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The Trump Administration’s Military Occupation of America

By Nick Turse, The War Within,  October 16, 2025

Let me do something I seldom do and briefly predict the future in an up-close-and-personal fashion. Count on this: on November 4th, Zohran Mamdani will indeed be elected mayor of New York City. (I’ll vote for him and I have no doubt that I’ll be anything but alone.) And count on this, too: as his opponent, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, recently predicted, if the National Guard or other military outfits aren’t on the streets of this city — and possibly at my polling place — on election day, they certainly will be by the time Mamdani takes office next January.

Yes, once upon a time in a distant past, Donald Trump did indeed come from this very city, growing up in a neighborhood that he once termed “an oasis.” And I suspect he still thinks of it as, in some sense, “his.” As for Mamdani, whom he calls “my little communist,” the president isn’t likely to put up with him for long, not in a country that, as TomDispatch regular Nick Turse makes vividly clear today, he seems increasingly intent on occupying militarily.

I sometimes try to imagine telling my long-dead father, who grew up in Brooklyn and fought in the Second World War, about the Trumpian universe he’s missed, including the possibility that a president of the United States might actually send some part of the U.S. military into his old neighborhood as — yes! — an occupying force, while invoking the Insurrection Act. Once upon a time, such a thought would have been considered truly absurd science fiction, but no longer. And with that in mind, let Turse fill you in on just how Donald Trump is already beginning to militarily occupy this country and what that might mean for all of us. Tom

On the Precipice of Authoritarian Rule

The Trump Administration’s Military Occupation of America

By Nick Turse

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump threatened to unleash the armed forces on more American cities during a rambling address to top military brass. He told the hundreds of generals and admirals gathered to hear him that some of them would be called upon to take a primary role at a time when his administration has launched occupations of American cities, deployed tens of thousands of troops across the United States, created a framework for targeting domestic enemies, cast his political rivals as subhuman, and asserted his right to wage secret war and summarily execute those he deems terrorists.

Trump used that bizarre speech to take aim at cities he claimed “are run by the radical left Democrats,” including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. “We’re going to straighten them out one by one. And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room,” he said. “That’s a war too. It’s a war from within.” He then added: “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”

Trump has, of course, already deployed the armed forces inside the United States in an unprecedented fashion during the first year of his second term in office. As September began, a federal judge found that his decision to occupy Los Angeles with members of California’s National Guard — under so-called Title 10 or federalized status — against the wishes of California Governor Gavin Newsom was illegal. But just weeks later, Trump followed up by ordering the military occupation of Portland, Oregon, over Governor Tina Kotek’s objections.

“I am directing Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists,” Trump wrote on Truth Social late last month. And he “authoriz[ed] Full Force, if necessary.”

When a different federal judge blocked him from deploying Oregon National Guardsmen to the city, he ordered in Guard members from California and Texas. That judge then promptly blocked his effort to circumvent her order, citing the lack of a legal basis for sending troops into Portland. In response, Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act — an 1807 law that grants the president emergency powers to deploy troops on U.S. soil — to “get around” the court rulings blocking his military occupation efforts. “I think that’s all insurrection, really criminal insurrection,” he claimed, in confused remarks from the Oval Office.

Experts say that his increasing use of the armed forces within the United States represents an extraordinary violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. That bedrock nineteenth-century law banning the use of federal troops to execute domestic law enforcement has long been seen as fundamental to America’s democratic tradition. However, the president’s deployments continue to nudge this country ever closer to becoming a genuine police state. They come amid a raft of other Trump administration authoritarian measures designed to undermine the Constitution and weaken democracy. Those include attacks on birthright citizenship and free speech, as well as the exercise of expansive unilateral powers like deporting people without due process and rolling back energy regulations, citing wartime and emergency powers.

A Presidential Police Force

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled last month that Trump’s deployment of federal troops to Los Angeles, which began in June, was illegal and harkened back to Britain’s use of soldiers for law enforcement purposes in colonial America. He warned that Trump clearly intends to transform the National Guard into a presidential police force……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Earlier this month, Trump signed an executive order claiming to designate antifa — a loose-knit anti-fascist movement — as a “domestic terror organization.” He also issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which directs the Justice Department and elements of the Intelligence Community and national security establishment to target “anti-fascism… movements” and “domestic terrorist organizations.” Such enemies, according to the president, not only espouse “anti-Americanism” and “support for the overthrow of the United States Government,” but also are typified by advocacy of opinions protected by the First Amendment, including “anti-capitalism,” “anti-Christianity,” and “hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

After referring to the “war from within” during his address to the military’s top officers, he cast his political rivals as subhuman and claimed that they needed to be dealt with. “We have to take care of this little gnat that’s on our shoulder called the Democrats,” he told the sailors during the Navy’s 250th anniversary celebration.

The Trump administration has also admitted that it’s waging a secret war against undisclosed enemies without the consent of Congress. ……………………………………………………………


Police State USA

The Trump administration’s military occupations of American cities, its deployment of tens of thousands of troops across the United States, its emerging framework for designating and targeting domestic enemies, its dehumanization of its political foes, and its assertion that the president has the right to wage secret war and summarily execute those he deems terrorists have left this country on the precipice of authoritarian rule……………………………. https://tomdispatch.com/on-the-precipice-of-authoritarian-rule/

October 19, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

The not-so-secret history of Netanyahu’s support for Hamas

From sabotaging Oslo to funneling Qatari cash into Gaza, Bibi has spent his career bolstering Hamas to help perpetuate the conflict. Even after Oct. 7, argues historian Adam Raz, he’s still advancing the same strategy.

972 Magazine, By Ghousoon Bisharat, November 11, 2024

When Israeli historian and human rights activist Adam Raz set out to write “The Road to October 7: Benjamin Netanyahu, the Production of the Endless Conflict and Israel’s Moral Degradation,” he knew he was tackling a blind spot in Israeli public discourse. The vast majority of Israelis, Raz believes, fail to grasp the full extent of Netanyahu’s involvement in bolstering Hamas before the current war, and in perpetuating an unending state of conflict.

Raz’s book, released in May of this year, sheds light on a controversial policy whereby Netanyahu’s governments for years routinely approved and encouraged the transfer of Qatari funds into Gaza to prop up Hamas. While noting that the Israeli media has devoted more attention to this policy in the aftermath of October 7, Raz told +972 that this is “just a sliver of the bigger picture,” which is rooted in Netanyahu’s broader opposition to a just resolution to the conflict. “People need to understand the full scope of Netanyahu’s strategy,” he said.

