attacks might happen, or they might not: “Based on the Red Hat exercise, FBI Omaha and the Iowa DOI/FC estimated that, as wind energy projects become more common, there is a roughly even chance that attacks against wind energy assets in Iowa by environmental extremists will occur.” Even in the face of that analysis, though, the FBI declined to back down from its hypothesis: “The FBI’s official assessment is environmental extremists possibly will increase their criminal activity against the industrial wind industry.”

If anything, Germain said, the FBI’s foray into attacking windmills was counterproductive. “It is just dangerous for the FBI to be brainstorming ways for groups to attack private companies, putting that on paper, and then putting it in systems where it can leak out,” he said. “They created a security situation. This is a blueprint for how to attack wind turbines, and it doesn’t come from any terrorist group, it comes from the FBI.”

Down the road, police learning to view environmentalists as saboteurs could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. “It’s creating a likelihood that when there are more confrontations over energy infrastructure,” McQuade said, “that the response will be extremely punitive and will escalate the struggle.”

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border Patrol Launches Militarized Raid of Borderlands Humanitarian Aid Camp

Ryan Devereaux

For the second time in two years, Border Patrol launched a raid against No More Deaths within days of the group releasing embarrassing information about the agency.

READ MORE →

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NB RR and others see overlap betweeen CRIM and MIL

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/robert-reich-the-real-choice-is-social-control-or-social-investment/

Some societies center on social control, others on social investment.

Social-control societies put substantial resources into police, prisons, surveillance, immigration enforcement, and the military. Their purpose is to utilize fear, punishment, and violence to divide people and keep the status quo in place — perpetuating the systemic oppression of Black and brown people, and benefiting no one but wealthy elites.

Social-investment societies put more resources into healthcare, education, affordable housing, jobless benefits, and children. Their purpose is to free people from the risks and anxieties of daily life and give everyone a fair shot at making it.

Donald Trump epitomizes the former. He calls himself the “law and order” president. He even wants to sic the military on Americans protesting horrific police killings.

He has created an unaccountable army of federal agents who go into cities like Portland, Oregon – without showing their identities – and assault innocent Americans.

Trump is the culmination of forty years of increasing social control in the United States and decreasing social investment – a trend which, given the deep-seated history of racism in the United States, falls disproportionately on Black people, indigeneous people, and people of color.

Spending on policing in the United States has almost tripled, from $42.3 billion in 1977 to $114.5 billion in 2017.

America now locks away 2.2 million people in prisons and jails. That’s a 500 percent increase from 40 years ago. The nation now has the largest incarcerated population in the world.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has exploded. More people are now in ICE detention than ever in its history.

Total military spending in the U.S. has soared from $437 billion in 2003 to $935.8 billion this fiscal year.

The more societies spend on social controls, the less they have left for social investment. More police means fewer social services. American taxpayers spend $107.5 billion more on police than on public housing.

More prisons means fewer dollars for education. In fact, America is now spending more money on prisons than on public schools. Fifteen states now spend $27,000 more per person in prison than they do per student.

As spending on controls has increased, spending on public assistance has shrunk. Fewer people are receiving food stamps. Outlays for public health have declined.

America can’t even seem to find money to extend unemployment benefits during this pandemic.

Societies that skimp on social investment end up spending more on social controls that perpetuate violence and oppression. This trend is a deep-seated part of our history.

The United States began as a control society. Slavery– America’s original sin – depended on the harshest conceivable controls. Jim Crow and redlining continued that legacy.

But in the decades following World War II, the nation began inching toward social investment – the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act, and substantial investments in health and education.

Then America swung backward to social control.

Since Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” four times as many people have been arrested for possessing drugs as for selling them.

Of those arrested for possession, half have been charged with possessing cannabis for their own use. Nixon’s strategy had a devastating effect on Black people that is still felt today: a Black person is nearly 4 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than a white person, even though they use it at similar rates.

Bill Clinton put 88,000 additional police on the streets and got Congress to mandate life sentences for people convicted of a felony after two or more prior convictions, including drug offenses.

