‘Totally illegal’: Trump escalates rhetoric on outlawing political dissent and criticism

Stephan: 

Traitor Trump is becoming more deranged, and his public statements are nothing but lies designed to tear America apart. This man should be in prison, should have been put in prison months ago. Instead, he may become the next president, in which case it will be the end of the constitutional republic the Founders created.

Traitor Trump trying to become a dictator. Credit: Win McNamee / Getty

Donald Trump is ramping up his rhetoric depicting his political rivals and critics as criminals, while dropping a long trail of suggestions that he favors outlawing political speech that he deems misleading or challenges his claims to power.

In a speech Friday in Aurora, Colorado, the Republican presidential nominee blasted the immigration system and lobbed a rhetorical grenade at his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

“She’s a criminal. She’s a criminal,” said Trump, who was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in his New York hush money trial. “She really is, if you think about it.”

It’s a pattern of messaging that has long been part of Trump’s stump speeches but has escalated significantly in his 2024 candidacy. In the final stretch to the Nov. 5 election, the former president has developed a tendency to claim that speech he disapproves of is illegal, even if it is protected by the First Amendment.

A questionable cut of a “60 Minutes” Harris interview? “Totally illegal,” Trump wrote 

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US to deploy about 100 troops to operate advanced anti-missile system in Israel amid heightened tensions

Stephan: 

I am increasingly concerned that Joe Biden is going to do two things before he leaves office: First, sabotage Kamala Harris’ chance of winning the Presidential election; and, second, get us into a war in the Middle East, just as George Bush 43 got us into a war in Iraq, resulting the death of hundreds of thousands.

This US military file photo shows a US Army Terminal High Altitude Area Defense launching station in Israel on March 4, 2019. 
Credit: Staff Sgt. Cory D. Payne / US Air Force

The US will send an advanced anti-missile system — and US troops to operate it — to Israel “to help bolster Israel’s air defenses following Iran’s unprecedented attacks against Israel on April 13 and again on October 1,” the Pentagon said Sunday.

It is not the first time the US has deployed the system, the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery, to the Middle East, Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said in the statement, and the system was also deployed to Israel in 2019 for an exercise. But the deployment of additional US troops to Israel is notable amid the heightened tensions between Israel and Iran, and as the region braces for a potential Israeli attack on Iran that could continue to escalate hostilities.

Approximately 100 US troops are deploying to Israel to operate the THAAD battery, according to a US defense official. It […]

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Gaza Doctor Corrects CNN Anchor: ‘This Is Not a Humanitarian Crisis… This Is Genocide’

Stephan: 

While I in no way condone or excuse the 1200 people captured by HAMAS, that does not excuse what is clearly an ongoing genocide in which over 40,000 Muslims, mostly women and children, have been murdered, mostly by the Israelis using bombs and missiles made by U.S. weapons corporations. As I said in my comment about the previous story, what I see is America being dragged into a Middle East war by Biden’s failure and Netanyahu’s facist racism, with the result our election will be profoundly impacted.

Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan (left) pushes back on CNN anchor Kate Bolduan’s (center) description of the Gaza genocide as a “humanitarian crisis” during an October 7, 2024 interview. 
Credit: CNN screen grab

Human rights advocates on Friday highlighted a rare instance in which a U.S. corporate media outlet allowed a pro-Palestinian voice to set the record straight about Israel’s crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Earlier this week, CNN “News Central” aired a panel segment on the anniversary of the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel and Israel’s retaliatory war. Anchor Kate Bolduan noted that around 1,200 people were killed during the Hamas attack—although she did not say that at least some of them were slain by Israeli forces in “friendly fire” incidents and under the Hannibal Directive—and that 250 others were kidnapped.

Bolduan also acknowledged that nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed and another 2 million displaced by Israeli forces, calling the situation in Gaza a “desperate humanitarian crisis.”