According to Raz, who also works as a researcher at the Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research, Netanyahu’s priority is not maintaining Israel’s security but rather preventing any real chance of resolving the conflict through the division of land, ending the occupation, or a two-state solution. Keeping the cash flowing to Hamas served this objective by ensuring the Palestinian national movement remained splintered between Hamas in Gaza and the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank, thus allowing Israel to maintain its dominance over the whole of the land. Even after the devastating events of October 7, Raz warns that Netanyahu’s playbook remains unchanged.

This book isn’t a history lesson about the conflict, Raz emphasizes, but rather a damning exploration of a political alliance that continues to degrade Israel’s moral fabric. “I didn’t write this book, I yelled it on the pages,” he said. 

I spoke with Raz about the long history of Netanyahu’s symbiotic relationship with Hamas and its recently-killed leader Yahya Sinwar; why the current war represents a continuation of, not a break from, the prime minister’s strategy vis-a-vis the Palestinians as a whole; and why even after more than a year of war and the death of Sinwar, for Netanyahu little has changed. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

…………………………………….. Adam Raz : This is a book about Netanyahu. I didn’t set out to write the story of the occupation under Netanyahu, the history of Hamas, or the collision between the two national movements. It’s the story of the relationship between Netanyahu and Sinwar. I’m trying to understand the motivation of the two most important actors in this game, who have been holding their societies by the neck.  

Israel is Bibi-land. Whatever is at stake in Israel, whether it’s the Palestinians, the Iran nuclear deal, or any other foreign policy issue, it’s all in Netanyahu’s hands. In my book you can read how this came to be, and how Bibi changed Israeli politics. ………………………………………………………………………..

Netanyahu is the number one opponent of a two-state solution………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Since coming back to power, Netanyahu has resisted any attempt, be it military or diplomatic, that might bring an end to the Hamas regime in Gaza……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

his central interest is never-ending war, and Hamas was a tool to maintain the conflict while Israel had the upper hand…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.972mag.com/netanyahu-hamas-october-7-adam-raz/

October 18, 2025 Posted by | Israel, politics | Leave a comment

Exempt charities from nuclear levy on energy bills, government urged

Third Sector UK, 14 October 2025 by Emily Harle

Some charities could see their bills rise up to £2,500 a year

The government has been urged to provide an exemption for charities from a new levy that could cost some voluntary sector organisations up to £2,500 a year. 

The nuclear regulated asset levy, which will be introduced in November, was developed by the previous government to provide a return to investors in Sizewell C, a new nuclear power station that is being built in Suffolk over the next decade.

Although industries that use the most electricity have been exempted from the levy by the government, the energy regulator Ofgem said this week that local charities, including youth clubs and community centres, will have to pay the full amount.

The Social Investment Business estimates that the average charity with a building could see their bills rise by up to £240 annually, but added that some will face an increase of more than £2,500 per year as a result of the levy.

This rise in electricity bills “will add even more pressure to charities”, SIB said, adding that the sector was particularly vulnerable to increasing prices due to the low income of volunteer-led clubs and the “often-draughty” buildings available for community groups.

In April, SIB’s research found that local youth charities were paying as much as half of their entire budget just to cover utilities.

Nick Temple, chief executive of the SIB, said: “Adding yet more charges on top of charity electricity bills penalises our most vital community spaces at a time when they are already struggling. 

“The government must urgently provide an exemption to this new levy for charities, who are particularly vulnerable to rising costs. 

“They should drop this model of adding charges onto electricity all together, which is no longer fit-for-purpose and is slowing down the country’s transition to renewables and inflates everyone’s bills.”

SIB have also urged charities to contact their energy providers, adding that if a charity is on a variable tariff, it will see charges introduced from 1 November, while those on fixed tariffs will need to check with their provider.

Wellspring Settlement, a charity based in Bristol delivering a range of community services to local families and young children, is one charity under threat due to the new levy costs, facing a potential uplift of more than £2,500 per year…………………………………….https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/exempt-charities-nuclear-levy-energy-bills-government-urged/finance/article/1936061

October 17, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Trump Keeps Admitting That He Is Bought And Owned By The World’s Richest Israeli

Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 14, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/trump-keeps-admitting-that-he-is?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=176098622&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

It’s bizarre how little mainstream attention is given to the fact that the president of the United States has repeatedly confessed to being bought and owned by the world’s richest Israeli, especially given how intensely fixated his political opposition was on the possibility that he was compromised by a foreign government during his first term.

During a speech before the Israeli parliament on Monday, President Trump once again publicly admitted that he has implemented Israel-friendly policies at the behest of Israeli-American billionaire Miriam Adelson and her late husband Sheldon, this time adding that he believes Adelson favors Israel over the United States.

Here’s a transcript of Trump’s remarks:

“As president, I terminated the disastrous Iran nuclear deal, and ultimately, I terminated Iran’s nuclear program with things called B2 bombers. It was swift and it was accurate, and it was a military beauty. I authorized the spending of billions of dollars, which went to Israel’s defense, as you know. And after years of broken promises from many other American presidents — you know that they kept promising — I never understood it until I got there. There was a lot of pressure put on these presidents. It was put on me, too, but I didn’t yield to the pressure. But every president for decades said, ‘We’re going to do it.’ The difference is I kept my promise and officially recognized the capital of Israel and moved the American Embassy to Jerusalem.

“Isn’t that right Miriam? Look at Miriam. She’s back there. Stand up. Miriam and Sheldon [Adelson] would come into the office and call me. They’d call me — I think they had more trips to the White House than anybody else, I guess. Look at her sitting there so innocently — got $60 billion in the bank, $60 billion. And she loves, and she, I think she said, ‘No, more.’ And she loves Israel, but she loves it. And they would come in. And her husband was a very aggressive man, but I loved him. It was a very aggressive, very supportive of me. And he’d call up, ‘Can I come over and see you? I’d say ‘Sheldon, I’m the president of the United States. It doesn’t work that way.’ He’d come in. But they were very responsible for so much, including getting me thinking about Golan Heights, which is probably one of the greatest things ever happened. Miriam, stand up, please She really is, I mean, she loves this country. She loves this country. Her and her husband are so incredible. We miss him so dearly. But I actually asked her, I’m going to get her in trouble with this. But I actually asked her once, I said, ‘So Miriam, I know you love Israel. What do you love more? The United States or Israel?’ She refused to answer. That means — that might mean Israel, I must say, we love you. Thank you, darling, for being here. That’s a great honor. Great honor. She’s a wonderful woman. She is a great woman.”

Sheldon Adelson reportedly gave Trump and the Republicans over $424 million in campaign funding from 2016 up until his death in 2021. His widow Miriam continued her husband’s legacy and poured a further $100 million into Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

On the 2024 campaign trail Trump also admitted to being controlled by Adelson cash. Here’s a transcript of those remarks:

“Just as I promised, I recognize Israel’s eternal capital and opened the American embassy in Jerusalem. Jerusalem became the capital. I also recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

“You know, Miriam and Sheldon would come into the White House probably almost more than anybody outside of people that work there. And they were always after — and as soon as I’d give them something — always for Israel. As soon as I’d give them something, they’d want something else. I’d say, ‘Give me a couple of weeks, will you, please?’ But I gave them the Golan Heights, and they never even asked for it.

