...[T]he US has not replicated Hungary’s measured slide into authoritarianism. For Trump and his minions aren’t patient. They want retribution and subjugation. Threats and dominance displays are how they operate. They burn with racism, misogyny, and performative cruelty.
So now we have Minneapolis, America’s laboratory of democratic destruction, where ICE agents have gone full Sturmabteilung, terrorizing and even killing not only people with brown skin, but anyone who protests or gets in their way. And the irony is that this may be for the better.
For a gradual destruction of democracy would have been hard to resist. After all, who wants to rock the boat when there’s money to be made, jobs to keep, perks to be had, convenient bothsideism to be upheld, if you will just be silent and keep your head down?
Instead, however, the assault on freedom and civil liberties is open, lurid, and impossible to deny. While our institutions and our elites have failed us, ordinary Americans are rising to the occasion. If Minneapolis is a laboratory of democratic destruction, it has also become a laboratory of civil resistance — organized civil resistance, of a kind we haven’t seen since the civil rights movement. When ICE is on the rampage, crowds of brave Americans, summoned by texts and whistles, quickly gather to stand against the masked men with guns. As the outrage grows, people of common decency — like the federal prosecutors in Minnesota who chose to resign rather than pervert justice by going after Renee Nicole Good’s wife — are taking a stand.
So what’s happening now is both horrifying and inspiring. How will it all end? I don’t know, but maybe, just maybe, our democracy isn’t being destroyed — it’s being forged anew in the hands of the American people. (our emphasis)
We believe we're forging our democracy anew in the actions of everyday Americans rising to the occasion. To believe otherwise is to surrender to the brutish fascism of the Malignant Fascist and his goons. The "move fast and break things" approach the MF's regime has taken is backfiring with the majority of Americans. The more desperate he becomes, the more the MF will miscalculate, the more outrage will grow against him and his rotted-out party/cult.
Some 1,500 active duty Army paratroopers have been put on alert for a potential deployment to Minnesota, according to two defense officials.
The soldiers are from the 11th Airborne Division, based at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska, one of the Army's premier infantry formations and a frontline force in the U.S. military presence in the Pacific, positioned to help deter China. The division is also the military's leading formation for Arctic warfare.
One official said the president had not made a final decision on whether to deploy two battalions. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"We are taking prudent steps to prepare active-duty Army forces," the official said. "This doesn't mean they will deploy; we are preparing options."
Meanwhile, members of the Minnesota National Guard remain on state orders under the authority of Gov. Tim Walz. It would be unusual for federalized active-duty troops and state-activated Guard forces to be deployed simultaneously and while serving under different legal frameworks. National Guard units can also be federalized and placed under the president's command.
President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to send in the U.S. military as tensions intensified in Minneapolis following a second shooting involving a federal officer during immigration operations. However, Trump later told reporters he didn't think there was "any reason right now to use it."
The 11th Airborne troops were recalled to base on Friday, amid the long holiday weekend, to stand by as a so-called quick reaction force, a rapid-deployment force, according to an internal notice to the unit's leadership, reviewed by ABC News.
Deploying active duty military, when you already have thousands of unwelcome ICE thugs on the streets of Democratic stronghold Minneapolis brutalizing the citizens of that American city, would require invoking the Insurrection Act. As a side note, the decision has been made to keep National Guard troops in Washington, DC, through next year's mid- term elections. The MF's "Department of War" has decreed that to refuse to obey unlawful orders is sedition (it's clearly not). And the MF has already casually floated the idea of cancelling the mid-terms because his accomplishments have been so great (not because his party/ cult is in for a beating). Connect the dots, please.
President Trump will ask countries that want to join his “Board of Peace” to oversee Gaza to pay $1 billion for membership, according to reporting from Bloomberg and The Atlantic on Saturday.
A draft charter seen by both outlets showed that Trump will serve as the executive board’s inaugural chairman, who will approve which member states can join on the board. The board will become official after three member states agree to the charter.
“Each Member State shall serve a term of no more than three years from this Charter’s entry into force, subject to renewal by the Chairman,” the draft reads, according to Bloomberg. “The three-year membership term shall not apply to Member States that contribute more than USD $1,000,000,000 in cash funds to the Board of Peace within the first year of the Charter’s entry into force.”
Member states will be able to vote on board decisions, but Trump will have sole authority to approve them, the outlets reported.
What the $1 billion for membership will fund remains unclear. The Atlantic reported that the draft charter does not address where membership fees go, only that funding for board expenses will be “through voluntary funding from Member States, other States, organizations, or other sources.”
The draft charter’s preamble states that the board will “depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed” and will operate as “a more nimble and effective international peace-building body, which the magazine indicated was a dismissal of the United Nations.
The draft charter also makes no mention of the Gaza Strip, The Atlantic wrote... (our emphasis)
The overt, ongoing, mind-boggling corruption of the MF shocks but it doesn't surprise. The charter doesn't address where membership fees go (i.e., some will filter into the chairman's pocket) and the board "will operate as a more nimble" body (i.e., there won't be any accountability). Let's see what other corrupt nations pony up for this scam. Another day to be proud to be an American!
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