This so-called “three strikes you’re out” law was replicated by many states, and, yet again, disproportionately impacted Black Americans. In California, for instance, Black people were 12 times more likely than white people to be incarcerated under three-strikes laws, until the state reformed the law in 2012. Clinton also “reformed” welfare into a restrictive program that does little for families in poverty today.

Why did America swing back to social control?

Part of the answer has to do with widening inequality. As the middle class collapsed and the ranks of the poor grew, those in power viewed social controls as cheaper than social investment, which would require additional taxes and a massive redistribution of both wealth and power.

Meanwhile, politicians whose power depends on maintaining the status quo, used racism – from Nixon’s “law and order” and Reagan’s “welfare queens” to Trump’s blatantly racist rhetoric – to deflect the anxieties of an increasingly overwhelmed white working class. It’s the same old strategy. So long as racial animosity exists, the poor and working class won’t join together to topple the system that keeps so many Americans in poverty, and Black Americans oppressed.

The last weeks of protests and demonstrations have exposed what’s always been true: social controls are both deadly and unsustainable. They require more and more oppressive means of terrorizing communities and they drain resources that would ensure Black people not only survive, but thrive.

This moment calls on us to relinquish social control and ramp up our commitment to social investment.

It’s time we invest in affordable housing and education, not tear gas, batons, and state-sanctioned murder. It’s time we invest in keeping children fed and out of poverty, not putting their parents behind bars. It’s time to defund the police, and invest in communities. We have no time to waste.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/trumps-secret-police-things-are-heading-in-that-direction/

no lnx

Trump’s secret police? Things are heading in that direction

[President Donald J. Trump speaks with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers coming in for their shift change, after President Trump attended a Roundtable on Immigration and Border Security Thursday, January 10, 2019, at the U.S. Border Patrol McAllen Station in McAllen, Texas. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)]

Written by John Stoehr, The Editorial Board February 18, 2020

I wrote this morning about the president’s new intimidation of sanctuary cities. He’s deploying 100 CBP agents, including BORTAC, which is a SWAT team for border security. The official goal is increasing deportations by 35 percent, but it’s pretty clear the aim is bullying local law enforcement into cooperating with federal authorities. I set the Times report in historical context, trying to explain, as I see it, how 9/11 sparked a chain reaction leading to what appears to be Donald Trump’s secret police force.

I end the piece by quoting Jenn Budd, a former Border Patrol agent turned civil rights activist, who reported a conversation she had with a former CBP official. She wrote:

Border Patrol does not believe they are a civilian law enforcement agency. They believe they are kin to the Marine Corps. They do not believe they are accountable to Congress, which is why they have no issues lying to them even while under oath.

They believe they are only accountable to … presidents like Trump. Border Patrol believes it is not required to answer to local police, FBI, CIA or any other law enforcement agency. They claim to be the “premiere” law enforcement agency, superior to all others. They say they will become a “national police force” to be used by a president to enforce laws even among citizens. (Italics are mine.)

Check out the whole thing here.

And while you’re there, please support my work by becoming a member!

Thanks. —John Stoehr

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zoe

w/ nadler demand info on military swat to sanct cities

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/how-corporatism-and-the-madness-of-militarism-go-together/

no lnx

How corporatism and ‘the madness of militarism’ go together

Image by / Screengrab.

Written by Norman Solomon / Common Dreams January 7, 2020

There’s nothing like an illegal and utterly reckless U.S. act of war to illuminate the political character of presidential candidates. In the days since the assassination of Iran’s top military official, two of the highest-polling Democratic contenders have displayed the kind of moral cowardice that got the United States into—and kept it in —horrific wars from Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Eager to hedge their bets, Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg have offered merely tactical critiques of President Trump’s decision to kill Qassim Suleimani. In sharp contrast to Elizabeth Warren and especially Bernie Sanders, the gist of the responses from Biden and Buttigieg amounted to criticizing the absence of a game plan for an atrocious game that should never be played in the first place.

Many journalists have noted that only in recent days has foreign policy become prominent in the race for the 2020 nomination. But what remains to be addressed is the confluence of how Biden and Buttigieg approach the roles of the U.S. government in class war at home and military war abroad—both for the benefit of corporate elites.