“You know, for 72 years they’ve been trying to do the Golan Heights, right? And even Sheldon didn’t have the nerve. But I said, ‘You know what?’ I said to David Friedman, ‘Give me a quick lesson, like five minutes or less on the Golan Heights.’ And he did. And I said, ‘Let’s do it.’ We got it done in about 15 minutes, right?”

Legitimizing Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights and moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem were two of the most controversial moves Trump made in Israel’s favor during his first term, which have now been eclipsed by his backing the genocide in Gaza and his bombings of Iran and Yemen.

And here is his, openly admitting that his billionaire Zionist megadonors have been using the access their donations bought them to push him to take drastic action in favor of Israel.

Just imagine for a second if someone had leaked documents to the press proving that Trump and received extensive financial backing from a Russian oligarch to whom he doled out favors of immense geopolitical consequence. It would be the biggest scandal in the history of American politics, bar none. But because it’s an Israeli oligarch, he can admit to it openly and repeatedly without anyone batting an eye.

During Trump’s first term his political rivals spent years pushing a bogus conspiracy theory that he was controlled by Vladimir Putin, despite his having spent that entire term aggressively ramping up cold war hostilities against Russia. Entire political punditry careers were birthed trying to create a scandal out of a narrative that could be plainly seen as false just by looking at the movements of the US war machine and Washington’s actions against Moscow.

But here’s Trump openly admitting to bending over backwards to give an Israeli oligarch whatever she wants because she gave his campaign huge sums of money, while pouring weapons into Israel to facilitate its mass atrocities and engaging in acts of war on Israel’s behalf. And it barely makes a blip in mainstream western politics or media.

This is because mainstream western politics and media understand that we are living in an unofficial oligarchic empire to which both the US and Israel belong. They never acknowledge it, they never talk about it, but all high-level politicians, pundits and operatives in the western world understand that they serve a globe-spanning power structure run by a loose alliance of plutocrats and empire managers. They understand that states like Israel are a part of said power structure, while states like Russia, China and Iran are not. So they spend their time normalizing the corruption and abuses of imperial member states while facilitating the empire’s efforts to attack and undermine the states which have successfully resisted being absorbed into the imperial power umbrella.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the only thing I like about Donald Trump is his infantile tendency to say the quiet part out loud. He advances the same kinds of abuses as his predecessors who were no less corrupt and controlled, but he exposes the underlying mechanics of those abuses in ways that more refined presidents never would.

October 15, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

URGENT ACTION NEEDED to Help Protect the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board!

Nuclear Watch, Jay Coghlan, Executive Director, Scott Kovac, Research Director, Sophie Stroud, Digital Content Manager and Youth Specialist, 13 Oct 25

The government is still shut down (unfortunately). But it does mean there’s still time to ask Congress to get a provision in the pending Continuing Resolution to keep the government running that will help save the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB).

Background: The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is an independent agency within the executive branch of the Federal Government. The DNFSB is chartered with the responsibility to provide recommendations and advice to the Secretary of Energy regarding public health and safety issues at Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons facilities, including with the health and safety of employees, contractors, and nearby communities (for more see www.dnfsb.gov).

Congress established the Board in 1988 in response to increasing reports of nuclear safety risks impacting workers and the public. Since early this year, the Board has been reduced to just two Members out of five, with a temporary one-year statutory bridge to constitute a quorum that is drawing to a close. In addition, the current Acting Chairman’s term expires this October 18, ending the Board’s functioning quorum. Without it, the DNFSB cannot effectively carry out its critical nuclear safety oversight mission. The public would simply not know about the DOE’s chronic nuclear safety problems without the Board. This is critically important today given expanding production of nuclear weapons.

Specific request: There should be a provision in any Continuing Resolution for FY 2026 that would temporarily extend the authority of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board by allowing the Acting Chair to serve until the end of January 2027. The overriding purpose is to enable the Safety Board to fully continue operations and provide more time for the President to nominate, and the Senate to confirm, new Safety Board Members.
Congress must take action to protect nuclear safety by preserving DNFSB’s quorum! 

Contact Senator Martin Heinrich through his official website, his Washington, D.C. office, or any of his New Mexico State offices:…………………………………………………………

Contact Senator Ben Ray Luján through his official website, his Washington, D.C. office, or any of his New Mexico State offices:………………………………………………….

Contact Senator John Thune through his official website, his Washington, D.C. office, or any of his South Dakota State offices:…………………………………………….

Contact Senator Chuck Schumer through his official website, his Washington, D.C. office, or any of his New York State offices:……………………………………………. https://nukewatch.org/action-item/urgent-action-needed-to-help-protect-the-defense-nuclear-facilities-safety-board/

October 15, 2025 Posted by | Events, politics, safety, USA | Leave a comment

Labour investing in nuclear due to fear of Scottish independence.

 LABOUR may be investing hard in nuclear energy due to the fear of Scottish
independence, Stephen Flynn has suggested.

The SNP Westminster was speaking
at an event at SNP conference and took aim at the amount of cash the UK
Government has diverted from funding GB Energy to nuclear projects in
England.

Labour’s General Election manifesto in 2024 pledged £8.3
billion to GB Energy but Rachel Reeves effectively cut billions in funding
from the energy company — which is officially headquartered in Aberdeen,
although most jobs so far are in England – in June.

The Chancellor’s
spending review said a new body tasked with spearheading Britain’s
nuclear renaissance would receive £2.5bn of that funding for small modular
reactors (SMRs). She also confirmed a further £14.2 billion UK Government
investment in the Sizewell C nuclear power station in Sussex.

“I understand from a UK Government perspective why they might seek to go down that route because of the lack of indigenous energy production that they have,” Flynn told delegates. “And maybe there’s a fear in the back of their mind that if Scotland goes, they’re going to have to find some
electricity tonto to meet their own energy security requirements.”

In 2024, renewable energy accounted for about 70% of Scotland’s electricity
generation, which is significantly higher than England – which relies
more heavily on a mix that includes fossil fuels and nuclear power. Swinney
also hit out at the amount of Scottish families who are living in fuel
poverty despite Scotland being energy rich. “Scotland produces 6 times
more gas than it consumes, and 70% of our electricity comes from renewable sources,” he said. “So, I think all of us should be should be
questioning why we are such an energy originator and so many of our people are living in fuel poverty and why we’re not able to maximise that energy production in order to attract businesses and then, therefore, grow our economy.”

