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I’ve been trying to make a point for a VERY long time that the soulless monsters on the right do not see themselves as monsters. They see themselves as heroes. No matter how cruel or sadistic or illegal their actions, they look in the mirror and never see a villain, only a hero, or, at worst, a victim.

I would very much like to disabuse them of that notion, and this article is for them.

Hey, buddy. Yeah, you in the body armor with the assault rifle, taser gun, pepper spray, smoke grenades, zip ties, and a love of Donald Trump and the white race.

You think you’re the good guy, don’t you?

Maybe you’re a warrior for Christ. Maybe you’re a soldier for the white race. Maybe you’re a patriot who hates baby-killing commies. A lot of you have conflated all of these into a Grand Unified Theory of Americanism where your pronouns are “U, S, and A” and Jesus personally signed the Declaration of Independence to defeat the Soviet Union.

Whatever story you tell yourself about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, I guarantee you think you’re the brave hero of this tale.

You are, after all, fighting the forces of darkness. Your enemy, the radical left, is filled with socialists and commies and Marxists.1 They’re Antifa and BLM and femininazis who murder babies after they’re born. They’re pedophiles and child traffickers and maybe even cannibals. They’re definitely controlled by The Jews “The Globalists.”

You are fighting against the armies of Satan himself.

How could you NOT be the glorious hero of this story? You are fighting the ultimate evil!

And since you are fighting evil in its purest form, you are unshackled by moral limits, right? It would be insane to worry about morality in a time like this! Or the rule of law. Or even basic human decency. You are fighting a war for the very future of America/humanity/God’s kingdom on Earth.

You can’t be concerned with rules of engagement or annoying questions like “Is this legal?” or “Is this right or wrong?” You are on a mission! You MUST win at all costs! And, honestly, the people you’re fighting aren’t even really people anyway. That means you can lie, cheat, and steal from them. You can assault them at will. Violence is your ally. Rape and murder are tools to defeat the ultimate evil. They’re not crimes or sins! You’re the hero of the story!

At least, that’s what you keep telling yourself.

But when you get up in the morning and get ready for another day of violence, you cover your face and you hide your badge so no one can see your name. And you attack reporters and anyone with a camera.

Because deep down, you know you’re not the hero. You’re not even the villain. You’re just a cancer poisoning everything around you, and you’re afraid.

Oh, I know, I know. You cover your face to protect your identity because Antifa might come for you. You’re “protecting” yourself and your family from “leftist terrorism.”

Motherfucker, please.

You’re not a brave resistance fighter struggling against an oppressive government, afraid the jackbooted G-men will kick down your door. You are the fucking government.

You’re not hiding from a terrorist ring hunting you down. You’re hiding from the future. You’re afraid of what will happen to you after the regime falls. This is why you hide your faces. This is why you cover your badges. This is why you illegally change license plates after your little raids:

You’re afraid of facing the consequences of your actions because you know that this ride won’t last forever. That Donald Trump will not be president for much longer and without him, the 1000-Year Reich will fall.

You’re afraid of what happens next, and I am here to tell you: You should be.

Did you know the Opinionated Ogre has a weekly podcast? It’s true! New episodes every Thursday! Catch the latest episode here:

The Ogre says "Be VERY afraid."

There’s this fun little nugget of history I learned recently. Something they didn’t teach in history class and doesn’t get mentioned much when we talk about what happened to the Nazis after World War II. Oh, we all know about the Nuremberg Trials, where a bunch of the worst of the worst were tried and executed. And I’m all about a new round of Nuremberg Trials. Big, showy tribunals for the leaders who directed the campaign of terrorism against the American people. The thieves who stole billions of OUR money. The traitors who worked with our enemies to weaken our nation.

But France and other countries went further than that, and this is what you’re really afraid of, even though you almost certainly are not aware of the history:

Immediately following Liberation France was swept by a wave of executions, public humiliations, assaults and detentions of suspected collaborators, known as the épuration sauvage (wild purge) or épurations extrajudiciaires (extrajudicial purges).

When the regime falls, and it will, there is going to be chaos. You will be cut loose immediately. ICE will be disbanded. Your badge, your title, your legal protection, all gone. And a lot of very angry people, all the people you abused and tortured and maimed and kidnapped and raped and the relatives of the people you killed? They’re going to come looking for you.