Let’s be clear: More than 50 years ago, when Martin Luther King Jr. bravely condemned “the madness of militarism,” he was directly challenging those who included the political ancestors of the likes of Buttigieg and Biden—Democratic politicians willing to wink and nod at vast death and destruction, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers, equivocating while claiming that the war machinery would operate better in their hands.

On war-related issues, Buttigieg’s rhetorical mix offers something for just about anyone. “Mr. Buttigieg is campaigning as an antiwar veteran,” the New York Times oddly reported in a Jan. 5 news article. Yet on the same day, during a CNN interview about the drone killing, Buttigieg functioned more as a war enabler than opponent.

In response to anchor Jake Tapper’s first question—“Are you saying that President Trump deserves some credit for the strike?”—Buttigieg equivocated: “No, not until we know whether this was a good decision and how this decision was made, and the president has failed to demonstrate that.” His elaborations were littered with statements like “we need answers on whether this is part of a meaningful strategy.”

As for Biden, in recent months his shameful war-enabling history has drawn more attention while he continues to lie about it. And—given how hugely profitable endless wars have been for military contractors—Biden’s chronic enabling should be put in a wider context of his longtime service to corporate profiteering on a massive scale.

Biden has no interest in discussing his actual five-decade history of serving corporate power, which can only discredit the renewed “Lunch Bucket Joe” pretenses of his campaign. Meanwhile, as Buttigieg gained in the polls amid a widening flood of donations from Wall Street and other bastions of wealth, he moved away from initial claims of supporting such progressive measures as Medicare for All.

The military-industrial complex, inherently corporate, needs politicians like Biden and Buttigieg. One generation after another, they claim special geopolitical (Biden) or technocratic (Buttigieg) expertise while striving to project warm personas in front of cameras. The equivalents, one might say, of happy-face stickers on corpses.

Such dedicated political services to militarism are also political services to the corporate power of oligarchy.

Political positions on class warfare don’t always run parallel to positions on military warfare. But they have now clearly aligned in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

Days ago, Bernie Sanders summed up: “I know that it is rarely the children of the billionaire class who face the agony of reckless foreign policy, it is the children of working families.”

One of the many reasons I’m actively supporting Sanders for president is that (although hardly flawless) his track record on military spending, war and foreign policy is much better than the records of his opponents.

Devastating impacts of nonstop war are all around us in the United States, from deadly federal budget priorities to traumatic effects of normalized violence. And it’s difficult to grasp the magnitude of harm to so many millions of human beings in other countries. Sometimes, while trying to clear away the fog of the USA’s political and media abstractions, I think of people I met in Baghdad and Kabul and Tehran, their lives no less precious than yours or mine.

Norman Solomon is co-founder and national coordinator of RootsAction.org. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death” and “Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America’s Warfare State.” He is the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

link to pie chart

https://static.nationalpriorities.org/images/charts/2015-charts/discretionary-desk.png

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/the-failure-of-militarized-neoliberalism-is-laid-bare-in-iraq-and-haiti/

no lnx

The failure of militarized neoliberalism is laid bare in Iraq and Haiti

Written by Medea Benjamin, Nicolas J. S. Davies October 10, 2019

This season could be called the Autumn of Discontent, as people from the Middle East to Latin America and the Caribbean have been rising up against corrupt neoliberal governments. Two of the countries in crisis, Haiti and Iraq, are on opposite ends of the earth but have something important in common. Not only are they reeling from protests against government corruption and austerity programs, like Ecuador and Algeria, but in both Haiti and Iraq, their corrupt neoliberal governments were imposed on them by the use of U.S. military force.

In 2003 and 2004 respectively, U.S. forces illegally invaded Iraq and Haiti, removed their internationally recognized governments from power and replaced them with U.S.-backed regimes. Both countries have since been governed in line with the dominant neoliberal ideology that the U.S. and its allies have imposed on most of the world since the 1980s. The protests and savage repression in Iraq and Haiti today are only the latest evidence of the utter failure of neoliberalism and the extraordinary human cost of U.S. efforts to impose it by military force on countries that resist.