 The National 12th Oct 2025, https://www.thenational.scot/news/25536897.labour-investing-nuclear-due-fear-scottish-independence/

October 14, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Australian Politicians Ignore Israel’s Brutality Against Our Citizens

by Paul Gregoire, 10 Oct 2025, https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/australian-politicians-ignore-israels-brutality-against-our-citizens/?fbclid=IwY2xjawNYYbpleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFvZW56NldIYVltV0JSQ1pBAR7k_Ehv4MPM4mBZcl8Ys4k5ckUYvmGHNzne6Ki56oAJjwRA-5TC1-qnzNMnJw_aem_5XDTJx0Kt9Abixs7ELefHA

The morning of Friday, 10 October 2025 saw the Australian Global Sumud Flotilla participants arrive back in our nation, after attempting to breach the Gaza blockade and then being illegally apprehended by Israel. A sizable crowd gathered on Gadigal land at Sydney Airport to welcome them back. However, another Australian flotilla participant has been in Israeli custody and again Australia’s top ministers are silent.

The Global Sumud Flotilla was part an ongoing campaign to breach the 18-year-long goods blockade on Gaza. Six Australians were taken into custody by Israel in international waters last week, amongst over 400 foreign nations, and they were then brutalised and mistreated in prison, while Australian woman Madeline Habib, a participant in a second flotilla, is likely in the hands of Tel Aviv now.

The participants themselves, as well as publics across the planet, have been shocked by the brutalisation and intimidation Israeli forces have subjected the more than 400 illegally detained foreign nationals to. And what’s resulted in equal dismay is the fact that our PM and foreign minister have failed to raise issue over the kidnapping of their fellow citizens, including the plight of Habib.

After focusing on the six Australians in Israeli custody that federal Labor publicly ignored, while the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade sought to provide them with consular assistance, the mainstream media has failed to raise the alarm over Habib’s detention, even though the testimonies arising from the Sumud Flotilla mean she’s likely being abused by an allied nation as well.

And as Israel has been dealing with a further 145 foreign nationals it intercepted in international waters on Wednesday 8 September 2025, as part of another Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) mission, what has been revealed to Australians is not only will our politicians look the other way on a genocide, but they’ll do the same if Israel gets the chance to brutalise any of our constiuency.

Shameful lack of support

“The Australian government is absolutely shameful in our extraction,” said Australian Global Sumud Flotilla participant Julie Lamont, speaking to the ABC from Jordan on Wednesday, after being released from Israel’s notorious Ktzi’ot prison. “It did not really support us at all. We were the last people out of 50 nationalities. We were left their probably because it was October 7.”

In response to an ABC question as to whether our government arranged the flight out of Israel to the Jordanian capital of Amman, Lamont said, “No. We were facilitated by other governments not the Australian government. And now we are here trying to find a way to come back to Australia, and we really are upset that the Australian government have been so shameful in support of their citizens.”

Lamont said Italy had risen to support flotilla participants, whereas her government hadn’t. The documentary filmmaker added that she’d thought they might be detained for months, while fellow local participant Surya McEwen was reportedly singled out for extra rough treatment by the Israeli military, which included beatings, dislocating his arm and slamming his head into a concrete floor.

Lamont and the other Australians were released by Israel on Wednesday. They were part of the final one-third of participants still detained in Ktzi’ot prison. The fact that the Australian government was less responsive to its own nationals would have compounded the hard time they were receiving at the hands of a rogue nation that’s developed diplomatic tensions with ours over recent months.

A spokesperson for foreign minister Penny Wong released a statement on Wednesday that suggested DFAT officials were working hard to assist detained Australians. The spokesperson for the minister said officials conducted welfare checks at the prison and liaised with Israeli officials to obtain their release. However, the statement failed to explain why Israel was illegally detaining these people.

Israeli immunity

The disturbing fact that Australia’s top ministers don’t appear to consider there is any reason to waste their breath while citizens who’d risked their lives to feed a group of people being purposefully starved to death are being illegally imprisoned and subjected to harsh conditions has been coupled by the reacquaintance with the realisation that Israel can harm foreign nationals with impunity.

The flotilla apprehended this week with Habib was the fourth such attempt to breach the Gaza blockade since June. Participants are aware they are risking their lives, because the six boats making up a 2010 FFC flotilla were boarded by Israeli soldiers in international waters, and then nine foreign nationals were shot dead on sight, with a tenth dying later in a coma.

Irish comedian Tadhg Hickey was also part of last week’s Global Sumud Flotilla. Following his release, Hickey told a reporter that he had considered that if he ended up in an Israeli prison, he wouldn’t be subjected to the levels of brutality and deprivation that he was subjected to at the hands of the Israeli Defence Forces, due to the fact that he is a westerner and a white person.

To face the level of sadism and inhumanity that they displayed was really quite shocking,” Hickey explained. “I mean in the five to six days that we were incarcerated, no access to doctors, no access to medicine, no contact with the outside world” and “no lawyers”. He then explained that one of his fellow participants, a 75-year-old, was deprived of his insulin, which could have killed him.

“In my opinion, they were very happy to let him die,” continued Hickey. “It’s not even a patch of what Palestinians are going through. That was on my mind the whole time. I was thinking, ‘If they’re treating me like this, with the passport I have and the privilege I have, imagine what they are doing to Palestinians in prison, many of whom are children.”

A dereliction of duty

The Gaza Freedom Flotilla Instagram page reported on Friday that the participants in the latest flotilla have begun appearing before an Israeli court. Several participants had already been deported. The detainees were also reporting that they had too been subjected to punishing treatment at the hands of the Israeli military, although there was no specific word on Australian citizen Habib.

A large sector of the Australian public that had been aware that foreign nationals would be subjected to human rights violations at the hands of the Israeli state have been given a quick starter course on how there is one nation on the planet that is provided such impunity that it can violate and breach international laws and standards in a completely unbridled manner.

The other lesson Australia learnt is that while Israel might illegally detain and brutalise Australians, this won’t be an issue officially addressed because it is permissible. And this week was really a confirmation after Israel killed Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom and six others last year and all the foreign minister could do to respond was produce a declaration on the protection of aid workers.

October 13, 2025 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, politics | Leave a comment

MAGA Melts Down Over Trump Giving Qatar a Military Base in U.S.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Qatar would build an Air Force base in Idaho.

Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling, October 11, 2025, https://newrepublic.com/post/201647/maga-donald-trump-qatar-military-air-force-base

The Trump administration’s approval of a Qatari air force base in Idaho isn’t popular with either of America’s political parties.

Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the forthcoming Qatari Emiri Air Force facility in America’s heartland Friday morning, thanking the Middle Eastern nation for playing a “core part” in negotiating the ceasefire between Israel and Palestine. Mountain Home Air Force Base will host Qatari F-15 fighter jets and pilots, and allow Qatari forces alongside American troops for F-15 pilot training.

