America’s overseas wars, with all their capricious and vicious violence, have indeed come home. For decades, our leaders projected power abroad under the banner of fighting evil — whether Communism, terrorism, or tyranny. Yet in doing so, they helped cultivate an authoritarian mindset that has now turned inward. The “enemy” is no longer some distant foe in a foreign land; it is “the enemy within.” For Donald Trump, that means the mythical “radical left,” a variation of the 1950s fantasy that a Communist was hiding under every bed. The irony, of course, is that the real danger then, as now, comes not from a phantom leftist menace but from a radical right-wing movement willing to strip Americans of their rights in the false name of security, safety, and patriotism.
Joe McCarthy (L) with Roy Cohn
Today’s moment is more perilous than the McCarthy era. In the 1950s, Senator Joe McCarthy could destroy reputations and careers, but he was still just one senator. Today, we face a president who channels McCarthy’s demagoguery from the Oval Office, using the full power of the executive branch to punish dissent and reward loyalty. He is surrounded by a coterie of opportunists, lackeys, and lickspittles who feed his vanity, echo his grievances, and amplify his baseless conspiracy theories. The machinery of government — the same machinery once used to surveil and target foreign “enemies” — is now being aimed at our fellow citizens.
The global war on terror, it seems, has finally gone global in the truest sense — extending to America’s own streets, courthouses, and universities. Trump and his allies portray Democratic cities and progressive movements as breeding grounds of chaos and sedition. In his mind, anyone who resists his will — even through the most lawful and constitutional means — is an “insurrectionist.” He has long shown contempt for the Constitution he swore to uphold. Trump is often exactly what he appears to be: a dangerous blowhard with a vindictive streak, ignorant of the limits and responsibilities of his office. Yet others in his orbit, people like Stephen Miller, harbor more deliberate and insidious designs on American democracy.
What is to be done? Congress is paralyzed, fragmented, and largely disempowered. The Supreme Court is dominated by ideologues nursing grievances and eager to reshape the nation along reactionary lines. Who, then, will check a president determined to rule rather than govern?
The American experiment in self-government has endured many crises but rarely has it seemed so fragile. As journalist Nick Turse recently wrote in TomDispatch, the United States now stands on the precipice of authoritarian rule. Many Trump loyalists appear eager to leap — to wage an internal war against their fellow citizens under the guise of saving the nation.
Never has Dwight D. Eisenhower’s warning, “Only Americans can hurt America,” been more prescient or more tragic. The enemy within is not a phantom of the left or right — it is the creeping authoritarianism that grows when fear conquers freedom.
As Master Po reminded us in Kung Fu, “fear is the only darkness.” My fellow Americans, we are in a very dark place.
I wonder why the Trump administration is so interested in Venezuela?
Oh, so that’s why.
A barrel of oil is selling for about $60 this morning. 303 billion barrels at $60 a barrel is more than $18 trillion in future earnings (likely much more than this as the price of oil climbs to $100 per barrel and higher).
Who put America’s oil off the coast of Venezuela? Remember, it’s the Gulf of America, people.
In other news, the admiral in charge of SOUTHCOM is retiring early. Rumor has it he’s objected to the kill and regime change policies of Trump and Hegseth vis-a-vis Venezuela.
President Trump himself recently admitted he’s authorized covert overt CIA activities against the Venezuelan government. A CIA-orchestrated coup combined with U.S. military attacks on Venezuela is likely coming. It’s shrouded in drug war rhetoric, but of course the real goal is control over Venezuela’s oil.
The recent award of the Nobel Peace Prize to a Venezuelan opposition leader is another fig leaf in this operation. Once again, war will be sold to the American people as advancing democracy when it’s really all about the Benjamins.
Trump and Hegseth’s murderous strikes against alleged drug-running boats (at least five already destroyed) is another pretext for regime change. Yet the USA was more than happy to tolerate, even encourage, a massive drug trade in heroin during the Afghan War.
Oh well. War always finds a way, especially when oil is involved. Just think of the Iraq regime change invasion in 2003. That went so well, didn’t it?
This short video by Max Blumenthal sums it up quite well:
Conveniently, the government is still shut down, so I guess Trump can’t ask Congress for a formal declaration of war. Yet another unconstitutional war has already started and Congress is nowhere to be found.
It’s time for regime change for democracy right here in America.