In the first week of October, more than 100 people were killed and 6,000 wounded in Baghdad, Nasiriyah and other Iraqi cities, as the Iraqi Army and police fired into large demonstrations. Young Iraqis have risen up against government corruption, unemployment and poverty that leave them with dismal prospects, even as record oil production fills the pockets of the ruling elite in Baghdad’s Green Zone.

Meanwhile, at least 17 people have been killed in the Haitian government’s repression of protests calling for the resignation of U.S.-backed President Jovenel Moise. Public anger has boiled over into the streets as Moise faces credible charges of embezzlement and corruption. His government has utterly failed to improve the lives of most Haitians. Haiti remains the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, with a per capita GDP of only $870 per year and 60 percent of the population living below a poverty line of $2.41 per day.

In a Foreign Affairs article in January 2019, Senator Elizabeth Warrenexplained how the U.S.:

began to export a particular brand of capitalism, one that involved weak regulations, low taxes on the wealthy, and policies favoring multinational corporations. And the United States took on a series of seemingly endless wars, engaging in conflicts with mistaken or uncertain objectives and no obvious path to completion.

The impact of these policy changes has been devastating.

What Senator Warren skated over, without connecting the dots, was that the real objective of those wars, coups and other regime change operations was precisely to impose the “particular brand of capitalism” she described, and, if necessary, to do so by the illegal and deadly use of military force.

While Mikhail Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet empire and made peace with the West, the U.S. exported neoliberal capitalism to Eastern Europe without needing to use its war machine it had squandered our country’s wealth for 45 years to build.

Instead, Western political and economic experts like Jeffrey Sachs fanned out across the region reciting Margaret Thatcher’s dictum that “there is no alternative” to neoliberalism. They convinced Eastern European leaders to surrender their countries and their people to the “shock therapy” of corporate conquest, privatization, drastic cuts in public services and plutocratic oligarchy, superficially legitimized by Western-style multi-party elections.

But the U.S. and its allies then faced two thorny dilemmas. What should they do about countries that remained obstinately independent from their neoliberal empire, countries like Iraq, Iran, Libya, Cuba and North Korea? And what should they do with the U.S. and NATO war machine that Gorbachev’s peacemaking had rendered redundant?

U.S. officials of both major parties, from neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz to “humanitarian interventionists” like Madeleine Albright, peddled the simplistic notion that the U.S. war machine could be repurposed to impose neoliberalism by force on dissident countries around the world. Twenty years on, the results of those policies have been universally catastrophic.

Even in the U.S., at the very heart of the neoliberal empire, a new generation raised on the myths of neoliberalism now rejects its absurdities: trickle-down economics; the magic of the market; union-busting; privatized health care and education; the best Congress money can buy; the shrinking middle class; the rampant destruction of the natural world; and so on.As British economist J.M. Keynes reportedly said in the 1930s, “Laissez-faire capitalism is the absurd idea that the worst people, for the worst reasons, will do what is best for all of us.”

But as corrosive as neoliberalism has been to working people in the U.S., it has been far more destructive wherever the U.S. and its allies have tried to impose it by military force.

Afghanistan and Iraq

In Afghanistan, after 18 years of war, 80,000 U.S. bombs and missiles dropped in U.S.-led airstrikes, and hundreds of thousands of violent deaths, the Afghan people are so disillusioned with the U.S.-sponsored “democratic system” that only 25 percent turned out to vote in the September presidential elections, a record low. The unending violence and the unbridled corruption of successive U.S.-backed governments have enabled the Taliban to make a comeback and set up a viable shadow government across more and more of the country.

In Iraq, 16 years after the U.S. invasion, a succession of corrupt U.S.-backed governments has boosted oil production to about 4.6 million barrels per day, the second-highest production in OPEC. But in line with U.S. neoliberal orthodoxy, the profits have been pocketed by Iraq’s new U.S.-installed ruling class, not redistributed to provide universal health care, education, housing and other public services as they were under Iraq’s nationalist and Baathist governments between 1958 and 2003, including under Saddam Hussein’s brutal dictatorship.