And if they don’t, the FBI will once it’s restored to working order. And if not the FBI, state Attorneys General will. Because no matter what fairy tales you tell yourself today, you know what you're doing is immoral and illegal and we will be coming for you.

If you’re lucky, someone with a badge will show up with handcuffs, and you’ll spend the next 15-25 years in a prison cell. If not, it will be a mob with guns and a rope looking for collaborators because that’s what you are: A collaborator.

You are willfully working for a corrupt fascist regime enacting an illegal white nationalist agenda. Shhhhhh…no one cares about your justifications. No one cares if you were “just following orders.” You could have refused. You could have upheld the law. The REAL law, not the white nationalist version Stephen Miller told you to enact.

But you didn’t. You covered your face and then smashed your way through immigrant communities, zip-tieing naked children in the middle of the night and kidnapping people exercising their First Amendment rights.

So, yeah, we’re going to come for you, one way or the other. That is why you cover your face.

Chances are, when the regime falls, you’re going to rush out and join the first white nationalist militia you can find, assuming you don’t already belong to one. An awful lot of you MAGA types have made it clear you do not believe in democracy and that you, and only you, have the divine right to rule America.

Cool.

Just to be clear, when you take up arms against the United States THIS time, it’s not going to be another January 6th. You’re not going to be rehabilitated and celebrated. You’re going to be put down like a rabid animal. Thus, to all traitors and collaborators, because again, and I cannot stress this enough, that is what you are: A collaborator. You will be forever branded as someone who betrayed their oath to serve the people of the United States and uphold the law.

You chose to indulge your deepest, darkest impulses. You chose violence and hate and rage. You chose fascism over democracy. You chose evil, no matter how hard you lied to yourself about being the hero.

There will be a price to pay, and that is why you hide. But you cannot hide forever. The regime is not smart enough to wipe all of the records, and we will find out who all of you are. Maybe you’ll have enough time to flee the country before we catch up to you. I hear Russia is always looking for able-bodied recruits. That’ll probably work out just fine for you.

Has to be better than the mob justice waiting at the end of a rope for siding with the fucking Nazis, right? Guess we’ll find out soon enough. Clock’s ticking. See you soon…“hero.”

I hope you feel better informed about the world and ready to kick fascists in the teeth to protect it. This newsletter exists because of you, so please consider becoming a supporting subscriber today for only $5 a month or just $50 a year (a 17% discount!). Thank you for everything!

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Fascism hates organized protests. They fear the public. They fear US. Make fascists afraid again by joining Indivisible or 50501 and show them whose fucking country this is!

The Blue Wave has begun and the fascist fucks are scared. There are 10 days until it hits Virginia and Pennsylvania. If I were a billionaire fascist loser, I’d think REALLY hard about getting out of the way.

Donald Trump is tearing down the East Wing of the White House to make way for a gigantic gilded ballroom. He initially promised that there would only be small changes to the building, and nothing would be destroyed. Now, it’s being entirely demolished.

According to the president, he met with “two geniuses” — men he didn’t name — who told him he didn’t need permits or permission to make whatever changes he liked to the White House. “I said, ‘how long would it take? They said, ‘Sir, you can start tonight. You have zero zoning conditions. You have no approvals.’‘” Trump said. “I said, ‘you gotta be kidding.’ He said, ‘Sir, this is the White House. You’re the president of the United States. You can do anything you want.’”

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There is actually a body charged with overseeing changes to the nation’s capital city and preserving its history; Trump has ignored them. The ballroom he’s building is massive, and historic preservationists warm it will overwhelm the primary building and compromise the aesthetic of the White House grounds. It’s not exactly a shock that the man who owns Mar-a-Lago and whose favored aesthetic is “throw more gold on it” is not overseeing the classiest renovation. But this really does look like it’s going to be a monstrosity. Here’s a mockup — you can see the ballroom on the right, over the former East Wing, which used to be roughly the same size as the West Wing:

The ballroom dwarfs the primary White House residence. It feels quite visually unbalanced. It’s ugly. It’s tacky. It’s also reportedly going to be connected to the primary White House building by a glass bridge (ugh); it’s hard to imagine how one builds a glass bridge into the White House without making some significant changes to that structure, too. And it’s all about being built because an egomaniacal president wants to leave a huge mark that is all about him — even if the mark is a giant eyesore.

