You Got to Have It -- African Americans in the Misleadership Class

'You've come a long way, Kamala Emoff-Harris, our soon-to-be most lethal commander in chief ever.'

The cunts of the world — Wailing Wall White House and their House Boys/Girls. Field hands and house niggers?

Fucking House Nigger’s company, Raytheon, as well as Larry Jewish Only Fink’s, and Zyklon Blinken’s, and Pelosi Putrid’s and Yellen’s and the U$ofIsrael’s.

Off with their fucking heads.

RTX to pay $950 million to resolve US defense fraud, Qatar bribery charges

• Raytheon unit entered into deferred prosecution agreements with DOJ

• Company to hire independent compliance monitor for three years

• Settlements also resolve whistleblower lawsuit and SEC foreign bribery case

[October 16, 2024 at 2:51 PM

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) announced Wednesday that it will provide Ukraine with an additional $425 million worth of supplies and weapons as it continues to defend itself against Russian forces.

According to a press release from the DoD, this is the 67th tranche of equipment from DoD inventories being sent to Ukraine from the Biden administration since August 2021.

The Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) package is estimated to hold a value of about $425 million and will provide Ukraine with the ability to meet its most urgent needs in terms of air defense, air-to-ground weapons, rocket systems and artillery munitions, armored vehicles and anti-tank weapons.

Particularly, the capabilities being provided to Ukraine by the U.S. included additional munitions for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS); RIM-7 missiles and support for air defense; Stinger anti-aircraft missiles; ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS); air-to-ground munitions; 150mm and 105mm artillery ammunition; tube-launched, optically-tracked, wire-guided (TOW) missiles; Javelin and AT-4 anti-armor systems; High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs); small arms and ammunition; grenades, thermals and training equipment; demolitions equipment and munitions; and spare parts, ancillary equipment, services, training and transportation.

May everything now in AmeriKKKa just wither away and fucking die.

US long-range B-2 stealth bombers target underground bunkers of Yemen’s Houthi rebels — they are heroes, fighters, warriors, not this fucking AP bullshit “rebels” crap by: Associated Press

Fucking fines? No heads rolling? Nothing like jail time? Life in prison? But, then again, millions of lives ruined, maimed, poisoned, blown up, depleted uranium-ed, lost, C-PTSD, fetal damage, DNA damage, no children in the future left behind without some fomr of chronic illness, big and small, Autism Spectrum or DD/ID or any number of medical things because of the thugs in Pharma and lords of War.

Source.

Pfizer Sept 2009

Pfizer was fined $2.3 billion, then the largest health care fraud settlement and the largest criminal fine ever imposed in the United States. Pfizer pled guilty to misbranding the painkiller Bextra with "the intent to defraud or mislead", promoting the drug to treat acute pain at dosages the FDA had previously deemed dangerously high. Bextra was pulled from the market in 2005 due to safety concerns. The government alleged that Pfizer also promoted three other drugs illegally: the antipsychotic Geodon, an antibiotic Zyvox, and the antiepileptic drug Lyrica.

See Pfizer in Dollars For Docs

Merck Nov 2011

Merck agreed to pay a fine of $950 million related to the illegal promotion of the painkiller Vioxx, which was withdrawn from the market in 2004 after studies found the drug increased the risk of heart attacks. The company pled guilty to having promoted Vioxx as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis before it had been approved for that use. The settlement also resolved allegations that Merck made false or misleading statements about the drug's heart safety to increase sales.

See Merck in Dollars For Docs

GlaxoSmithKline July 2012

GlaxoSmithKline agreed to pay a fine of $3 billion to resolve civil and criminal liabilities regarding its promotion of drugs, as well as its failure to report safety data. This is the largest health care fraud settlement in the United States to date. The company pled guilty to misbranding the drug Paxil for treating depression in patients under 18, even though the drug had never been approved for that age group. GlaxoSmithKline also pled guilty to failing to disclose safety information about the diabetes drug Avandia to the FDA.

See GlaxoSmithKline inDollars For Docs

Sanofi-Aventis Dec 2012

Sanofi-Aventis agreed to pay $109 million to resolve allegations that the company gave doctors free units of Hyalgan (an injection to relieve knee pain) to encourage those doctors to buy their product. Sanofi lowered the effective price by promising these free samples to doctors, but at the same time got inflated prices from government programs by submitting false price reports, alleged the United States. Medicare and other government health care programs "paid millions of dollars in kickback-tainted claims for Hyalgan," according to the DOJ announcement.