The move, which stands in stark contrast to the president’s “America first” agenda, seriously rattled some of Donald Trump’s most outspoken supporters.

“Never thought I’d see Republicans give terror financing Muslims from Qatar a MILITARY BASE on US soil so they can murder Americans,” posted far-right influencer Laura Loomer, who has operated as Trump’s informal “loyalty enforcer” since August. “I don’t think I’ll be voting in 2026. I cannot in good conscience make any excuses for the harboring of jihadis.”

“This is where I draw the line,” she wrote.

Other conservatives were left bewildered by the seemingly nonsensical decision.

“What’s the strategic rationale for this? Either ours or Qatar’s?” posted the National Review’s Noah Rothman. “You could rattle off all the problems/risks we’re inviting easily. But I have no idea what the steelman case for this would be? I’m sure we don’t need to import any more Qatari covert assets into this country.”

And still others pointed out the inconsistent hypocrisy of the administration’s policies.

“Joe Biden was criticized for a Chinese balloon flying over our airspace,” wrote GOP consultant Mike Madrid. “They’re giving Qatar an entire f’ing air base.”

Dan Caldwell, who was forced out of the DOD during Hegseth’s Signalgate disaster, wrote on X that the joint air force operation was being blown out of proportion.

“The freak out around this is of course totally unwarranted since this is actually a pretty common practice with countries that buy and operate a lot of U.S. military aircraft. Singapore has a similar facility and detachment for its F-15 training unit at this very same airbase,” Caldwell said.

But even beyond the Air Force base, Qatar appears to have bought itself a very sweet spot in Trumpworld. Just months ago, Qatar solidified a deal with the Trump Organization to build a Trump-branded golf course and a beachside project as part of a $5.5 billion development project. The tiny nation also bestowed a wildly controversial super luxury jumbo jet on to Trump, all in an apparent attempt to shore up its relationship with the U.S.’s notoriously flighty leader.

Those transactions began to pay off earlier this month, when Trump signed an executive order that pledged to give the tiny, energy-rich, non-NATO ally the same level of protection from the U.S. as some of America’s most powerful allies.

October 13, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Boosting Nuclear Power Is Not Nation-Building

Cathy Vakil, 8 Oct 25

Prime Minister Mark Carney has released his priority “nation-building projects,” including the Darlington New Nuclear Project (DNNP) in Ontario. He claims this project will “build Canada strong,” but nuclear power is the slowest, most expensive way of providing electricity, far greater than the costs of renewables and energy storage.

Canada’s nuclear regulator has already fast-tracked the DNNP, awarding a construction license despite the lack of a credible environmental assessment or an approved design.

The projected cost of the DNNP’s “small modular reactor” (SMR) is in the billions, greatly exceeding the $970 million contribution from the Canada Infrastructure Bank in 2022. There is essentially no interest by private investors in nuclear power owing to its substantial financial risks, so it is funded by taxpayers and ratepayers.

The BWRX-300 SMR planned for the DNNP is American, made by GE Hitachi. Its projected completion date is 2030, though almost all reactors built in the past have overshot their expected completion dates by years, often decades. Canada would have to buy enriched uranium fuel for this American reactor from the U.S. because enriched fuel is not produced in Canada.

Many unanswered questions remain about this dubious “nation-building project”. Prime Minister Carney may hope that Canada will become a global energy “superpower” by selling SMRs all over the world, but how likely is this? The BWRX-300 is untested technology with no performance track record. SMRs are far from being built at scale to bring the exorbitant price down. Canada has not sold a reactor since the 1970s. Canada would have an American reactor, reliant on American fuel, and subject to the whims of an unpredictable American administration.

Spending billions of taxpayer dollars on nuclear power, using an American reactor that uses American fuel, when cheaper, cleaner technologies already exist, does not make sense as a “nation-building project.”

October 10, 2025 Posted by | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

Poll suggests most Reform UK voters back investment in renewable energy

 More than half of Reform UK voters approve of their pensions being
invested in green energy despite the party recently launching a
“renewables war”, a poll suggests.

A survey by YouGov found 79% of
voters overall are in favour of their pensions being invested in renewable
energy, including 53% of Reform UK supporters. The findings have led to
claims that politicians who oppose investment in the sector “have grossly
misjudged” voters’ views. Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice launched
a campaign group called UK Opposes Renewable Eyesores in July, decrying the
“the madness of net stupid zero” and pledging to “go into battle”
against Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.

 Nation Cymru 8th Oct 2025, https://nation.cymru/news/poll-suggests-most-reform-uk-voters-back-investment-in-renewable-energy/

October 10, 2025 Posted by | politics, renewable, UK | Leave a comment

Trump dreams of nuclear as he axes grid projects

By FRANCISCO “A.J.” CAMACHO , 10/06/2025, https://www.politico.com/newsletters/power-switch/2025/10/06/trump-dreams-of-nuclear-as-he-axes-grid-projects-00594623

The Trump administration is wiping out projects meant to ensure the reliability of the electric grid — while pinning many of its promises of energy affordability on a nuclear moonshot.

The moonshot includes a goal to make three advanced reactors go critical by July 4, 2026. A prime player is the nuclear startup Oklo, which the White House is promoting as central to its aims of powering artificial intelligence and energy-sucking data centers, as I wrote in a recent deep dive.

Meanwhile, the administration is rolling back funding for power transmission projects that energy planners call essential to grid reliability as electricity demand rises. The Department of Energy’s latest plans to cancel $8 billion in clean energy funding include more than two dozen grid improvement projects, including a $464 million grant for Minnesota to build a transmission line that would deliver 28 gigawatts of power to the Midwest, write Josh Siegel, Kelsey Tamborrino, Jessie Blaeser and James Bikales.

In short, the Trump administration is cutting support for projects based on existing technology that would get more low-cost renewables on the grid, while doubling down on expensive — even speculative — nuclear power. Nuclear is a rare exception to the Trump administration’s fealty to fossil fuels.

As Zack Colman and Catherine Allen write today, states that rely heavily on wind and solar power typically have lower power costs than the national average. Nuclear remains expensive, with small modular reactors such as the one Oklo is pursuing still unproven commercially in the U.S. Oklo’s reactor doesn’t even exist yet — federal regulators rejected its first application.

Oklo maintains that its “fast reactor” technology can be cheaper, faster and safer to deploy than existing nuclear reactors. (The technology’s fundamentals have been tested with mixed results in labs across the globe and are commercially used in Russia.) CEO Jacob DeWitte said he has not been in touch with Energy Secretary Chris Wright — who once sat on Oklo’s board — since Wright joined the Cabinet.

Nuclear ‘meme stock’?

Former Obama-era Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Allison Macfarlane has called Oklo’s regulatory record “extremely frustrating,” adding that regulators “asked [Oklo] questions over and over. They never got answers.”