Adding a larger ballroom to the White House isn’t itself a bad idea, and it seems like the space really is needed. But it’s a question of process (and, to be honest, taste). The White House isn’t Trump’s personal abode; it’s a place he’s living for four years, that he is a custodian of. Changes to it should never be made unilaterally, and should have the input of people who understand and respect the building’s history and integrity. Past presidents have renovated where needed, and they generally didn’t face much in the way of backlash, because at least in the modern era the renovations have been modest, necessary, and completed after undergoing a thorough approvals process. They didn’t just jam through what they wanted.

I was struck by Trump’s comment that he was told, “‘Sir, this is the White House. You’re the president of the United States. You can do anything you want.’” It harkens back to another famous Trump observation: “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the pussy.”

This kind of entitlement is what has characterized Trump’s entire adult life. It’s what is characterizing his presidency.

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It should also not be lost on us that Donald Trump is demolishing the East Wing, where First Ladies and their staffs worked. This is an administration characterized by virulent misogyny, and a president elected on the by white-hot male resentment. This is a presidency of the manosphere. Of course they’re destroying the area of the White House grounds largely associated with women.

Last week, Trump also posted an AI video of himself dropping excrement on American cities. The point was to mock the No Kings protesters who took to the streets. The visual, though, was him literally dropping shit on America. This presidency is shocking in a million ways, but this video really was a new low: The juvenile humor of it, the very fact of an American president declaring that millions of his fellow citizens deserved to be shat on because they disagree with him. Past presidents have almost to a one understood themselves to be president for all Americans. Not Trump. In his view, only Americans who are loyal to him are truly American at all.

Most American presidents, even ones I think were terrible, understood themselves as custodians — of a historic home, sure, but more importantly of an office, a people, a national creed, and a founding document that set out bold and crucial principles that would become a model of freedom and democratic rule. America is not perfect, but part of what has made America admirable is that our citizens and leaders alike have been committed to a set of ideals. We haven’t always lived up to those ideals — far from it — but the best parts of our history have been the times in which groups excluded from America’s promise demanded the country honor its commitments.

What we’re seeing now is a man who does not believe himself beholden to anything — not tradition, not morality, not the rule of law, not the US Constitution. And what is to me even scarier is that a significant minority of the nation lines up behind him, and also apparently has no fealty at all to America as a place and an idea and a collective that is ours only temporarily, that we have a collective obligation to preserve, improve, and pass on. This same group has deemed half the nation not really American by virtue of our liberal or even moderate politics, and they cheer the president on when he says that their fellow citizens are enemies. They claim removing confederate statues that are only a few decades old is an unacceptable erasure of history, but shrug as the president bulldozes part of the White House. It’s not about principles. It’s about dominance. These are not people who love American democracy and our history. They are people who simply want their guy in charge, so that he might humiliate, denigrate, and destroy the Americans they collectively dislike.

It is not normal to applaud a president for saying he shits on America. It’s not normal to allow private donors to funnel money to a presidential vanity project that involves destroying a large part of the single most iconic symbol of the United States.

“You can do anything you want.” “When you’re a star, they let you do it.” Trump is the most un-American president in modern American history. He’s destroying not just a physical manifestation of that history, but the social glue that has held this enormous, diverse, complicated country together. He’s not just taking a bulldozer to the East Wing; he’s taking it to all of us.

xx Jill

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Chickenshit pretenders.

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Two Americans, Judith A. Voorhees and Charles K. Voorhees, filed a lawsuit today in federal court in Washington D.C. seeking a temporary restraining order “enjoining Defendants and any third parties from further destroying any portion of the White House.” That may sound like slamming the door after the horse has escaped from the barn, but the lawsuit recognizes that if Trump wanted to, he could tear down the entire White House and build some sort of garish South Florida monstrosity in its place, and there would be no way to stop him.

The lawsuit says that Trump broke the law. He violated the National Capital Planning Act of 1952 by failing to submit plans for his “renovation” of the White House to the National Capital Planning Commission. He violated the National Historic Preservation Act (“NHPA”) of 1966 by failing to notify or consult with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (“ACHP”) and the D.C. State Historic Preservation Office (“SHPO”) before beginning work on the property and by failing to evaluate the effects of any proposed work on the historical property of the White House. Last, but not least, Trump bypassed “legally required oversight by the Commission of Fine Arts (“CFA”), which reviews and advises on the design and aesthetics of the exterior modifications to the White House and its grounds.”