Johnson & Johnson Nov 2013

Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay a $2.2 billion fine to resolve criminal and civil allegations relating to the prescription drugs Risperdal, Invega and Natrecor. The government alleged that J&J promoted these drugs for uses not approved as safe and effective by the FDA, targeted elderly dementia patients in nursing homes, and paid kickbacks to physicians and to the nation’s largest long-term care pharmacy provider, Omnicare Inc. As part of the agreement, Johnson & Johnson admitted that it promoted Risperdal for treatment of psychotic symptoms in non-schizophrenic patients, although the drug was approved only to treat schizophrenia.

See J&J inDollars For Docs

Eli Lilly Jan 2009

Eli Lilly was fined $1.42 billion to resolve a government investigation into the off-label promotion of the antipsychotic Zyprexa. Zyprexa had been approved for the treatment of certain psychotic disorders, but Lilly admitted to promoting the drug in elderly populations to treat dementia. The government also alleged that Lilly targeted primary care physicians to promote Zyprexa for unapproved uses and “trained its sales force to disregard the law.”

See Eli Lilly in Dollars For Docs

AstraZeneca April 2010

AstraZeneca was fined $520 million to resolve allegations that it illegally promoted the antipsychotic drug Seroquel. The drug was approved for treating schizophrenia and later for bipolar mania, but the government alleged that AstraZeneca promoted Seroquel for a variety of unapproved uses, such as aggression, sleeplessness, anxiety, and depression. AstraZeneca denied the charges but agreed to pay the fine to end the investigation.

See AstraZeneca inDollars For Docs

Abbott May 2012

Abbott was fined $1.5 billion in connection to the illegal promotion of the antipsychotic drug Depakote. Abbott admitted to having trained a special sales force to target nursing homes, marketing the drug for the control of aggression and agitation in elderly dementia patients. Depakote had never been approved for that purpose, and Abbott lacked evidence that the drug was safe or effective for those uses. The company also admitted to marketing Depakote to treat schizophrenia, even though no study had found it effective for that purpose.

See Abbott in Dollars For Docs

Boehringer Ingelheim Oct 2012

Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc agreed to pay $95 million to resolve allegations that the company promoted several drugs for non- medically accepted uses. These drugs included the stroke-prevention drug Aggrenox, the lung disease drugs Atrovent and Combivent, and Micardis, a drug to treat high blood pressure. The FDA alleged that Boehringer improperly marketed the drugs and "caused false claims to be submitted to government health care programs."

Amgen Dec 2012

Amgen agreed to pay a $762 million fine to resolve criminal and civil charges that the company illegally introduced and promoted several drugs including Aranesp, a drug to treat anemia. Amgen pleaded guilty to illegally selling Aranesp to be used at doses that the FDA had explicitly rejected, and for an off-label treatment that had never been FDA-approved.

Endo Feb 2014

Endo Health Solutions Inc. and its subsidiary Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. agreed to pay $192.7 million to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from Endo’s marketing of the prescription drug Lidoderm. As part of the agreement, Endo admitted that it intended that Lidoderm be used for unapproved indications and that it promoted Lidoderm to healthcare providers this way.

AmeriKKKa and Klanada and EuroTrashLandia and InBred UnUnited Queendom, all fucking Nazis following their Adolph Netanyahu.

Tim Anderson

Nazi-Israeli Parallels Are Appropriate and Salutary

Reactionary Western agencies get upset at the Nazi Israeli comparison; but why and what is wrong with that? After all, we are talking about regimes which carry out large scale racial massacres based on racist ideology. Of course, the particular histories are different, yet by parallels, we are talking about similarities in character, tactics, and crimes.

Normally, what is most forbidden by many Western regimes (i.e. sponsors of the Israelis) is normalizing the right of colonised and occupied peoples to resist (they like to brand resistance to colonisation, occupation, and apartheid as ‘terrorism’), but that is not the case here. The sore point here seems to be harsh criticism of the Zionist colony.

The repression of Nazi-Israeli parallels begins with media censorship, extends to ‘de-platforming’ or dismissal from employment, and has even taken the form of criminal penalties. The rationale for this is typically vague, reverting to general claims of “causing offence” which, by itself, is meaningless.

Gratuitous (pointless) abuse is certainly anti-social; however, the fact that some people may be offended by political statements has little meaning in itself. Indeed there is such a thing as “salutary” offence, a provocation which may lead to benefit, e.g. where people may be shamed by exposure to the implications or character of their political views or allegiances. That is part of everyday political discussion and relevant to the Israeli debate.