Even so, Oklo executives have secured federal pilot project awards, stood beside President Donald Trump in the Oval Office and broken ground on a would-be reactor on DOE land in Idaho. (They may even get access to plutonium fuel reprocessed from the nation’s weapons stockpile, as Zack wrote last week.) That’s a level of White House backing that other companies with plentiful regulatory approvals and proven commercial deliverables aren’t getting. Democrats have pointed to Oklo’s ties to Wright as one potential explanation.

Some financial analysts and industry observers compare Oklo’s $138 share price to meme stock, saying it has gone viral regardless of its fundamental value.

The grid’s nuts and bolts

All of this is happening as grid operators warn of a widening gap between available power and surging electricity demand from AI.

Trump agencies have eliminated tens of billions of dollars in clean energy and climate funding in total, write Zack and Catherine, echoing investor and industry anxieties from the 2024 election cycle. In July, DOE canceled a nearly $5 billion loan guarantee for a transmission line that would bring 5,000 megawatts of renewable energy in the Midwest to dense population centers in the East.

The clawbacks could add up to higher utility bills, said Rob Gramlich, president of the consulting firm Grid Strategies.

“Whether one loves or hates wind and solar, they are what most utilities are relying on to provide large amounts of low-cost power and some amount of firm capacity for the next few years,” Gramlich said.

October 8, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

After “Greater Israel,” Netanyahu calls for a “Super-Sparta” and “finishing the job in Gaza”

Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 3 October 2025, by Thierry Meyssan, translation, Roger Lagassé, https://www.voltairenet.org/article222905.html

Benyamin Netanyahu’s drift from avowed conservatism to Nazism is increasingly evident. After claiming the “historical and spiritual” mission of achieving a “Greater Israel,” that is, conquering the territories of its seven neighbors, he has just called for transforming Israel into a “super-Sparta,” that is, militarizing the state and ceasing all trade with its allies. If words have any meaning, he constantly makes us understand that his references are the fascists Vladimir Jabotinsky and Leo Strauss. From one drift to another, he engaged in a shameless act of lying before the United Nations General Assembly, attributing dark thoughts to his adversaries and claiming the right to continue massacring.

Last week, I warned our readers, particularly Israeli ones, against Benjamin Netanyahu’s rapid drift toward fascistism—and perhaps Naziism, in Ben-Gurion’s words about Vladimir Jabotinsky. [1] I had indeed noted the Prime Minister’s public conversion to the doctrine of “Greater Israel.” Let us recall that this expression is not intended to justify the annexation of the entire Palestinian territories to the State of Israel, but also eastern Egypt, parts of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, all of Lebanon, most of Syria, and part of Iraq, to ​​the point of reforming the ancient Assyrian empire “from the Nile to the Euphrates.”

This announcement, made exclusively in Hebrew, that is, for the sole use of his fellow Israelis, drew strong criticism from all Arab leaders, even reaching the United Nations Security Council on September 23. Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf declared that “the Israeli occupation compromises any prospect of creating an independent and sovereign Palestinian state, not only on the ground but also in people’s minds.” Fueled by the myth of “Greater Israel,” the Israeli government seeks to redefine the region’s borders and extend its hegemony in defiance of international law and the norms governing peaceful coexistence between states; a statement echoed by the Russian Permanent Representative.

Indeed, how can one not question this reference, which the Prime Minister had always avoided citing throughout his political career and which he now uses in the midst of the “genocide” in Gaza? The term genocide is not a legal whim, but the carefully chosen word of the “Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories,” which submitted its report (reference A/79/363) to the United Nations General Assembly on September 20 [2].

This is also the opinion of Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the Advocate General of the Israel Defense Forces. The latter had warned the IDF General Staff that 1.2 million Gazans could not be displaced without ensuring their fate. But on September 8, General Eyal ’Amir, Chief of Staff, overruled these objections. This is the first time since the creation of the State of Israel that a Chief of Staff has ignored the warnings of an Advocate General.

No matter. Benjamin Netanyahu is now reclaiming his complex legacy of fascism and Nazism: on September 15, during a conference organized by Israel’s Accountant General, the Prime Minister declared that the entire world was now against the State of Israel (which is false: he is against its own policies). Particularly Europeans, who are giving in to pressure from their Arab and Muslim immigrants. The enemy is no longer Hamas and Iran, but Belgium and Spain. Also, he continued, Israel must transform itself into a self-sufficient country… a “Super-Sparta.” It must abandon its conventional economic activities and develop its defense industries. [3]

Benjamin Netanyahu spoke cautiously about this myth, saying: “We are Athens and Sparta. But we are going to become Athens and super-Sparta.” It must be remembered that no politician has referred to Sparta since the fall of the Third Reich. It was a leitmotif of the Nazis and their allies, right up to the Japanese imperialists. Everyone claimed to be a Spartan against Athens, just as today, everyone claims to be an Athens against Sparta… except Benjamin Netanyahu and the Straussians. This is why I immediately refer you to what I wrote two years ago [4]: ​​the man behind Netanyahu’s legal coup, the Israeli-American Elliott Abrams, claims not only to be Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism, but also to Leo Strauss.

But Leo Strauss was not only a disciple of Jabotinsky, whom he came to welcome in New York with Benzion Netanyahu (Benyamin’s father). He was a philosophy professor at the University of Chicago. He secretly trained his favorite students. He called them his “hoplites” (that is, his soldiers, in reference to ancient Greece). He tested them by sending them to disrupt the classes of his rivals. Then he taught them that to protect themselves from a possible holocaust, they should not rely on democracies, weak regimes, but build their own dictatorships. It was his students, like Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, who rigged US intelligence and initiated both the attacks of September 11 and the destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The reference to Sparta is a means of recognition that all fascists understand. Yair Lapid, the opposition leader, commented the next day on Radio 103FM, declaring: “Sparta was destroyed. He is the son of a historian. He surprised me. Sparta is a sword, why did he mention it? Because it transformed us into a country at war. We don’t want to be a state at war, we want to be a prosperous, prosperous, and popular country in the world.” Above all, he should have said and repeated that Benzion Netanyahu was a fascist and that Sparta is an unworthy reference in a democracy, that the Holocaust survivors who, fleeing aboard the Exodus, participated in the creation of the State of Israel would turn in their graves to hear the Prime Minister evoke a Nazi myth and perpetrate genocide.