Iraq was plunged back into full-scale war in 2014, as the alienated population in the north and west of the country fell under the sway of the Islamic State. The U.S. military responded with a campaign of air and artillery bombardment that destroyed most of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, and many other towns and cities across Iraq and Syria, killing tens of thousands of civilians in Mosul alone.

The U.S. invasion and the unending waves of violence and chaos it unleashed have destroyed Iraq. The U.S.-imposed neoliberal model has empowered a series of corrupt governments to steal and squander Iraq’s oil wealth, while the rest of the population still struggles to recover from this unending “Made in the U.S.A.” national trauma. Voter turnout in Iraqi elections declined from 80 percent in 2005 to 45 percent in 2018. Now a desperate and angry new generation of Iraqis is taking to the streets to demand a government that will finally share their country’s wealth with its people.

The Tragedy of Haiti

In 2000, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president, was elected for a second term on a platform that explicitly rejected the neoliberal “free market,” debt and austerity policies imposed on Haiti by the U.S., the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

The U.S. responded to Aristide’s reelection by cutting off foreign aid to Haiti and setting up training camps in the Dominican Republic, where up to 200 U.S. special operations forces trained Haitian death squads to cross the border, assassinate Aristide’s supporters and terrorize the population.

In February 2004, these U.S.-trained death squads joined forces with a militia called the Cannibal Army in Gonaives, where they sacked the police station and took control of the city. Two weeks later, they seized Cap Haitien, Haiti’s second-largest city.

As the U.S.-trained death squads threatened to march on the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, a U.S. embassy official and U.S. special operations forces entered the Presidential Palace and “persuaded” Aristide and his family to leave with them. A thousand U.S. Marines, plus French, Canadian and Chilean troops, invaded and occupied Haiti.

The U.S. flew Aristide to Antigua and then to the Central African Republic (CAR), where General Francois Bozize had just seized power in a Western-backed military coup. The Jamaican government rescued Aristide and his family from the CAR and brought them to Jamaica for a few months until they were granted permanent sanctuary in South Africa. Aristide was finally allowed to return to Haiti in 2011, and he is still widely seen as the only popular democratic leader Haiti has ever had.

Since 2004, when Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas party was banned,elections in Haiti have been so obviously rigged and illegitimate that voter turnout has declined from at least 50 percent in 2000 (despite an opposition boycott), when Aristide won 92 percent of the votes, to 22 percent in 2011, 29 percent in 2015 and 18 percent in 2016, allowing every election to be won by openly corrupt U.S.-backed right-wing politicians and parties.

After the devastating 2010 earthquake, the 2011 election was won by Michel Martelly, a Haitian pop singer supported by Bill and Hillary Clinton. He was quickly mired in scandal over a $2.6 million bribe from a Dominican construction firm to whom he awarded $200 million in no-bid contracts for post-earthquake rebuilding work, triggering large anti-corruption protests in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

The latest election in 2016 was another fiasco. Evidence of massive election fraud triggered huge anti-government demonstrations before Jovenel Moise, the declared winner, even took office. Exit polls showed Moise only winning 6 percent of the votes in the first round, a small fraction of his official 33 percent share that won him a place in the run-off.

Now Haitian government auditors have released a 600-page report detailing how Moise has embezzled millions of dollars, mainly from the PetroCaribe fund. Under this program, Venezuela supplied Haiti with oil but deferred payment for 25 years so that Haiti could spend the money on badly needed infrastructure, hospitals and social programs. The audit revealed how Moise siphoned millions of dollars from these funds into his own personal bank accounts.

Haiti remains under UN military occupation to this day. UN troops have used force against the public and unleashed a cholera epidemic. The UN mandate for the remaining 1,275-member UN police force, supported by about 300 Indian troops, finally expires on October 15, when it is due to be replaced by a 30-member UN political mission.

Neoliberalism Begets Resistance

Neoliberalism is an inherently corrupt system. It creates a vicious circle in which ruling classes can leverage their wealth to gain dominant political power and then use that power to cut taxes and rewrite laws to further enrich themselves. This is a powerful engine to generate ever more concentrated wealth and political power for the 1 percent, with impoverishment and political marginalization for everybody else.