Let’s look a bit more carefully at the main possible objections to Nazi-Israeli comparisons.

1. The main arguments against these parallels

First is the notion that any reference to the Nazi regime is to promote German style fascism, which might alarm people. Promoting Nazism is already a political crime in many countries. Whether banning Nazism and fascism is the best way to discourage it is another debate; in this article, I am looking at the question of comparisons.

Second is the idea that promoting or even mentioning German style fascism is an affront to and intimidation of its historical victims, especially of Russians, Jews, Poles, Roma (gypsies), and others. In the present argument, the idea is that it affronts and perhaps intimidates Jewish people. Intimidation is a particular charge which has to be read from circumstances; it cannot be inferred simply by the presence of certain symbols. However, the ‘Glorification of Nazism’ (see 2 below) is a theme which deserves attention.

Third, to compare Israelis to Nazis is a harsh criticism which might unnecessarily hurt the feelings of Israelis, some of whom have parents or grandparents who were victims of Nazi Germany. For what it’s worth such hurt feelings are certainly possible. Nevertheless, since there are legitimate parallels in character and tactics, and since warning about fascism is clearly in the public interest, offence caused in this way is irrelevant and probably salutary. Many of the crimes of the Israelis in character, if not yet in scale, do indeed resemble those of Nazi Germany. Racist ideology has created a basis for systematic discrimination, followed by racial massacres (see 3 below) in each case. If Israelis are offended by this it may be a good thing, pressing them to reconsider their support for the Israeli regime. More broadly, there is much to learn from the comparative study of fascist regimes.

Fourth, the claim that Israelis are like Nazis is said to be a generic slur on all Jewish people: an anti-Jewish slogan or part of what is often called ‘anti-Semitism’. This claim embeds the dubious assumption that Israeli equals Jewish.

Etymologically, anti-Semitism is a Eurocentric word for the spread of anti-Jewish ideas. In Europe, there was a prejudiced and false view that Jewish people were outsiders, from the ‘Middle East’. European Zionists resurrected this idea.

However ‘Semite’, more correctly, refers to several language groups, the largest of which are Arabic and Amharic, followed by Hebrew (an ancient language resurrected for use in “Israel”) and some others.

Harsh criticism of “Israel” is not a slur on Jewish people. Many prominent Jewish figures make Nazi-Israeli parallels and reject the Israeli-Jewish equation. Indeed, many are offended by the claim that “Israel” represents Jewish people. Most Jewish North Americans, for example, dislike Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and are critical of Israeli government policies.

One need not be Jewish to criticize “Israel”, but it is worth considering the many prominent Jewish people, including holocaust survivors, who make Nazi-Israeli parallels. Disqualifying the parallels argument as “anti-Semitic” is disingenuous – it tries to hide the crimes of the Israeli regime and would have the effect of disqualifying some of the most articulate and experienced Jewish figures who have made Nazi-Israeli parallels (see 4 below)

2. ‘Glorification of Nazism’

The argument that promoting or even mentioning Nazi German fascism is an affront to or intimidation of the historic victims is difficult to take seriously coming from Western regimes, which have mostly opposed successive Russian motions at the United Nations for “combating the glorification of Nazism”.

In recent years, the motion has been passed with large majorities, for example, in 2022 there were 120 in favour, 50 against, and 10 abstentions. The opposition block included Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom and the USA. The United States (which has voted against these anti-Nazi resolutions for 10 years) justified its opposition saying the motion aimed to “legitimize a discourse based on disinformation.”

While the USA sees Russia as a strategic opponent, Russia and its predecessor, the USSR, were the key focus of Nazi German colonial ambitions. Russians suffered most at the hands of the Nazis. As even The Washington Post recognises “an estimated 26 million Soviet citizens died during World War II, including as many as 11 million soldiers”.

The USA and NATO, for their part, have a history of collaborating with Nazi Germany, both before and to some extent during the Second World War, then recruiting Nazi military officers and scientists after that war.

Further, the USA and NATO, after the 2014 Kiev coup, have made use of pro-Nazi, ultra-nationalist Ukraine groups in their proxy war against Russia. These are the same groups which helped the Nazi German invasion of the Soviet Union, taking an active role in the first stage of the Holocaust – a slaughter of Russians, Poles, Jews and others. Western sensitivity to mentioning Nazi links sits oddly with western reluctant to condemn Nazism at the United Nations.

