Ugliest Americans
Trump and his minions have turned us into pariahs in just two months
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Scenes right out of a dictatorship
I was struck this week at the optics of what America has become since Trump took office. Scene after scene has unfolded that is tellin those of us who live here, and internationally, that the United States under Donald Trump is no longer a friend of freedom, democracy, or human rights.
That is one of the saddest sentences I’ve had to write in my life.
Sadly there can be no doubt based on the behavior of Donald Trump and even more so by his evil cabal of sycophants and collaborators that the U.S. is demonstrating its hatred of freedom. This week we saw it in the detention of a student at Tufts University here at home, then with Kristi Noem posing glamorously in an El Salvadoran torture prison, and today with the disgusting behavior of J.D. Vance and Trump towards our allies in Denmark and the people of Greenland.
Each of these are telling a story about who we are and none of them are flattering.
She wrote an OpEd
As she headed out to dinner Tuesday evening, Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in plain clothes in a scene reminiscent of ones we see in Russia, China, or Iran.
It was caught on a street camera and I ask you to ask yourself if this looks like a street in a Boston suburb or Moscow?
According to Ozturk’s attorney, sources report, Ozturk has a valid F-1 visa and was returning home to meet with friends and break her Ramadan fast when she was detained by federal agents, near Electric Avenue and Mason Street in Somerville, just a block away from Tufts campus.
It appears that her crime that led to her detention like a violent criminal is that she was one of four authors of an Op-Ed in the The Tufts Daily, the school’s student newspaper. The article called on the university’s administration to implement anti-genocide resolutions adopted by the Tufts Community Union Senate, a body of the student government.
That was it. According to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, that translates to “organizing for Hamas” and she was stripped of her visa and ripped from her life. No crimes are being identified. Just an Op-Ed. No due process. No warning.
Undercover agents of the government sweeping in and disappearing you in the middle of the day.
Kristi Noem can’t miss a camera
It’s become a bit of a running joke that Kristi Noem apparently sees her role as the Secretary of Homeland Security as nothing more than an opportunity to cosplay different jobs. We’ve seen her doing photoshoots as a sailor, fire fighter, SWAT member, and Border Patrol Agent complete with perfect extensions and on point makeup.
Her latest photo op is a lot darker. She headed to El Salvador to visit the notorious CECOT high security prison that now houses several hundred Mexican and Venezuelan immigrants detained and deported without any due process by Trump under the Alien Enemies Act. We now know that many of them were accused of gang membership based on tattoos ranging from the Real Madrid logo to an autism awareness ribbon.
But, that didn’t stop her from using the opportunity to make the U.S. look like a darkly malign international threat. She arrived with her usual retinue of courtesans and sporting a $60,000 Rolex watch as she paraded in front of cages holding 50 or more men often in nothing but their shorts.
Then to truly bring home the evil of it all, she stood in front of them and used prisoners as a backdrop for a video that should make you sick to your stomach and is actually a likely violation of international law.
Yes, she decided it was appropriate to stand with her tight fitting top and extensions in front of prisoners to shoot a video. No matter what her outsides might look like, Kristi Noem is a deeply ugly person.
Ice cold stupidity
Finally, today we have J.D. Vance, his wife Usha, and National Security Advisor, Michael “Fat Fingers” Waltz, jetting off to Greenland under the auspices of the ongoing threats from Trump and his Administration against our decades long ally, Denmark, to take the island from them for “international security.”
The original plan was for Usha to visit and watch a sled dog competition, meet with the supposed “MAGA” Greenlanders who want to join the U.S., and visit Space Force service members at the U.S. base there. That ill thought out plan went off the rails when local officials made it clear she was not welcome at their event and advance team members could not find a SINGLE family willing to host her for a visit.
Suddenly, the Administration announced that J.D. would accompany her on the trip so he put on his eye liner and flew off the icy arctic reaches to visit the troops. Immediately he and Trump were able to once again piss all over our allies and declare their intentions to acquire this sovereign territory.
Of course, they have to get us to hate our own friends to do it because Denmark is a member of NATO and has launched an ambitious expansion of their military after the Ukraine invasion, and now due to threats than the actual United States. How do you get people to hate an ally? Lying about them and their dedication to our partnership and loyalty.
There he is using our service members as props once again for his political speeches and attacks on reality. These men and women are in grave danger according to Vance. He wasn’t worried about danger to our troops when he participated in an unsecure group chat about impending attacks on Yemen but now these…150…Americans are in grave danger so we have to invade an ally to protect them.
Vance gave a speech where he questioned Denmark’s military capability and mocked our past partnerships where they fought by our sides in Afghanistan. The Guardian has the story.
“Unfortunately, the story of Greenland over the past 20 years when it comes to security is that we've under invested in the infrastructure. We've under invested in the security architecture, and we've under invested in the brave men and women who are doing a very hard job ... to keep all of us safe. That has to change now,” he said.
Vance mocked critics who cited Danish forces’ service alongside Americans and other NATO allies during the two-decade-long war in Afghanistan by suggesting that Americans “obviously honor the sacrifice of our Danish friends” there in the same way the French continue to feel gratitude for American troops who fought to liberate that country from Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
“Recognizing that there are important security partnerships in the past does not mean that we can't have disagreements with allies in the present about how to preserve our shared security for the future, and that's what this is about — there is no amount of bullying, no amount of obfuscating, no amount of confusing the issue. Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful landmass filled with incredible people. That has to change,” he said.
I wish I was making that all up, but the truth is that this is all about money for his rich friends. Greenland sits atop a reserve of rare earth minerals possibly larger than China and the melting ice of the Arctic means greater access to that region and the opportunity to exploit its riches.
As a member of NATO, Denmark is more than capable to defend it in case of an attack by China or Russia because we would be obligated by treaty to help too. But, that’s not what Trump wants his followers to know. So, he will smear good people, and attack our partners to show that in just two months the United States has become an enemy of freedom.
Becoming uglier
The authoritarian instincts of the Trump regime are only growing darker by the day and the propaganda machine only digging in deeper to fool us. We have to resist them at every turn. This fight isn’t going to be quick or easy. It won’t end with a triumphant victory.
It will be all of us grinding away every day fighting the smallest battles for every inch of victory we can fight. It might be in court or in the Op-Ed section but we must make our voices heard louder than the dark ones of the MAGA movement.
My dad and his 2 brothers were all in the Navy in WWII. My grandparents had to sign a waiver to allow my dad to join because he was 17 and both his brothers were already in the Navy. They did it because they loved our country. When I went to visit other countries, I was proud to be a American. Not any longer. The country my dad and his brothers fought for no longer exists because of the criminal actions of Trump and his horrible minions. The pictures from El Salvador are horrific and remind me of the Nazi concentration camps or Stalin's gulag. This is not something the country I loved would EVER do. I am so angry and afraid and sad. To Trump and his collection of idiot demons I say GIVE ME BACK MY COUNTRY! I want these assholes to go away and I don't care where or how. I hope we can rebuild a country we can ALL be proud of. A country that doesn't persecute anyone.
It's amazing how much taxpayer money they're wasting in all their globetrotting - El Salvador, Greenland, golf clubs, Russia, sports events, on and on. And why are these goons abducting innocent civilians wearing masks? I thought FOTUS said no masks, or is that just for universities?