As if that weren’t enough, Benjamin Netanyahu continued to lie before the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly [5]. In a room deserted by three-quarters of the diplomatic delegations, he claimed that Hamas had massacred “1,200 innocent people” on October 7, while, according to the Israeli press, he had ordered the IDF to kill soldiers and civilians themselves so that they would not be “taken prisoner by the enemy” [6]. He is therefore responsible for half of the deaths he denounces. Then, he claimed that Hamas called in its charter for “the murder of all Jews on the planet,” which was never included in it. He boasted of taking all necessary measures to protect Gazan civilians, while all non-Israeli—and often Israeli—experts note the opposite. He accused all those who try to save Gazans of being anti-Semitic and of spreading anti-Semitism, without realizing that it is his policy, carried out in the name of a self-proclaimed “Jewish state,” that fuels this anti-Semitism. He accused 90% of the Palestinian people of supporting the horrors of October 7, while they supported a military operation by the entire Resistance (except Fatah) and largely disassociated themselves from the crimes committed that day. He accused the Palestinians of not wanting an independent state alongside Israel, but instead of Israel, while Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo Accords alongside Yitzhak Rabin, accepting the “two-state solution.” And so on.

When will we admit that Benjamin Netanyahu is no longer a democrat and that it is our duty to fight him before he kills all the Gazans and begins to purge the Israelis? More than anyone else, Israelis, whose parents were betrayed by their homelands and delivered to Nazi barbarism, should rise up against what the State of Israel is becoming, not only against the Arabs, but also against them.

October 6, 2025 Posted by | Israel, politics | Leave a comment

Right-wing Czech politician who promised to cut aid to Ukraine takes lead in parliamentary election .

 04 Oct 2025, https://www.sott.net/article/502181-Right-wing-Czech-politician-who-promised-to-cut-aid-to-Ukraine-takes-lead-in-parliamentary-election

The right-wing party of agriculture billionaire Andrej Babis, branded ‘Czech Trump’ by local media, has taken the lead in his country’s parliamentary election.

Partial results were released by the Czech Statistical Office several hours after the polls closed across the central European country of 11 million earlier on Saturday.

With ballots from 20% of voting districts counted, Babis’ opposition ANO (Yes) party was ahead with 39.7% of the vote, followed by the Spolu (Together) group led by Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala with 19.1%, the agency said.

Babis has been campaigning on a promise to stop Czech military assistance to Kiev, unlike Fiala, who has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.

The 71-year-old, who served as prime minister between 2017 and 2021, has been particularly critical of Prague’s ammunition initiative for Kiev, calling it “overpriced” and insisting that it should be handled by NATO.

He has spoken out against Ukraine’s membership in the EU, as well as Brussels’ handling of immigration and the Green Deal.

The Western media has warned ahead of the vote that with Hungary and Slovakia already refusing to provide military aid to Kiev and advocating for a diplomatic end to the conflict, Babis’ victory in the Czech Republic could tip Central Europe even further away from Brussels on Ukraine and other key issues.

October 6, 2025 Posted by | EUROPE, politics, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Panic in Israel as Hamas agrees to release all of the hostages

Laura and Normal Island News, Oct 04, 2025, https://www.normalisland.co.uk/p/panic-in-israel-as-hamas-agrees-to?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1407757&post_id=175259462&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

In a worrying turn of events, Hamas has agreed to release all remaining prisoners in accordance with Donald Trump’s peace proposal. The plan will involve the de-radicalisation and disarmament of Gaza, but not the de-radicalisation and disarmament of Israel. Nevertheless, Netanyahu feels Israel is being unfairly picked on.

Trump has instructed Netanyahu to immediately halt all bombing of Gaza, but Netanyahu has sensibly ignored him and continued bombing throughout the night. Be honest, who would miss the opportunity for some last minute mass murder? Not a Zionist, that’s for sure.

Understandably, Hamas’ announcement has been met with horror in the Israeli war room which has successfully held off a peace deal for two years so it can kill as many Palestinians as possible.

Israel only had to sacrifice half of the hostages to achieve this goal and would be quite happy to sacrifice the other half for two more years of slaughter. It is therefore drawing up emergency plans to derail the peace process and blame Hamas. I’m told a false flag is not off the table.

Netanyahu has launched an investigation to establish why the IDF failed to murder all of the Hamas negotiators before they could agree to peace. This was an enormous and unforgivable oversight.

While Netanyahu and his accomplices are worried a peace deal could mean they face jail, Israelis are torn on the idea of a ceasefire. On the one hand, they don’t give a fuck about those prisoners, but on the other hand, they have bombed everything there is to bomb several times over, and taking selfies among the rubble gets old. Mass slaughter is even making some of them feel sad.

One Zionist was told the pang he felt when he squished children with a bulldozer might have been a conscience, although it was probably self-pity. Either way, he was promptly arrested, and we don’t talk about him anymore. His family has destroyed all pictures of him.

Given the serious risk of self-pity spreading among IDF ranks, perhaps it really is time to end this thing, and I can go back to doing anything other than satirising a fucking genocide. Palestinians have no idea how hard my life is.

Let’s just end this thing now and pat ourselves on the back for a job well done…

It’s fair to say Israel has achieved many things throughout this genocide. For example, it has destroyed 80% of the buildings, 86% of the farmland, 90% of the cattle, 89% of water and sanitation infrastructure, 100% of desalination plants, and it has made Gaza more or less unliveable. Israel has killed so many civilians that the world lost count.

Israel didn’t stop at Gaza either. It killed a load of people in the West Bank and Syria and Yemen and Iran and Qatar and Lebanon. Who remembers the time when Israel’s pagers took the eyeballs of doctors and nurses and all of the nicest people laughed? Good times.

The relentless bombing campaign was not Israel’s only achievement though. Israel successfully colonised TikTok, the social media app that was promised to God’s chosen people 3,000 years ago. Israel is carrying out a Nakba on TikTok by culling everyone who has ever used the word “AIPAC”. Needless to say, AIPAC does not exist and it’s racist to say otherwise.

Mahmoud Abbas says he is willing to make regular child sacrifices to Israel in exchange for the Gaza presidency, but he has been told his services will not be needed. If a peace deal can be agreed, we have the exciting prospect of Tony Blair ruling Gaza from afar without the consent of Palestinians.

We need someone with the ability to eliminate all evidence of genocide. It’s gonna take the most ghoulish person imaginable to erase hundreds of thousands of corpses and act like they never existed. Needless to say, Blair is just as keen to harness the souls of the dead as he was to steal oil in Iraq.

Once the peace deal is in place, Palestinians will kindly be allowed to live in tents with minimal rations and occasional bombings until they get fed up and leave. At this point, Blair will be given a Nobel Peace Prize and all mentions of Palestine will be erased from the history books. Sadly though, Netanyahu will probably be in jail on corruption charges. Life can be so unfair x

October 5, 2025 Posted by | Israel, politics | Leave a comment

The U.S. is now a fascist state. What Trump’s new order on domestic terrorism really means.