The anchor asked panel participant Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan—an American pediatric intensive care physician who volunteered for two […]

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Israel firing on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon raises international alarm

Stephan: 

What this article does not say is that the tanks that were used to assault the UN Forces post were tanks provided to the Israelis by the U.S.. This linkage is yet another reason that I see the United States being dragged into a Middle East war or, even without war, having our election skewed in traitor Trump’s favor.

American vehicles used by Israelis to attack UN Forces in Lebanon. Credit: BBC

The UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon says Israeli tanks forced their way into one of its positions early on Sunday morning.

In a statement, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) said two Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tanks destroyed the main gate of a post in Ramyah, near the Israeli border, and “forcibly entered the position” to request it turn out its lights.

About two hours later, it said rounds were fired nearby that saw smoke enter the camp, causing 15 peacekeepers to suffer skin irritations and gastrointestinal reactions.

The IDF offered a different version of events, saying it had encroached on a Unifil position to evacuate soldiers who had been wounded by an anti-tank missile.

It said two soldiers had been “seriously injured” in the attack, with others suffering lesser degrees of injury.

“For the sake of evacuating the wounded, two tanks drove backwards, in a place where they could not advance otherwise in light of the threat of shooting, a few metres towards the Unifil position,” the […]

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The Mass Psychology of Trumpism

Stephan: 

This is one of the best psychological profiles of Trump and Trumpism in the United States that I have read. I urge you to read it and think about it.

A digital billboard supporting Donald Trump in Times Square, New York City, in 2016. Credit: Drew Angerer / Getty

Americans today see two contradictory futures looming in the middle distance: In one scenario, Donald Trump is convicted of serious crimes and sent to prison. In the second, he returns to the presidency in 2025.

The urgent uncertainty of it all may be a reason why, in recent weeks, Trump has summoned forth some of the most incendiary rhetoric ever employed by an American presidential candidate. He has called for the execution of the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He now urges police to shoot shoplifters. He has begun characterizing his political adversaries as subhuman “vermin” who must be “rooted out.” Parroting the Third Reich while claiming (no doubt truthfully, in this case) that he has never read “Mein Kampf,” Trump has declared that immigrants from Latin America, Africa and Asia “poison the blood” of the United States.

And yet Trump is cruising to a third consecutive Republican presidential nomination, and many national polls show […]

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Trump’s top general calls ex-president ‘fascist to the core’ and ‘most dangerous person to this country,’ new book says

Stephan: 

You may well have seen this story about Trump’s top general, Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, calling the former President whom he served, a “fascist to the core” and the “most dangerous person to this country.” I am leading with this event for two reasons. First, I have chosen a report that appeared in the British press showing how this story was treated in the foreign press, and how the United States is being viewed in other countries. Second, because, and I am speaking here as an army veteran, former editor of Seapower, one of the largest military journals in the country, and as a former Special Assistant to two Naval Chiefs of Operations, because the media in my view has not properly recognized the story’s importance. Very few journalists are veterans and only a handful cover the Pentagon and the Defense Department. So, I doubt that many recognize that something like this has never happened before in the history of the United States. This is the equivalent of Ulysses Grant calling Abraham Lincoln a traitor, or a cardinal calling the Pope a messenger of Satan. Milley’s comment is a huge deal, and should have received far more attention than it has. It ought to change the election, but I doubt that anything will change the Trump worship of MAGAt world. And that, in itself should be a major story.

Milley was nominated to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by Donald Trump in 2019. Credit: The Associated Press.

Mark Milley, the US Army general who Donald Trump appointed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, now says the current Republican presidential nominee is a “fascist to the core” and says no person has ever posed more of a danger to the United States than the man who served as the 45th President of the United States.

Milley, a decorated military officer who became a target for right-wing scorn after it became known that he expressed concerns over Trump’s mental stability in the wake of his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, is described by journalist Bob Woodward in his new book, War, as incredibly alarmed at the prospect of a second Trump term in the White House. The Independent obtained a copy ahead of the book’s October 15 release date.

In the wake of the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol […]

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