3. Racist ideology, systematic discrimination and racial massacres

The Nazi-Israeli parallels in character and tactics centre on a common thread which runs from racist ideology through systematic discrimination to racial massacres and genocide.

A recent British legal ruling in the case of anti-Zionist academic David Miller, while pretending agnosticism on the matter, recognised that anti-Zionism was a set of views which were “worthy of respect in a democratic society”. That ruling effectively sinks attempts in Britain to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Jewish expression.

Zionism certainly begins, like Nazism, with extreme racist ideology. We can see striking similarities between the essentialist racism of, for example, Nazi ideologist Julius Streicher and the Zionist historian Benzion Netanyahu (father of the politician Benjamin). They set up classes of superior and inferior peoples, demonising their ‘racial’ enemies.

Streicher wrote that “the essence of the Jew was a peculiar one … Who were the money lenders? They were those who were driven out of the temple by Christ himself … [they] never worked but live on fraud … The God of the Jews is … the God of hatred.” Similarly, Benzion Netanyahu wrote about “the essence of the Arab … he has no respect for any law … in the desert he can do as he pleases. The tendency towards conflict is the essence of the Arab. He is an enemy by essence … It doesn’t matter what kind of resistance … what price he will pay. His existence is one of perpetual war.”

These parallel racist ideologies laid a common foundation for systematic discrimination followed by ethnic cleansing and the genocidal assault on what an Israeli minister called “human animals”. Racial ‘science’ came to obsess many Zionists, as it had the persecutors of the Jews in Nazi Germany.

That ideology created a basis for state missions and policies. The Israeli group Adalah cites more than 60  racially discriminatory Israeli laws, which include bans on intermarriage (miscegenation), punishment for the Palestinian families of stone throwers, and the demolition of houses of families of those convicted over some security offence. That systematic racism and its consequences have led to reports branding “Israel” an apartheid regime.

As of 2024, there were six independent reports charging “Israel” with the crime of apartheid. Apartheid is a crime against humanity which, according to Richard Falk and Virginia Tilley, in their 2017 report prepared for the United Nations, places an obligation on the international community to dismantle that criminal regime. That legal charge raises serious doubt about the possibility of pursuing a so-called “two state solution”, despite successive UNSC resolutions since 1967.

The rising pattern of racist practice led a senior Israeli general to compare the occupied territories to Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Just before the Gaza insurrection of 7 October 2023, former Israeli general Amiram Levin compared the control of Palestinian lives on the West Bank to Nazi Germany in the 1930s. “We find it difficult to say it, but that’s the truth … Look around Hebron, look at streets, streets that Arabs can’t use, only Jews, that’s exactly what happened in countries like that.” Amiram lashed out at the government, saying Prime Minister Netanyahu was surrounded by “a messianic group of criminals, former ‘hilltop youth,’ people who don’t even know what democracy is”.

From racial ideology, in both cases we see a shift from systematic discrimination to racial massacres. The anti-Jewish discrimination and racial massacres of Nazi Germany are well known. Similarly, the Israelis are implicated in both systematic discrimination and racist massacres over the decades, from the initial period around 1948 called the Nakba (the catastrophe) by Palestinians, to the most obvious recent massacres committed during several Israeli invasions of the Gaza Strip after the withdrawal of colonial settlements in 2005.

About 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in 2008, in 2014 more than 2,100 Palestinians were killed in Gaza along with 73 Israelis (of which 67 were soldiers). In the 2023-2024 invasion, more than 40,000 Palestinians were killed in Gaza by the Israelis, more than 2/3 of them women and children.

In January 2024, after the case brought by South Africa, the International Court of Justice found that “Israel” was plausibly committing the crime of genocide in Gaza. Despite that finding, the regime has not yet been held to account, raising the importance of direct resistance and public pressure.

4. Prominent Jewish Holocaust survivors make Nazi-Israeli parallels while rejecting the Jewish-Zionist equation

The false equation between Jewish people and “Israel”, an argument pushed by Zionist groups, including through the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and its proposed “working definition of antisemitism” – is a serious fallacy, rejected not least by the many Jewish figures, including holocaust survivors, who have branded “Israel” as akin to Nazism.

Another group, Scholars of Holocaust history, Jewish studies, and Middle East Studies, have drafted an alternative charter, the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDOA), which says that the IHRA statement “puts undue emphasis” (7 of 11 “examples”) on “Israel”.