Since the last time (July 19th) I wrote about the Russia-Ukraine War, perhaps the biggest change has been to President Trump’s rhetoric. After being frustrated in his efforts to end the war (and perhaps win a Nobel Peace Prize to boot), Trump effectively washed his hands of the conflict. A Truth Social post was especially surprising, as the BBC reported on 9/24:
US President Donald Trump has said Kyiv can “win all of Ukraine back in its original form”, marking a major shift in his position on the war with Russia.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said Ukraine could get back “the original borders from where this war started” with the support of Europe and Nato, due to pressures on Russia’s economy …
Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to end the war, but has previously warned that process would likely involve Ukraine giving up some territory, an outcome Zelensky hasconsistently rejected.
In his post, Trump added Ukraine could “maybe even go further than that”, but did not specify what he was referring to.
Exactly how Ukraine is going to win back all the land captured by Russia is unclear. Also less than clear is the role of the EU and NATO in this. Trump appears to have said it’s up to the EU and NATO to support Ukraine (as if NATO is not commanded and controlled by America), with the U.S. more than willing to sell weapons to EU and NATO countries to support Ukraine’s efforts.
Trump’s gambit is this: If Ukraine wins, he takes credit for continuing to supply weaponry and for his new vote of confidence. If Ukraine loses, Trump shifts the blame to the EU and possibly to Ukraine and Zelensky too.
It’s a cynical policy—but these are cynical times.
An undeniable truth is that the war grinds on with no end in sight. U.S. aid to Ukraine will soon reach $200 billion. Meanwhile, front lines have stagnated, counteroffensives have stalled, and Ukrainians themselves have grown increasingly weary of war.
Observers in the West point to a weakening Russian economy and high battlefield losses as signs Russia itself may be nearing a tipping point that could lead to collapse and defeat. Both a heavily damaged Ukraine and a destabilized Russia might be the fruits of “victory,” leading to chaos and possible nuclear escalation.
Again, no matter what Trump says, a total victory for Ukraine looks remote. Russia controls about 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, including the industrial Donbas and much of the south. Ukraine’s economy is weakened (as is Russia’s), its army is depleted, and its demographics are unfavorable to success (millions of Ukrainians have sought sanctuary abroad).
The Media’s Role in Perpetuating Illusion
The mainstream media in the U.S. has been partisan since day one. The MSM framed the conflict as a morality play: a heroic democracy versus an evil autocrat.
Meanwhile, the MSM overhyped U.S. weapons as “decisive” and Ukrainian counteroffensives in 2023 as “war-winning.” Media hype distorted expectations and contributed to public fatigue.
Most strikingly, the press has consistently downplayed the risks of escalation with a nuclear power. Ukraine’s use of long-range Western missiles to strike inside Russia carries serious dangers. That Putin will tolerate further provocations without escalating himself is a dangerous bet.
The Case for Diplomacy
Ukraine, no matter Trump’s new faith, cannot win this war in the maximalist sense of regaining all occupied territories and forcing Russia’s surrender. The longer the war continues, the more Ukraine will suffer—physically, economically, and politically.
Wars feed autocracy. Already, Ukraine has postponed elections, banned several opposition parties, and restricted media outlets. These measures may be understandable in wartime, but they belie the notion that Ukraine is a flourishing democracy.
A negotiated settlement is not capitulation. It is recognition of limits. The alternative is indefinite conflict—one that may bleed Ukraine dry even as it edges the world closer to catastrophe.
Dangerous Assumptions
Some policymakers argue a prolonged war will weaken Russia to the point of collapse. But a weakened Russia is not necessarily a safer one. If the Russian state disintegrates, who controls its nuclear arsenal? What if chaos in Moscow produces a more radical, vengeful leader? What if a desperate Kremlin lashes out, or if fighting spills into a NATO country like Poland?
Conversely, what if Ukraine, drained by endless war and reliant on foreign arms, slides toward authoritarianism? Wars have a way of transforming republics into garrison states. The longer the conflict lasts, the greater the risk that Ukraine’s democracy will become a casualty of its own “great patriotic war.”
The Limits of Analogy
Too often, the war is discussed through lazy historical analogies. Putin is Hitler; Zelensky is Churchill; negotiations are “another Munich.” Such framing flatters Western moral vanity but obscures strategic reality. This is not 1938. Putin is not on the verge of conquering Europe, and diplomats are not appeasing him by seeking peace.
Putin may be ruthless, but he is not suicidal. He knows that attacking a NATO member would invite his own destruction. Nuclear deterrence remains real. To suggest otherwise is to indulge in a fever-dream of perpetual conflict, one that justifies limitless military spending and forecloses diplomacy.