Neoliberalism reduces politics mainly to a choice between politicians and parties who represent factions of the same corrupt ruling class, which retains a monopoly on power whichever party wins. But the fatal flaw in the neoliberal view of the world is the presumption that ruling classes can safely ignore the 99 percent of the population they disenfranchise, exploit or even kill.

This idea that only the elites in each country matter has led directly to the U.S. policy of “regime change,” in which leaders who resist neoliberalism are overthrown by whatever means necessary. It should be no surprise that the new governments installed by all these U.S. wars and coups are among the most corrupt regimes on earth.

But as U.S.-led occupation armies have discovered in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, and as we can see right now in Iraq and Haiti, ordinary people still insist on having their say about the future of the world we all live in. U.S. policy is largely responsible for the life or death predicaments now facing young people in these countries, so they deserve our solidarity as they rise up to resist.

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK for Peace, is the author of Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK, and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

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Despite recently closing hundreds of bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States still maintains nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad—from giant “Little Americas” to small radar facilities. Britain, France and Russia, by contrast, have about 30 foreign bases combined.

Where in the World Is the U.S. Military? - POLITICO Magazine

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/.../us-military-bases-around-the-world-1193

Web results

List of United States military bases - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military_bases

2.

This is a list of military installations owned or used by the United States Armed Forces currently located in the United States and around the world. This list details ...

United States military ... · ‎United States Army · ‎Lists of military installations

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https://www.nationalpriorities.org/campaigns/us-military-spending-vs-world/

U.S. Military Spending vs. the World

The U.S. outpaces all other nations in military expenditures. World military spending totaled more than $1.6 trillion in 2015. The U.S. accounted for37 percent of the total.

U.S. military expenditures are roughly the size of the next seven largest military budgetsaround the world, combined.

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/campaigns/how-military-spending-has-changed/ since 9/11 (2014) chart

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/blog/2016/04/28/federal-contractor-spotlight-lockheed-martin-and-f-35/

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List of countries by military expenditures - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

2.

Jump to Total **military spending - SIPRI Military Expenditure Database, List by the International Institute for Strategic Studies Top 15 Defence Budgets 2018. Rank, Country, Spending (US$ Bn.) ... 01, United States of America, 649.0, 3.2.

Military budget of the United · ‎Military budget · ‎Military budget of the Russian ...

Military budget of the United States - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States

2.

The military budget is the portion of the discretionary United States federal budget allocated to ... Navy, and Air Force. For Fiscal Year 2019 (FY2019), the Department of Defense' budget authority is approximately $693,058,000,000. ..... When accounting for Military Expenditure by % of GDP, the United States ranks 21st.

U.S. Defense Spending Compared to Other Countries

https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison

1.

May 3, 2019 - U.S. Defense Spending Compared to Other Countries. ... Policymakers can ensure that our military is strong and that we are prepared to defend ...

Which State Ranks Highest in Military Spending? > U.S. ... - Defense.gov

https://www.defense.gov/explore/.../which-state-ranks-highest-in-military-spending/

1.

Mar 19, 2019 - Defense officials outlined military spending trends at the Brookings Institution in Washington. ,

• Ranking: military spending by country 2018 | Statistic

https://www.statista.com › Society › Politics & Government

2.

This statistic ranks the 15 countries with the highest military spending in 2018. With defense spendingtotaling USD 649 billion, the USA ranked first.

U.S. Military Spending vs. the World - National Priorities Project

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/campaigns/us-military-spending-vs-world/

2.

The U.S. outpaces all other nations in military expenditures. World military spending totaled more than $1.6 trillion in 2015. The U.S. accounted for 37 percent of ...

Military expenditure (% of GDP) | Data

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS

Military expenditure (% of GDP) from The World Bank: Data. ... Military expenditure (% of general government expenditure). Armed forces ... American Samoa.

The Biggest Military Budgets As A Share Of GDP In 2018 [Infographic]

https://www.forbes.com/.../the-biggest-military-budgets-as-a-share-of-gdp-in-2018-inf...

1.