This writer has previously argued that the IHRA working paper “hopelessly confuses the matter by its appended ‘illustrations’ which conflate Jewish people with Israel and seek to disqualify criticism of Israel”. Racism cannot be redefined so as to exempt one’s favourite group of colonists, especially when they have been identified by multiple independent analysts as the architects of a new form of apartheid.

We should have particular regard to the many Jewish critics of Zionism and of “Israel”. Many Jewish people today are horrified to be told that they are represented by the notorious war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu. Thousands of Jewish people in the USA, after the virtual live streaming of the genocide in Gaza, have held rallies demanding “Not in our Name”.

Zionists opposed mainstream Jewish attempts to organise an international boycott of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, creating the collaborative Haavara (Transfer) Agreement 1933-1939 for the export of Jewish people and their capital to Palestine. Zionists thus abandoned the Jewish struggle against the Nazi regime in its early years.

Even before “Israel” was created, Jewish and non-Jewish figures noted parallels with Nazi Germany. The Pro-Arab British politician Edward Spears wrote:

“Political Zionism as it is manifested in Palestine today preaches very much the same doctrines as Hitler … Zionist policy in Palestine has many features similar to Nazi philosophy … the politics of Herrenvolk … the Nazi idea of Lebensraum, is also very in evidence in the Zionist philosophy … the training of youth is very similar under both organizations that have designed this one and the Nazi one.”

Nazi parallels were made by prominent Jewish intellectuals Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt, who warned of the fascist characteristics of the founders of the Israeli regime, and in particular the political predecessors of the Likud Party.  They warned of the Israeli political party led by Menachem Begin, which was “closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy, and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties”.

Zionism of course is not a religious tradition of Judaism. It was started and maintained largely by non-religious Jewish people like the atheist founder Theodor Herzl, who envisioned a Jewish colonial project from the Nile to the Euphrates.

Later, anti-Zionist and liberal Zionist Jews, including Holocaust survivors, emphatically rejected the Israeli regime, using Nazi and Fascist comparisons. They had seen both and clearly did not want to be associated with a regime which adopted features of the hated Nazis.

A British Jewish group, Jewish Voice for Labour, has cited 13 Jewish holocaust survivors who compare Israeli policies to those of Nazi Germany. Some of them were horrified that their ideal of a humane “Israel” had fallen in face of Nazi style practices, some were vehemently anti-Zionist. All of them make Israeli comparisons with the Nazi regime.

Dr. Gabor Mate, for example, mourns that his “beautiful dream of Israel” and of Jewish redemption” has become a nightmare. Palestinians today use the same resistance techniques as the Jewish partisans during WW2, against their Nazi oppressors. Similarly, Dr. Israel Shahak wanted to see “Israel” renounce the Nazi style desire for domination, including domination of the Palestinians [and so] become a much nicer place for Israelis to live”. These statements reflect the mythical ‘two state solution’ ideal.

Other Holocaust survivors, while making the Nazi parallel, oppose any version of a ‘Jewish state’. Stephen Kapos – like Gabor Mate also from Hungary – says that “the way that the Israeli government is using the memory of the Holocaust in order to justify what they’re doing to the Gazans is a complete insult to the memory of the Holocaust [and that includes] … the conflating of Jewishness with Zionism.”

Similarly, Holocaust survivor Professor Zeev Sternhell sees in “Israel” “not just a growing Israeli fascism but racism akin to Nazism in its early stages”, while Reuben Moscovitz “[compares] what I went through during the Holocaust [in Romania] to what the besieged Palestinian children are going through.”

The late German-Dutch physicist Hajo Mayer was a well-known Holocaust survivor who repeatedly asserted the Israeli parallels with Nazi Germany. “I can identify with Palestinian youth” he said. “I can write up an endless list of similarities between Nazi Germany and Israel. The capturing of land and property, denying people access to educational opportunities and restricting access to earn a living to destroy their hope, all with the aim to chase people away from their land.”

The late Slovak biochemist Dr Rudolf Vrba takes his critique of Zionism a step further by drawing attention to direct Zionist-Nazi collaboration. He escaped from Auschwitz in April 1944 and spent some time thereafter  exposing this collaboration, especially the role of Hungarian lawyer Rudolf Kasztner who negotiated the expulsion of Jews from Europe with Adolf Eichmann, to create the Haavara Agreement, abandoning those who remained.

According to Dr Vrba, “The Zionist movement in Europe played a very important role in the mass extermination of Jews … Nazism and Zionism had something in common, they both preached that Jews don’t belong in Europe”. It was wealthy Jewish businessmen who first bought their way out.

