One of the most discouraging things I've observed in a lifetime of studying American media, is the way corporate news outlets have reacted to the objectively fascist takeover aspect of Project 2025 by focusing on the fact that it's a cluster of "bad ideas" rather than the obvious reality that it's a plan to transform America into a Christian Nationalist dictatorship by force. If big network journalists were doing their jobs properly, I wouldn't have to share a 10 minute undercover sting operation by the Center for Climate Reporting published on YouTube here with you, but they aren't, and so I do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY_chqyaRHo

The context here is that two journalist working for CCR went undercover, posing as donors, to meet Micah Meadowcroft (one of the authors of Project 2025) and Russel Vought (former Trump admin Director of the Office of Budget and Management) to talk to them about Project 2025. Using hidden cameras, they easily got these two fascist muppets to more or less openly admit:

- Project 2025 is a plan to establish an expressly Christian Nationalist dictatorship under Trump.
- they intend to use the US military against anyone who protests the project
- what's available in the public is only the broad outline, they're secretly working on the exact executive orders and policy initiatives necessary to make this fascist shit a reality if Trump is elected; and fast.,
- they're actively keeping this second phase of the project a secret to avoid FOIA requests that would *actually* expose their plans.
- Trump's disavowals of Project 2025 are meaningless electioneering; he's still on board, as is JD Vance and the other Trumworld muppets involved.

The astounding part here is how easily the undercover reporters were able to coax this information out of Meadowcroft and Vought, and the fact that this is being done by a nonprofit investigative journalism organization whose YouTube channel has less than a thousand subscribers tells you all you need to know about how hard (or not) the American media is actually pursuing this story. This is literal fundie fascist dictatorship shit of the kind that could get people tossed in jail if this were a functioning democracy; which sadly, America really isn't - especially post-Citizens United.

I strongly recommend you watch this video, it's worth every moment of the 10 minutes it'll take you to do so.

Also, hat tip to @blogdiva who shared this early today, and without whom I would definitely never have seen this.

#Project2025 #RussellVought #ChristianNationalism #Trump #USPol #Fascism

Over the past 10+ months of watching a US-backed genocide, perpetrated by the right wing extremist government of Israel against Palestinian people in Gaza, I've frequently found myself in heated arguments with uninformed or dishonest apologists who insist that the American government doesn't have the power to stop the carnage. Even setting aside the fact that this is a pretty disgusting and disingenuous way of supporting a literal goddamn genocide in progress, the plain truth is that it's also wrong; as numerous American and even Israeli politicians have noted in public, Israel's military and security sector are wholly dependent on U.S. arms shipments and financial support - no matter how much Benjamin Netanyahu might want to "finish the job" (of murdering every Palestinian in Gaza) the state of Israel simply doesn't have the munitions and materiel to prosecute the genocide in Gaza, or any other "war" for that matter, without U.S. support.

Although they certainly don't act like it most of the time, Israel is objectively a U.S. client state in the larger MENA region, and if an American president wanted to end the genocide in Gaza, that person could easily do so simply by threatening to cut off the supply of financial aid and military equipment (including bombs) the U.S. government provides to the IDF. Furthermore, as the article I'm going to share below demonstrates, this is not even remotely a new situation:

https://truthout.org/articles/decades-of-us-arms-deals-with-israel-paved-the-way-to-genocide-in-gaza/

Decades of US Arms Deals With Israel Paved the Way to Genocide in Gaza

"Their military cooperation reflects a disturbing historical trend. Although posing as a mediator, the U.S. has long assisted Israeli forces in their ruthless war against Palestinian self-determination. For the past half-century, successive U.S. presidents have frozen the balance of forces in Israel’s favor with military aid, eliminating incentives to negotiate while fostering aggression. State Department telegrams, White House memos and other archival sources demonstrate that the U.S. has repeatedly covered-up Israeli war crimes, while turning the “peace process” into a screen for weapons deals."

Speaking plainly, the historical record (which is by no means a secret) indicates that the colonial project to displace Palestinians of their home and maintain the apartheid state of Israel, is every bit as much an American project as an Israeli one. When crass American politicians insist that students protesting a genocide simply "don't understand the history in the region" they are objectively talking out both sides of their mouths, because understanding the history doesn't absolve the United States from supporting colonialism, apartheid, and genocide, but rather incriminates it directly. The cold hard truth here is that the U.S. could end the genocide in Gaza tomorrow if our leaders, particularly President Biden, wanted to; and the fact that the American government has made no real effort to do so, and indeed continues to ship bombs to the objectively fascist Netanyahu government even while international courts are in the process of confirming that Israel is guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and prosecuting a genocide, means that America owns this monstrous shitshow of slaughter; quite literally lock stock and barrel.

#Colonialism #Genocide #Gaza #Israel #USPol

You don't have to sell me on them but damn, ending the filibuster and packing the Supreme Court? Sounds cool as hell.

Mitch McConnell shares GOP’s 'worst nightmare' scenario of a Harris-Walz White House - Alternet.org

Mitch McConnell is scared a Kamala Harris presidency would spell disaster for the Republican party, prognosticating that a Democratic presidency would result in the demise of the filibuster and a liberal packing of the Supreme Court.

“Let's assume our worst nightmare – the Democrats went to the White House, the House, the Senate,” McConnell said during a speech to lawmakers in Louisville, Kentucky, Spectrum reports. “The first thing they'll do is get rid of the [Senate] filibuster. Second, you'll have two new states: D.C., Puerto Rico. That's four new Democratic senators in perpetuity."

“If they get those two new states and pack the Supreme Court, they'll get what they want," McConnell continued. "By the way, on packing the Supreme Court ... you may know this already. It's unconstitutional."

#USPol #Politics #News #Harris #KamalaHarris #Walz #TimWalz #Election #Democrats #SCOTUS #Filibuster #McConnell

https://www.alternet.org/mitch-mcconnell-gop/