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   Nonilex (nonilex@masto.ai)'s status on Friday, 18-Oct-2024 19:18:08 JST Nonilex

   #GiftArticle by Jamelle Bouie

   Toward the end of his tenure, Gen #MarkMilley, …chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 2019–2023, told #BobWoodward of WaPo that Donald #Trump was a fundamental threat to the safety & integrity of the #UnitedStates.

   “No one has ever been as dangerous to this country as Donald Trump,” the general told Woodward. “Now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person to this country.”

   Let’s stop for a second.

   #HarrisWalz2024
   https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/18/opinion/trump-woodward-milley-mass-deportation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.TE4.aEQr.bu63SohLeWP4&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

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     Nonilex (nonilex@masto.ai)'s status on Friday, 18-Oct-2024 19:18:02 JST Nonilex

     in reply to

     “When he was president,” Asawin Suebsaeng & Tim Dickinson report in Rolling Stone, “several ideas that #Trump repeatedly bellowed about in the Oval Office included conducting mass executions, & having US police units kill scores of suspected drug dealers & criminals in urban areas in gunfights, w/the cops then piling those corpses up on the street to send a grim message to gangs.”

     https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-plan-cops-violent-american-death-squads-1235123895/

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     Nonilex (nonilex@masto.ai)'s status on Friday, 18-Oct-2024 19:18:03 JST Nonilex

     in reply to

     There is no reason to act as if #Trump is issuing idle threats, especially given his efforts as president to wield #violence against #protesters, #migrants & other perceived enemies of the state.

     Warner Crocker repeated this.
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     Nonilex (nonilex@masto.ai)'s status on Friday, 18-Oct-2024 19:18:04 JST Nonilex

     in reply to

     …This, as I’ve argued again & again, is a mistake. Presidential rhetoric corresponds to presidential action; it precedes & defines it. What a candidate says on the campaign trail connects to what he (or she) will do in office. And if #Trump has had a single, consistent message, it is that he’ll use the violent arm of the state to cleanse the nation of “scum” & “vermin,” whether immigrants & refugees or dissenters & political opponents like Adam Schiff & Nancy Pelosi.

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     Nonilex (nonilex@masto.ai)'s status on Friday, 18-Oct-2024 19:18:05 JST Nonilex

     in reply to

     To make this a reality, #Trump says, “we will send elite squads of ICE, border patrol, & federal law enforcement officers to hunt down, arrest, & deport every last illegal alien gang member, until there is not a single one left.” And as he explained later in an interview w/Maria Bartiromo on Fox News, this crusade wouldn’t stop with immigrants.

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     Nonilex (nonilex@masto.ai)'s status on Friday, 18-Oct-2024 19:18:05 JST Nonilex

     in reply to

     “I always say, we have two enemies,” #Trump said, adding: “We have the outside enemy, & then we have the enemy from within, & the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia & all these countries.”

     There is both a temptation & a tendency to dismiss all of this as just tough talk, the empty promises of one of the most dishonest men to ever sit in the Oval Office.

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     Nonilex (nonilex@masto.ai)'s status on Friday, 18-Oct-2024 19:18:06 JST Nonilex

     in reply to

     “I will rescue Aurora & every town that has been invaded & conquered—& we will put these vicious & bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them the hell OUT OF OUR COUNTRY.” And “to expedite removals of this savage gang,” #Trump continued, “I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target & dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American Soil.”

     #authoritarianism #tyranny #autocracy #democracy #USpol
     #HarrisWalz2024

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     Nonilex (nonilex@masto.ai)'s status on Friday, 18-Oct-2024 19:18:06 JST Nonilex

     in reply to

     To be clear, the Alien Enemies Act—one of the infamous Alien & Sedition Acts signed by President John Adams—does not distinguish between “legal” & “illegal” #immigrants & foreign nationals, a distinction that did not exist at the time of passage. This means that any immigrant deemed an “enemy alien” by the #Trump admin could be subject to arrest & removal by the federal government.

     #authoritarianism #tyranny #kleptocracy #autocracy #democracy #USpol
     #HarrisWalz2024

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     Nonilex (nonilex@masto.ai)'s status on Friday, 18-Oct-2024 19:18:07 JST Nonilex

     in reply to

     More important than the novelty of Milley’s statement is the reality that he’s right.

     News of the general’s 2023 assessment broke last Friday. That afternoon, & as if to prove the point, #Trump dove even deeper into the rhetorical abyss, telling his followers that he would deploy an 18th-century #law to “liberate” the country from #immigrants once & for all. “I make you this vow: November 5th, 2024 will be LIBERATION DAY in America,” Trump wrote on X.

     #democracy #USpol
     #HarrisWalz2024

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     Nonilex (nonilex@masto.ai)'s status on Friday, 18-Oct-2024 19:18:08 JST Nonilex

     in reply to

     It is simply extraordinary that the nation’s top general would tell anyone, much less one of the most famous reporters in the world, that the fmr president of the US was a “fascist”—a “fascist to the core,” even—& a threat to the constitutional order. There is no precedent for such a thing in American history—no example of another time when a high-ranking leader of the nation’s armed forces felt compelled to warn the public of the danger posed by its once & perhaps future chief executive.