Trump clearly broke several laws by leveling the East Wing of the White House, but he doesn’t care. The Supreme Court – six of the justices anyway -- allowed him to break the law and not face any consequences, because they ruled that Trump cannot be charged with a crime for any official act he carries out as president.

Tearing down a portion of the White House is an official act. So, it doesn’t matter that Donald Trump ordered that the East Wing be torn down in favor of a privately funded monument to himself that the White House is already calling “The Donald J. Trump Ballroom.”

It wouldn’t matter if Trump decided to tear down the entire structure of the White House, which has stood, in one form or another, since the year 1800. He could do it. His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, looking rather pleased with herself, in answering a question from a reporter, said today that Trump can tear down anything he wants, including the White House or the Jefferson Memorial, because permission is required from the National Capital Planning Commission “only for vertical construction,” but not for demolition.

But of course, she is wrong about that. Trump can tear down any federal structure he wants in Washington D.C. or anywhere else in the country because the Supreme Court said his official actions as president are not to be challenged under law.

It is probably the case that the dimwits on the Supreme Court, in granting to Trump or any future president ultimate power under the unitary executive theory that they are so fond of, did not foresee that Donald Trump would use that power to destroy part of the national monument that he lives in. That is the problem with right-wing beliefs like the unitary executive theory held by the so-called “conservatives” on the Court. They presuppose that the American people will elect at least a sane person fully in possession of his mental faculties and maybe even a person with a conscience.

That did not happen last November. The American people elected a person so consumed by self-adoration and a grossly inflated sense of his worth as a human being that he is utterly and completely out of control. Upon announcing his plans to add a gigantic “ballroom” to the White House, Trump promised that the structure of the building as it stands would not be touched, because he is its “biggest fan.”

He lied. He knew at that moment that he would do anything he wanted to the White House, because that is the way he has lived his life. Trump infamously told Billy Bush on the Access Hollywood tape that he could “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything you want.” He was not only describing his proclivity for sexual assault, he was telling the world that in his life so far, he could do anything he wanted to do and get away with it, because he was Donald Trump.

He is still Donald Trump, and thanks to the Supreme Court of the United States, we are stuck with him. He can tear down the East Wing of the White House. He can slap gold leaf on stair treads in the White House if he wants to. He can hold fund raisers in the White House and line his own pockets with millions of dollars. He can sit in the Oval Office and plan crypto scams and rake in the bucks from MAGA suckers if he wants.

He can order the U.S. military to shoot boats out of the water based on his suspicion that the people on the boats are smuggling drugs, which would be murder under any sane system of laws.

He wakes up in the morning and he breathes air filled with magic dust scattered by a Supreme Court with six justices who think that the power that they have aggregated to themselves and passed on to him allows him to, in his own words, do anything he wants.

Donald Trump can turn the White House into Mar a Lago. His Supreme Court is poised to allow him to go to war against his own people using the United States military. His Supreme Court will allow him to declare an emergency and station soldiers outside polling places in November of next year, because under their theory of executive power, he can do anything he wants.

If you visit Washington D.C. today, or next week, or the week after that, you will see soldiers in the streets carrying rifles, and you will see a national monument, the White House, that has been vandalized by a madman.

We live in a country that we do not recognize because last year, our fellow citizens voted for a dictator as president.

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In this Reality Check video, DCReport’s co-founder, and Pulitzer Prize winner, David Cay Johnston, takes a closer look at the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey—and why dismissing the case too quickly could conceal the truth. Johnston argues that instead of granting Comey’s request to throw out what appears to be a politically motivated prosecution, the judge should allow full subpoena power to uncover whether Donald Trump’s Justice Department engaged in vindictive prosecution. It’s a moment that could test the very integrity of America’s justice system.

“FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS NOT JUST IMPORTANT TO DEMOCRACY, IT IS DEMOCRACY.” – Walter Cronkite. CLICK HERE to donate in support of our free and independent voice.

The post James Comey: Vindictive Prosecution? David Cay Johnston Weighs In appeared first on DCReport.org.

These are dark times but I will continue to tell the stories you need to hear in a clear (and usually profane) voice. If I entertain/anger/inform you, preferably all three, please consider becoming a supporting subscriber today for only $5 a month or just $50 a year (a 17% discount!).