Richard J Murphy, 3 Oct 2025

Fascists mean what they say. Donald Trump has now issued NSPM-7, a presidential order that redefines dissent as terrorism and authorises the state to treat opponents as enemies. From Stalin’s Article 58 to the Nazi Malicious Practices Act, history shows what happens when repression becomes law. We need to face facts: the US is very rapidly sliding into full-blown fascism — and the UK could follow.

And that future is dystopian. Dissent is recast as terrorism in Trump’s world. This order makes that idea law, and terrorists are now to be eliminated by the US military, as he told them  in a conference when he assembled 700 or more generals and declared that they would now be fighting terrorism in the cities of the USA.

In effect, Trump is saying that there is a civil war to be waged in the USA now against what he calls the domestic terrorist threat, but which doesn’t exist.

The truth is that the USA is now a fascist authoritarian state, and we need to take seriously what he’s saying because, as Chris Hedges put it, “Fascists mean what they say”.

This memo, this order, signed by Trump, starts with the words  ’Heinous assassinations and other acts have dramatically increased’. He lists Charlie Kirk’s murder, an attack on the Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh in 2022 and recent attacks on ICE,  the Customs Enforcement Agency in the USA, that is expelling people from the country.

He claims that these are the basis for the terror that he is talking about. But in a country where, frankly, violence is normalised, and death on the streets is not uncommon, to pretend that this is the case is just wrong. He’s trying to build a highly selective, distorted, and self-serving story about left-wing terror, for which there is almost no evidence whatsoever. But as a consequence, he’s criminalising dissent.

Anti-fascism is now defined as terrorism.

Opposition to expulsions by ICE and opposition to patriarchy, or to his idea of empire, is defined as violent revolution.  Anti-capitalism, anti-racism, and campaigns for gender equality – all these are branded as extremist. And truth becomes whatever he, as the arbiter of power, declares it to be.

In this situation, the law is inverted.  Instead of being a mechanism that defends our freedoms, the law becomes a weapon of repression. This order dictates that the Department of Justice seek to prosecute people who oppose what Trump is trying to do with maximum charges.

There is an instruction that the  Internal Revenue Service of the USA, the equivalent of HM Revenue and Customs in the UK, should strip the tax status of suspected groups, and that would include NGOs of the sort that campaign in the UK with regard to human rights,  or even universities that teach courses that suggest that people have the right to dissent.

The agencies of the USA are authorised to interrogate and detain people just because they don’t agree with Trump.

Justice in this world becomes a means of persecution, and we’ve been here before, of course. There are massive historical parallels to what Trump is now doing.

Stalin had Article 58 in his penal code. It was a catchall for counter-revolutionary activity, and literally millions of people died as a result of being prosecuted under Article 58. Any form of dissent basically gave rise to their execution.

The same thing happened in  Nazi Germany. There was the Malicious Practices Act of 1933, the very first act right at the beginning of the Nazi era that made it illegal to criticise the Nazi government, its leaders or its policies, and which allowed for punishment by arrest and internment in concentration camps like  Dachau, which was in suburban Munich.

Trump’s memo – his order – fits exactly the same pattern. It’s vague and sweeping, and it’s designed to criminalise opposition, but without precisely saying what anybody will have done wrong, except to offer dissent.

This is, in effect, a declaration of preemptive war. What the order says is that a new organisation,  the National Joint Terrorism Task Force, or the JTTF for short, must disrupt and dismantle networks of opposition to what Trump is trying to achieve.  That’s not based on evidence of crimes, but on the basis of people’s associations or their free speech or their ideas. Financial networks, NGOs and universities are all specifically targeted by this. This is the policing of thought.

And behind  all this, there is a very obvious ideology. A Christian nationalist worldview drives this agenda.

Those who support LGBTQ+ rights or who are indeed members of the LGBTQ+ community, people who are secular humanists or immigrants, all of them are labelled as deviants. Science and reason are replaced by biblical dogma, and patriotism is twisted into theocratic authoritarianism.

This has a paranoia behind it. Indeed, there is a paranoia that is gripping the elite in America. Narcissists and conspiracists are imagining that there are enemies everywhere to what Trump is proposing to do and what they wish to happen.

Pseudo-democracy is being created. Pseudo-courts, pseudo-media, pseudo-citizens, people who will, in fact,  support the lies that maintain the Trump regime, and I rightly call it a regime and not an administration, and these lies replace facts.

Loyalty is replacing law.

Liberal institutions are being hollowed out.

Rights are being reduced to privileges and are being revoked at will, and hope and silence will ensure that the repression spreads.

And all of this happens whilst we try to look the other way. And that is the big threat of this moment.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote in The Gulag Archipelago, “Universal innocence gives rise to the universal failure to act. Maybe they won’t take you. Maybe it will all blow over”, he said.

But it won’t. This is real. Fascists should lay out in advance what they intend to do, and then they do it, and that is what is happening in the USA.

This will happen. People will disappear. This is not a future danger. It’s here and now, and the decree that puts it into place already exists.  The bars to freedom are being literally built before our own eyes at this moment, and democracy can’t survive if the opposition to it is redefined as terrorism.

So, where are we? Let’s face the facts.  Fascism cannot be reasoned with. It must be confronted. And hope is most definitely not enough. And silence is complicity.

Solidarity and resistance are essential, even though that does inevitably involve risk. Making this video involves risk. If these measures become the norm in the UK as well, I will, of course, be identified as one of the threats.

But we have to defend civil liberties, truth and institutions now and challenge our government to act to do so, or we will follow the path of the USA and head down the direct route to both fascism and everything that  follows from it, including the internment camps, which I am sure will be sprouting up soon in the USA and not just for those who are scheduled for deportation because they come from an ethnic minority.

We have to isolate the USA.

We have to call out what’s happening.

We have to say we object.

Our governments must decide whether they can any longer align with a country which is so openly fascist.

We need to come to the point where we say, “This is not acceptable.”

We need to say, “This is a country now built on lies, peddling myths and untruths and oppressing what is real.”

We need to support independent journalism, which there still is in the USA, but which is under enormous threat.

And we need to support those who will stand up for democracy.

We need to demand accountability.

And we need to stand up for what was put in place after World War II,  which was the structure of human rights, which our mainstream political parties in the UK, including the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, both now question, even though this structure was put in place as a result of the influence of Winston Churchill, who wanted to make sure that never again would human rights be threatened by fascists. But they are, and our politicians are letting that happen.

We have to take action before the iron bars of fascism slam the door shut. That’s the risk that we face, and our politicians have to rise to the challenge, or we’re all in very deep trouble. The US is already a fascist state. We could be too. That’s what we’re up against.

What do you think? There’s a poll below. Do you think the US has now moved into fascism? Do you think that the UK could follow in the same way? Are you willing to take a stand? Or will you stand by the wayside? We are at a point where we have to decide.

Please think about what you are going to do.

October 4, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

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