As regards Kasztner and his Hungarian clique, Dr Vrba said, “This small group of quislings knew what was happening to their brethren in Hitler’s gas chambers and bought their own lives with the price of silence … Nor did the sordid bargaining end there. Kasztner paid Eichmann several thousand dollars. With this little fortune, Eichmann was able to buy his way to freedom when Germany collapsed, to set himself up in the Argentine”.

Dr. Marek Edeleman, Primo Levi, Rene Lichtman, Suzanne Berliner Weiss, Marione Ingram, and Marika Sherwood are other Holocaust survivors who compare Israeli practices to fascism including that of Nazi Germany, and would be condemned as “anti-Semitic” Jews under the ridiculous IHRA “working paper” definition. In fact, they have a unique and legitimate perspective to offer.

In short, while the histories are of course different, making properly evidenced parallels in character and tactics between Nazi Germany and fascist “Israel” is entirely legitimate, particularly as both built their systematic discrimination and genocide on foundations of a deeply racist ideology. There is much to learn from these parallels and in many cases, where offence is caused, it is salutary. Provoking reflection on support for the great crimes of fascist regimes, and on how supposed victims can become perpetrators, is an important public service.

+—+

The spending on military by the US taxpayer is in the trillions a year. Not just the fucking bullets and jet fuel, dudes. The externalities, the costs to localities for lack (sic) of funding. All those countries bombed and bullied into purchasing this shit, putting generations behind the proverbial under-developing eight ball.

TRILLIONS, mother fuckers.

A year after military contractors were caught dramatically overcharging the Pentagon, a bipartisan group of lawmakers who’ve been showered with campaign donations from the military industry is pushing a bill to make it even easier for those companies to rip off the Defense Department, according to our review of the bill.

After receiving more than $3.8 million in 2024 campaign donations from political action committees and individuals associated with the military industry, members of the House committee overseeing Pentagon spending just inserted two provisions into an upcoming bill that would exempt many more private products and services from competitive pricing guidelines and provide contractors far more leeway in what they can charge the Defense Department.

Last year’s Pentagon spending bill totaled nearly $884 billion. Over the past decade, more than half of that budget has gone to military contractors, according to an analysis from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a nonprofit think tank. Many of the top military contractors — including Boeing, RTX Corporation, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman — have seen sizable stock-value increases since the war in Gaza began in October 2023 while shooting down shareholder efforts at increased transparency.

THEY ALL NEED TO BE KILLED — the entire fucking menace to the world, all of them, from the BlackStone-Heart-Rock, Vanguard, all CEOs, all of the Eichmanns and the Bidens and Trumps of Zyklon Blinkens and Wailing Wall White House rats, all of them.

“As commander-in-chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world,” Kamala Harris said during her keynote address at the DNC on Thursday. It’s neither a meaningful personal statement nor is it any kind of policy: the Vice President is pledging allegiance to the national security complex.

If governors throughout the country do not deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers to “dominate the streets,” Trump said the U.S. military would step in to “quickly solve the problem for them.”

“We have the greatest country in the world,” the president declared. “We’re going to keep it safe.”

KILL THEM ALL before they KILL “most” of us ALL. Trump suggests he’ll use the military on ‘the enemy from within’ the U.S. if he’s reelected

“I will rescue Aurora and every town that has been invaded and conquered,” Trump said at the rally. “We will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them out of our country.”

In an interview aired Sunday on Fox News Channel, Trump was asked about the potential of “outside agitators” disrupting Election Day and he then pivoted to what he called “the enemy from within.”

“I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within,” Trump said. He added: “We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

Trump has repeatedly invoked the phrase “enemy from within” in recent speeches. On Saturday, he used it to refer to Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a prominent Trump critic who oversaw the congressional investigation that led to Trump’s first impeachment. Schiff is now running for the Senate.

The former president and his advisers are developing plans to shift the military’s priorities and resources, even at a time when wars are raging in Europe and the Middle East. Trump’s top priority in his platform, known as Agenda 47, is to implement hardline measures at the U.S.-Mexico border by “moving thousands of troops currently stationed overseas” to that border. He is also pledging to “declare war” on cartels and deploy the Navy in a blockade that would board and inspect ships for fentanyl.

Trump also has said he will use the National Guard and possibly the military as part of the operation to deport millions of immigrants who do not have permanent legal status.

While Trump’s campaign declined to discuss the details of those plans, including how many troops he would shift from overseas assignments to the border, his allies are not shy about casting the operation as a sweeping mission that would use the most powerful tools of the federal government in new and dramatic ways.