The American Connection
For most Americans, the Russia–Ukraine War remains distant and impersonal. We are not threatened by Russian artillery; the war is thousands of miles away. Yet we are paying for it—literally. Every artillery shell, every tank, every missile financed through our taxes contributes to death and destruction abroad. Some justify this as moral duty: helping Ukraine defend freedom. But morality also demands an accounting of consequences.
How many Americans know that 69 percent of Ukrainians report being weary of the war, or that their own government has suspended elections? How many realize that each dollar spent on war is a dollar not spent on schools, infrastructure, or healthcare at home?
We are told the U.S. can afford virtually limitless weapons for Ukraine, but when it comes to social programs, we always hear the same question: How are you going to pay for that? Apparently, there’s always money for war, never for peaceful pursuits.
A Broader Reckoning
The Russia–Ukraine War has become a mirror reflecting America’s own pathologies: our addiction to militarism, our aversion to diplomacy, our willingness to spend without scrutiny when the cause is war, and our moral complacency about the human cost of conflict.
We have turned foreign policy into a morality play, where compromise is dismissed as cowardice and negotiation is treated as akin to sin. Yet history teaches the opposite: the greatest statesmen are not those who glorify war but those who end it.
The Russia–Ukraine War continues, and so does the silence around the most basic of questions: What is America’s endgame? If the answer is “as long as it takes,” we should ask: takes for what? For Ukraine’s victory—or for its ruin? For democracy’s defense—or for another endless war?
It is time to demand accountability, restraint, and above all, diplomacy. Supporting Ukraine should not mean subsidizing endless cycles of death and destruction. How many more must die before this war is finally ended?
President Trump’s decision to federalize the police in DC and to deploy National Guard troops there is in keeping with creeping authoritarianism—and just plain creepiness as well. Increasingly, Trump seems to think he can rule by emergency decree—where have I seen this before in history? One example: Weimar Germany followed by Hitler’s assumption of power in 1933, which led to more emergency decrees in the alleged cause of law and order.
I was asked for a comment this AM about Trump’s decision and I came up with this:
Trump is an authoritarian. We knew this in 2016 when he said during a debate he expected the military to follow his orders irrespective of their legality. Trump is also an opportunist. He knows “tough action” against crime will play with his base, even though crime rates in DC have been declining. He’s manufacturing a crisis to consolidate his power.
Finally, this is what happens when you spend $1 trillion on the military. It becomes the “solution” to every problem, whether it’s crime in DC, drug cartels south of the border, civil strife in Somalia, or potential nuclear proliferation with Iran. Yet history shows the deployment of military forces, especially in situations for which they’re not trained, aggravates problems instead of alleviating them.
Readers, what do you make of all this? One thing is certain: Before exporting more “democracy” to the rest of the world, America would do well to address its own shrinking and disappearing version of the same.
Soon, America’s democracy may well be invisible—vanished. Poof!
I didn’t know I was a “Jew-hater” until I suggested in a comment that giving Bibi Netanyahu everything he wants (and then some) might not be the same as serving the national interests and security needs of the United States. Well, there, I said it. Maybe Bibi shouldn’t get all the bombs and weapons and support he wants, whenever he wants and whatever Israel does with them.
And for that, I became a “Jew-hater.” I guess because I wasn’t 100% subservient to Bibi.
These are strange days in America. Congress can’t jump to its collective feet quickly enough to applaud Bibi. Members of Congress proudly display Israeli flags outside their offices. Heck, a few members of Congress (notably Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania) aren’t happy unless they literally wrap the Israeli flag around their bodies.
Senator Fetterman (on the right) shows the proper deference to Israel
What gives? What accounts for this madness?
Oh, I know some of the reasons. AIPAC. Christian evangelicals looking to the Second Coming. All the money ($100 million and more) Miriam Adelson gave to Donald Trump. All the profits to be made from weaponry and war. The corporate media, bought and paid for by billionaires. And so on. Yet something deeper, more insidious, seems to be at work here.
We used to have the “America, love it or leave it” crowd. Now we have the “Israel, love it—or else” crowd. In America!
Of course, ad hominem attacks like “Jew-hater” are meant to distract from real issues. People call you names when they can’t think of intelligent and persuasive ways of challenging your arguments. Yet this is America, after all, where much of our discourse (such as it is) consists of name-calling and other forms of insults and slander.
Honestly, I loved the response of another commenter to the “Jew-hater” epithet. The person simply typed: YAWN.
If you’re willing to think or write critically about Israel and the actions of its government and leaders, which indeed every American (and Israeli) should be, be prepared to be attacked as a Jew-hater, an anti-Semite, or worse. It comes with the territory. Even my Jewish friends who write critically are not immune. They, of course, are dismissed as “self-hating Jews.”