Apr 29, 2019 - Total global military spending rose 2.6% to $1.8 trillion in 2018, ... the Trump administration, U.S. military spending grew for the first time in seven years, reaching $649 billion. ... NATO calls on all of its members to dedicate 2% of their GDP on defense and so far, ... Uber Will Ban Riders With Low Ratings ...

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July 9, 2019 

Tomgram: William Astore, Drowning in Militarism

It’s no small thing to lodge a word or phrase of your own in our language. So give Dwight D. Eisenhower credit. In his presidential farewell address to the American people in 1961, the former five-star general of World War II warned -- and who would have known better -- of the growth of what he called “the military-industrial complex.” (“Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry... We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions... Added to this, 3½ million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment... Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience... In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.”) 

As it turned out, Ike couldn’t have been more on target and the phrase stuck (as, of course, did the military-industrial complex). Almost six decades after he introduced the term, the national security apparatus, according to William Hartung and Mandy Smithberger, now gulps down a staggering $1.25 trillion of our tax money annually, while fighting endless wars, and could hardly be more powerful. In a world in which the U.S. national security state is still expanding, however, Eisenhower’s phrase may actually be too modest for our militaristic moment. As political scientist Daniel Wirls wrote recently, “That Cold War term no longer fits. ‘Industrial’ does not capture the breadth of the activities involved. And ‘military’ fails to describe the range of government policies and interests implicated... If anything, Eisenhower’s complex has become more complex and potentially influential.” Wirls suggests instead “National Security Corporate Complex,” which may prove a bit of a mouthful, but he does catch the spirit of the new world of corporations like Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics in calling them, aptly indeed, “Walmarts of war.” 

As retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, historian, blogger, and TomDispatch* regular William Astore suggests today, we Americans, just as Ike feared so long ago, are now caught in a riptide of war and preparations for more of the same. And just as Ike also feared, in a Washington where little the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security, or our many intelligence services ask for is ever denied them by Congress or the president, American democracy is increasingly up for grabs. *Tom

The Riptide of American Militarism 

Lessons from the Natural World on Washington’s Unnatural Wars 

By William J. Astore

Put up with me for just a moment while I wax literary. It turns out that, if French novelist Marcel Proust lived today, he might have had to retitle his Remembrance of Things Past as Remembrance of Things Present, or even more sadly, Things Future. As an ex-military man who lived through part of the Cold War in uniform, let me make my point, in terms of the Pentagon and an ever-growing atmosphere of American militarism, this way: I love used bookstores. I’ve been browsing in them since my teens. I was, then, an early fan of Stephen King, the famed horror-story writer. Admittedly, today I’m more likely to browse the history section, which has horrors enough for us all, many of which eclipse even the most fevered imaginings of King, though Pennywise the Clown in It still gives me the creeps.

A while back, speaking of things not past, I stumbled across Senator J. William Fulbright’s 1970 book The Pentagon Propaganda Machine and, out of curiosity, bought it for the princely sum of five dollars. Now, talk about creepy. Fulbright, who left the Senate in 1974 and died in 1995, noted a phenomenon then that should ring a distinct bell today. Americans, he wrote, “have grown distressingly used to war.” He then added a line that still couldn’t be more up to date: “Violence is our most important product.” Congress, he complained (and this, too, should ring a distinct bell in 2019), was shoveling money at the Pentagon “with virtually no questions asked,” while costly weapons systems were seen mainly “as a means of prosperity,” especially for the weapons makers of the military-industrial complex. “Militarism has been creeping up on us,” he warned, and the American public, conditioned by endless crises and warnings of war, had grown numb, leaving “few, other than the young, [to] protest against what is happening.”

Back then, of course, the bogeyman that kept the process going was Communism. America’s exaggerated fear of Communism then (and terrorism now) strengthened militarism at home in a myriad of ways while, as Fulbright put it, “undermining democratic procedure and values.” And doesn’t that ring a few bells, too? Complicit in all this was the Pentagon’s own propaganda machine, which worked hard “to persuade the American people that the military is good for you.”

Click here to read more of this dispatch.

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https://www.c-span.org/video/?461894-1/tyranny-home

7/19

Tyranny Comes Home

Christopher Coyne and Abigail Hall talk about the militarization of domestic law enforcement in the United States.

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