“There could be an alliance of the Justice Department, Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. Those three departments have to be coordinated in a way that maybe has never been done before,” said Ron Vitiello, who worked as the acting director of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement under Trump.

While both Democratic and Republican presidential administrations have long used military resources at the border, the plans would be a striking escalation of the military’s involvement in domestic policy.

Advocates for human rights and civil liberties have grown alarmed.

“They are promising to use the military to do mass raids of American families at a scale that harkens back to some of the worst things our country has done,” said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, an immigration advocacy organization.

In Congress, which has the power to restrict the use of military force through funding and other authorizations, Republicans are largely on board with Trump’s plans.

“The reason I support Donald Trump is he will secure the border on Day 1. Now that could be misinterpreted as being a dictator. No, he’s got to secure the border,” said Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

Many Republicans argue that Trump’s rhetoric on immigration reflects reality and points to the need for military action.

“There is a case that this is an invasion,” said North Carolina Sen. Ted Budd, a Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “You look at 10 million people, many of which are not here for a better future, and, unfortunately, it’s made it necessary. This is a problem that the Biden administration and Harris administration have created.”

Still, Trump’s plans to move military assets from abroad could further inflame tension within the GOP between those hawkish on foreign policy and Republicans who promote Trump’s brand of “America First” isolationism.

Republican Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, insisted Trump would not move active-duty troops to the border, even though Trump’s platform clearly states he would.

In the Senate, where more traditional Republicans still hold sway, Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, issued a statement encouraging the Department of Defense to assist with border security, but adding that the effort “needs to be led by the Department of Homeland Security.”

Trump’s designs for the military may not stop at the border.

As Trump completes a campaign marked by serious threats to his life, his aides already made an unusual request for military aircraft to transport him amid growing concerns over threats from Iran.

During his first term while riots and protests against police brutality roiled the nation, Trump also pushed to deploy military personnel. Top military officers, such as then-Gen. Mark Milley, resisted those plans, including issuing a memo that stressed that every member of the military “swears an oath to support and defend the Constitution and the values embedded within it.”

Trump’s potential actions would likely require him to invoke wartime or emergency powers, such as carrying out mass deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law, or quelling unrest under the Insurrection Act, an 1807 law that allows a president to deploy the military domestically and against U.S. citizens. It was last used by President George H.W. Bush in 1992 during rioting in Los Angeles after police officers beat the Black motorist Rodney King.

Ahead of a potential second term for Trump, Democrats in Congress tried to update presidential powers like the Insurrection Act but found little success.

That’s left them instead issuing dire warnings that Trump now has fewer guardrails on how he could use the military. He has shown an ability to bend institutions to his goals, from a Supreme Court willing to reconsider long-standing interpretations of presidential powers to a military scrubbed of officers and leaders likely to push back on his plans.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who introduced legislation to update the Insurrection Act, said the plans “illuminate Donald Trump’s total misunderstanding of the United States military as a force for national defense, not for his personal preferences to demagogue an issue.”

But Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, underscored how many in his party have grown comfortable with deploying the military to confront illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

“Whatever fixes the border, I think we’re OK with,” he said.

The backlash wasn’t limited to Twitter.

Harris’ former Senate colleague, Bernie Sanders, responded to her comment on ABC’s This Week. “All due respect, the United States is now spending more than the next 10 nations combined on defense,” Sanders said. “We want the strongest defense in the world. But I do think enough is enough. You’re seeing military contractors profits soaring, and I think we can have the strongest defense in the world without spending a trillion dollars a year.”

Harris’ statement is a worrisome sign that she might not be willing to challenge the primacy of all things national security, particularly the Biden administration’s decision to support Israel in the ongoing war in Gaza. The phrase struck me as unremarkable, the usual performative jingoism Democratic candidates think wards off the “peacenik” label — as if McGovern just lost to Nixon yesterday. But to my surprise, the only other politicians to have used the phrase (“most lethal fighting force in the world”) appear to be Republicans. Here’s what they said (emphasis mine):

• Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA), in a June press release titled, “Rep. Clyde Votes to Support Troops & De-Woke DOD,” said: “As a 28-year Navy combat veteran, ensuring we maintain the most lethal fighting force in the world is one of my top priorities in Congress.”

• Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), in a May press release on proposed legislation said that it  “makes strides in developing the needed technologies to deter Chinese aggression and ensure that the United States remains the most lethal fighting force in the world.”

• Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AK), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Rick Scott (R-FL), Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in a 2021 resolution said that “President Biden's proposed defense budget would be insufficient to address…the need for sufficient military support to deter our enemies and maintain the most lethal fighting force in the world.”

All but two of these electeds, Sens. Scott and Cornyn, are military veterans. Aside from them, the only other place in government I could find the phrase used was by the U.S. military itself. Here are some examples (emphasis mine):

• Army Chief of Staff General James C. McConville said in 2022: “TRADOC’s efforts are essential and foundational to ensuring our Army remains the most lethal fighting force in the world, and I promise you to stay committed to the very end.”

• Air Force General Jacquelin D. Van Ovost said in 2023: "That's why we have to continue to recruit and retain talented women and men in our service, capable of thinking creatively, differently, innovating with the technology that we have, so that we can create new concepts and capabilities so that we can remain first and foremost, the most lethal fighting force in the world.”

• Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Earl Hannon said in 2013: “But, as warriors in the most lethal fighting force in the world, we refuse to allow the mission to fail - we will do most anything to ensure mission success.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin took it a step further last year. “The U.S. military is the most lethal fighting force in human history,” Austin said in a speech at the Reagan National Defense Forum (emphasis added). This is textbook jingoism, both proclaiming America the Greatest of All Time and expecting the public to agree.

That Harris is using language familiar to generals and veterans suggests that she is seeking that very group’s acceptance and support. That’s not a scandal, obviously; but it does hint that Harris views the national security community as a constituency or at least one she doesn’t want to cross swords with (heh).

“She obviously stood by a muscular US presence in the world,” Brookings Institution senior fellow in governance studies, Elaine Kamarck, says. Saying that Harris’ speech conveyed that she  “understood the stakes in Ukraine” as well as “the need for continued support and security for Israel,” Kamarck opines that she was “pleasantly surprised at just how strong her words and tone were when she got to foreign policy.”

“She had great respect for the military,” Kamarck concludes (I’ll keep an eye on her to see what position she is offered if there is a Harris administration.)

Further evidence for Harris’ warm relations with the national security world can be found in the endorsements she’s already garnered from former top national security officials. Immediately after Harris’ DNC speech, the National Security Leaders for America’s president retired Rear Admiral Mike Smith issued a statement praising her for advancing a “powerful vision,” one which “strengthens our republic, and renews our commitment to justice, safety, and security for all Americans.” The group, which describes itself as a “bipartisan organization comprised of individuals who served in various senior leadership positions that include all six military branches” also says its membership includes “over 700 senior national security leaders.”

There’s also the list of former national security leaders who have already endorsed Harris long before the convention. The 27-page long letter was released on July 23, just two days after President Biden announced he was dropping out of the race. Particularly interesting is the bipartisan character of the list. While it’s possible the long list of former top Obama officials are simply endorsing for reasons of party loyalty, the list includes many national security bureaucrats as well as the following prominent former Republican appointees: 

• Michael V. Hayden — former CIA Director (George W. Bush)

• James R. Clapper — former Director of National Intelligence (George W. Bush)

• Richard Haass — former Special Assistant (George H.W. Bush) and Director, State Department Policy Planning Staff (George W. Bush)

• Robert D. Blackwill — former Deputy National Security Advisor and Ambassador to India (George W. Bush)

The letter praises Harris’ “integral role in restoring U.S. global leadership around the world,” pointing to the advice she has provided Biden:

“She has been by the President’s side in the Oval Office and in the Situation Room managing high-stakes international crises and advising on the toughest decisions – from the U.S. response to Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, to the United States’ defense of Israel when Iran attacked in April 2024, to U.S. strikes against al-Qaeda leaders.”

Of course that’s the first we’ve really heard of Vice President Harris engaging in any of the “hard” power aspects of national security. It’s not like she’s been a Dick Cheney as vice president, or even a Joe Biden.

So Harris has gained the support of the national security establishment. But it feels like it’s more a Washington-spawned strategy to guard her flank than it is any statement of her values or intentions. 

Harris can’t win without the youth vote, experts say, but to many young people, what they see is a Biden-Harris administration that has failed to bring the Israel-Hamas war to an end. Nor did they see an America that is lethal enough to have deterred the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the first place; or a Biden administration that has stopped the endless wars. And therein lies the problem with Harris’ friendly relationship with the national security world: it cannot be reconciled with the demands of the innumerable young people who want to see major changes in the U.S. role in the world. 

It's taken from a panorama of London by Claes Visscher in 1616.