Fortunately, it appears most Americans today are onto the game that’s being played here. Progress, of a sort, even as Bibi continues to get everything he wants. Now Bibi says he’ll nominate Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize.
More than 100 people are already dead from catastrophic flooding in Texas. The “blame game” has started, with the Trump administration taking heat for flash flood warnings that came too late to save those in the path of surging rivers fed by thunderstorms dumping too much rain in too short a time.
Camp Mystic in Texas was especially hard hit by flooding, losing 27 children and camp counselors
The White House, naturally, says it’s not their fault. If you want to blame someone, blame God. A quick summary from NBC:
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back against questions as to why flood alerts were issued “while people were likely sleeping” and what the administration is doing to ensure alerts go out earlier.
Leavitt noted that the National Weather Service issued escalating warnings Thursday regarding the weather forecasts as information came in. She said there were “timely flash flood alerts” including a flood watch in the afternoon, evening, and “timely flash flood alerts” at night.
“So people were sleeping in the middle of the night when this flood came — that was an act of God,” Leavitt said. “It’s not the administration’s fault that the flood hit when it did, but there were early and consistent warnings.”
“An act of God” — Divine wrath? Judgment? What, exactly?
Why do we use this expression, “an act of God,” as if God or gods are just waiting to smite people with hurricanes, floods, locusts, tornados, and (Lord?) knows what else.
Wasn’t it really an act of nature? Too much heat, too much humidity, and wind patterns combining somewhat predictably to cause dangerous flash flooding. An act of nature we can guard against. An act of God implies caprice, violence, and forces that can neither be predicted nor prevented.
We know about acts of nature. That’s why we have science and scientists, or in this case meteorologists, radar, supercomputers, and the like. We fund a national weather service of experts so that we can predict and perhaps ameliorate some of these acts of nature.
But we know as well nature is becoming more extreme. Nature’s acts are becoming more violent as the earth slowly warms and as climate patterns become more violent and hence often less predictable—as well as more punishing.
Let’s not talk about acts of God, whether as a way to shift blame or even as a form of comfort. (Speaking for myself, I wouldn’t be comforted if someone told me God had swept my loved one away in a flash flood He sent.) Let’s talk about acts of nature, and how they’re growing more violent, and the steps we can take to understand them, predict them better, and lessen their impact.
Again, “act of God” gets us nowhere. But I know man is acting, with drill, baby, drill consistency, and man’s acts are something we do have control over.
With sympathy to all those who’ve lost loved ones in the terrifying flash flooding in Texas. Nature can be brutal—it’s why we must respect it, study it, and understand it.
With the U.S. national debt sitting at $37 trillion, it’s hard to imagine a time when Congress argued for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Remember when Republicans had a reputation for fiscal conservatism?
According to the non-partisan CBO, President Trump’s big beautiful bill will add another $3.3 trillion in debt over the next decade. At the same time, the bill cuts health care to poor people. This from the New York Times:
G.O.P. Bill Has $1.1 Trillion in Health Cuts and 11.8 Million Losing Care, C.B.O. Says
Analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that Republicans’ new version of the legislation would make far deeper cuts and lead to more people becoming uninsured than previous proposals.
Who needs health insurance, am I right?
Yearly interest on the national debt is now higher than the Pentagon budget, which is truly saying (and spending) a lot.
Where is all the money going? Leaving aside the cost of servicing the national debt, most of discretionary spending goes to the Pentagon, Homeland Security, and similar forces of aggression and repression. New nuclear weapons, for example, may cost $2 trillion over the next 30 years. A misnamed “golden dome” (leaky sieve is more accurate) allegedly to protect America against nuclear missile attacks may cost $500 billion or more over the next decade or two. And nothing costs as much as foreign wars, as we learned from the disastrous Iraq and Afghan Wars, which may end up adding $8 trillion to the national debt when all the bills come due.
While achieving a balanced budget isn’t easy, there are two easy ways to come closer:
Tax the rich.
Stop making war, downsize the empire, and focus the U.S. military on national defense and defense alone.
Option (1) is out since the rich own the government. (Welcome to Plutocracy USA.) Option (2) is also out since the military-industrial-congressional complex is the fourth branch of government and arguably the most powerful. All presidents appease it, whether their names are Bush or Biden, Obama or Trump.
So, Congress and the President do what they always do: Serve the rich and kowtow to the MICC, the National (In)Security State. Any “balancing” to be done with the federal budget will be done on the tired backs of the poor and disadvantaged. They have no lobbies, no money, no say.