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Three weeks ago, and I put out our weekly podcast, and I gave it the following title: Trump Just Lost The Military Forever. The premise was simple. Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth had summoned all of America’s generals and admirals together for a historically dangerous meeting. And then proceeded to give speeches that convinced even the most die-hard MAGA in uniform that these are not men fit to lead a Kindergarten field trip.

Now, here we are three weeks later, and that initial assessment appears to have been 100% accurate:

Numerous high-ranking officers painted Mr. Hegseth’s Sept. 30 speech to hundreds of generals and admirals gathered at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia as a turning point in how his leadership style, attitude and overall competency are viewed in the upper echelons of the U.S. armed forces.

“It was a massive waste of time. … If he ever had us, he lost us,” one current Army general told The Washington Times.

Most days, I wake up and my first thought is, “God, I hate being right.” Because most days, the terrible things I was worried about coming to pass, do. Some days, though, the regime lives down to my low expectations and that is exactly what I was hoping for. Oh boy! Did they ever!

Back in April, I pointed out that Trump was in a Catch-22. Pete Hegseth is a loser, but Trump can’t put anyone EXCEPT a loser in charge of the military.

TL;DR - Trump needs someone who is broken and weak to run the military. Someone who will obey his every illegal order because they have no future without Trump. Hegseth is that man.

Trump needs a man like Hegseth because he only has two years to seize power before Democrats take control of Congress and expose everything the regime has been doing through investigations. Trump will need the military to seize control of the 2026 midterm elections.

BUT! Such a weak and broken man like Hegseth can never command the respect of the military, which has 250 years of tradition and service and sacrifice and honor, something Hegseth knows very little about.

Accordingly, Hegseth is a laughably bad fit for the job:

“Hegseth’s focus on fitness, weight and appearance reflects his experiences as a junior officer. These are perennial challenges at the small unit level; anyone who has commanded a small unit in the military understands where he’s coming from,” Mr. Cancian wrote. “However, if his military experience had been at higher levels, he would have discussed strategy, threats and warfighting at the operational level. As it was, these topics were nearly absent from his remarks.”

Hegseth is unqualified for the job he has, and he’s definitely incapable of the job Trump hired him to do: Remake the military into a fascist weapon willing to overthrow the constitutional rule of law to preserve Donald Trump’s power.

Did you know the Opinionated Ogre has a weekly podcast? It’s true! New episodes every Thursday! Catch the latest episode here:

The Ogre laughs at sad little Pete...

Where does this leave us?

Hegseth will grow increasingly erratic and hostile as he orders the military to respect him. Small men always lash out when their betters look down on them and there’s not a single general or admiral who considers Hegseth to be their superior officer, just a higher-ranking one.1 Expect more temper tantrums, firings, and obsessive attention to trivial bullshit. Anything to give Hegseth the illusion of control and authority. He doesn’t really know how to be a real leader so this is all he’ll have.

Trump will continue to try to manufacture a “national crisis” to justify using the military to seize control of the elections, but that will prove impossible to sell to the public as legitimate with video of inflatable costumes flooding social media. The Supreme Court will still almost certainly allow the deployment of troops despite knowing for a fact the narrative being used to justify the deployment is a lie, but the court of public opinion will not be swayed so easily.

Remember, it is critical for stolen elections to appear legitimate; otherwise, the entire scam falls apart. As I keep mentioning, this is a very large country with 400 million guns. Even if the United States military were completely behind Trump, and they very much are not, they could not possibly seize power here and hold it. The only way to do this is to maintain the fiction of democracy and legitimacy, possibly deploying the military to crush a blue city or two to make a point.

None of that is going to happen now because Hegseth has ensured no one will follow him down the road to fascism, even if they were so inclined in the first place.

Thank god Trump is so weak and stupid that he has to surround himself with men who are even weaker and stupider. Our greatest ally in this fight continues to be the regime itself.

I hope you feel better informed about the world and ready to kick fascists in the teeth to protect it. This newsletter exists because of you, so please consider becoming a supporting subscriber today for only $5 a month or just $50 a year (a 17% discount!). Thank you for everything!

Prefer a one-and-done tip? Click here!

🔥Burn Fascism To The Ground!🔥

Fascism hates organized protests. They fear the public. They fear US. Make fascists afraid again by joining Indivisible or 50501 and show them whose fucking country this is!

The Blue Wave has begun and the fascist fucks are scared. There are 11 days until it hits Virginia and Pennsylvania. If I were a billionaire fascist loser, I’d think REALLY hard about getting out of the way.