Can the working classes pull America up by their collective bootstraps? America’s workers have achieved miracles before, but this is too big of an ask even for them.
When I think of celebratory military parades with lots of heavy weaponry and the like, images of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union come to mind. Authoritarian regimes, strongly militaristic, led by dictators.
When I think of U.S. military parades, featuring large numbers of troops, I think of victory parades after World War II that celebrated the defeat of Nazi Germany. Back then, the idea was to celebrate the triumph of the free world over darkness, not the triumph of Trump’s will over wokeness.
The naked celebration of military strength in Trump’s proposed parade is yet another example of American militarism on steroids. It marks the further erosion of democracy in America and a coarsening of the human spirit in America.
Trump’s parade, scheduled to coincide with his birthday on June 14th (Flag Day as well), may cost as much as $100 million. But that price tag is minuscule compared to the damage it does to America’s image.
For Trump, openly embracing the idea (and ideal) of America as a dominant empire built around a trillion-dollar-a-year military just seems commonsensical. An acknowledgement of the obvious and the irreversible.
The “Big Beautiful Bill” passed recently by the House is petty and ugly. A sham. A reverse Robin Hood. It cuts SNAP benefits (food stamps) to the poor. It cuts Medicaid. Because who needs food and medical care, amirite? Meanwhile, it cuts taxes for the richest Americans and funds various weapons follies (a foolish and wasteful missile shield known as “Golden Dome,” more nuclear weapons, yet more billions for the wall on America’s border with Mexico). And it adds significantly to the national debt.
Remember when Republicans were once known as fiscal conservatives? Remember calls for a balanced budget? Those days are long gone. The “Big Beautiful Bill” is a fever dream, or a night terror if you prefer, of wanton and wasteful spending that rewards the already well-heeled and hurts the most vulnerable of Americans.
Trump, who is truly an expert at the craft of the con, concocts the most outrageous names to sell his BS. Thus a missile shield that may end up wasting $500 billion is a “golden dome.” Heck, the whole bill, which is contempuous toward the poor and punishing to workers organizing for higher wages, is sold as “big” and “beautiful.”
When Trump describes things as “golden” and “big” and “beautiful,” you should know to hold tightly to your wallets and purses, America, because you’re about to get scammed.
At his site, Stephen Semler has a superb chart that breaks down the petty ugly bill the House just passed. Here’s an excerpt. Read it and weep, America.
The bottom line: More money for the already affluent and for the Pentagon; less money and benefits for the poor. The rich get richer, the poor poorer, as America reinforces its turn to weapons, walls, police, domes, and warriors.
Israel has dropped more than 100,000 tons of bombs on Gaza. That’s 100+ kilotons. The Hiroshima bomb was roughly 15 kilotons. That means the small area of Gaza has been punished by bombing that is the equivalent in explosive force to seven Hiroshimas.
More than 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza are confirmed dead; the actual number of dead may be twice or three times that number. The number of wounded is likely more than 100,000. (Who can say, exactly, given the level of destruction and disruption in Gaza?)
How is this level of destruction in any way justifiable or defensible?
Gaza is already almost destroyed. The Israeli government’s intent is clear: after rendering Gaza uninhabitable, the Palestinians remaining there will be pushed out, displaced, removed. Or they will die, in place, from more bombing as well as starvation and disease.
The U.S. government has enabled this by supplying Israel all the bombs it needs to pulverize Gaza. The U.S. government has also provided diplomatic cover as well as military protection as Israel implements its final solution to the Gaza question.
Some claim this isn’t genocide because Israel isn’t marching Palestinians to gas chambers. But there are many forms of genocide, many ways to kill massive numbers of people.
In The History and Sociology on Genocide (1990), Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn define genocide as “a form of one-sided mass killing in which a state or other authority intends to destroy a group, as that group and membership in it are defined by the perpetrator.”
One-sided mass killing: yes.
Intent to destroy a group: yes.
Gaza and its people are being destroyed before our very eyes. A large part of the effort is being funded directly or indirectly by U.S. taxpayers. Yet we are told it is all the fault of Hamas. That Hamas is making the Israeli government kill and wound hundreds of thousands of people.
One thing is certain: The Israeli government couldn’t perpetrate this genocide without massive military support from the United States.
Perhaps one day, as Omar El Akkad wrote, “everyone will have always been against this” [the ongoing genocide in Gaza]. The question remains: Why now are so many, especially in the Israeli and U.S. governments, still eagerly perpetrating and defending this?
Bracing Views 