Friday, September 26, 2025

Today's News: Some scary stuff about Russia & NATO & the US military command & Alligator Auschwitz & Canadian mining. With a laugh at Hoekstra

I know there's weeks to go until Halloween, but I saw some "scary stuff" in the news: 

First, Russia seems to want to provoke NATO now:

⚡️Europe, NATO ready to shoot down Russian jets, Bloomberg reports. European diplomats told Russian officials this week that NATO is prepared to respond in force to further airspace violations, including by shooting down Russian planes, Bloomberg reported Sept. 25.

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— The Kyiv Independent (@kyivindependent.com) September 25, 2025 at 2:36 PM

President Trump told reporters that he was fine with NATO aircraft shooting down Russian aircraft should they enter NATO territory again. Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister responded to that with “Roger that.”

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— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yasharali.bsky.social) September 23, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Even Phillips O'Brien was impressed with Trump's switch.
Myself, I'm suspicious. 
I didn't take Trump seriously when he said he thought Ukraine could win the war, and that he would support NATO in shooting down Russian trespassers. I don't believe that Trump and his administration will ever do a single thing to help Ukraine or Europe, and Putin knows it. 
Worse still, Trump's remarks basically just endorsed Putin's position that Russia's war against Ukraine is really a defensive war against NATO. In effect, this gives Putin the go-ahead to try to broaden the war by provoking and threatening European security.

Next, this - Pete Hegseth has ordered hundreds of US military commanders to attend a Pentagon meeting next Tuesday. Nobody knows why. 
Some speculations I saw tonight:
...If Hegseth announces sweeping changes, a new “war footing,” or emergency powers after this meeting, it will not be to protect democracy. It will be to protect Trump....
Secretary of Whatever Pete Hegseth is nervous.  Everyone at the Pentagon knows it.... People talk. And what they’re talking about is how weirdly frightened the boss is.
... I think it’s likely that he will make a formal announcement in their presence of the reduction in the number of generals that he intends to carry out. It’s likely that he will try to reinforce his obsession with ending “wokeness” in the military, perhaps even having the generals and admirals and senior NCOs sign some sort of pledge to end DEI and “woke” practices...
...Scenario C: Domestic Rehearsal
This is the nightmare.
The “homeland-first” shift isn’t just about strategy. It’s about domestic deployment. Border crackdowns. Election unrest. Protest control. Maybe even Insurrection Act rehearsals.
...Once you point the U.S. military at U.S. citizens for political convenience, you don’t put that genie back in the bottle. Ever.

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Next, this - the US is apparently now disappearing people:

Miami Herald: Two-Thirds of Immigrants Held at “Alligator Alcatraz” in July Have Disappeared

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— Democracy Now! (@democracynow.org) September 23, 2025 at 11:35 AM

No wonder we’re cozying up to Argentina. We’re recreating their Dirty War.

— 8647th Aerial Sandwich Brigade (@mrstorage.bsky.social) September 24, 2025 at 10:31 PM
Charlie Pierce writes: 
 ...They had these people isolated in a prison camp in the middle of the damn Everglades and, somehow, they managed to lose them in transit to God knows where? These people simply don’t care enough to run a policy that isn’t cruel and stupid. Being cruel and competent is beyond them. Being benign and stupid is beyond them. Their only talent is being cruel and stupid....

In civil society, if you feel the need to keep what you're doing secret you very well shouldn't be doing that thing. I'm thinking that this is what the lawyer types mean when they say an action reveals "consciousness of guilt."

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— Boston Tom Levenson (@tomlevenson.bsky.social) September 21, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Next, this - "nice little Canadian mining company you've got here. Be a shame if something were to happen to it": And finally - on a lighter note, pointing and laughing at Ambassador Hoekstra is always fun
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Most charitable reading of this guy, is when they told him to go be an “ambassador” in Canada, it was loud, and he only heard one syllable.

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— Tabatha Southey 🇨🇦 (@tabathasouthey.bsky.social) September 25, 2025 at 7:38 PM
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3 comments:

Northern PoV said...

Putin 'provokes' is the tired narrative we are supposed to believe.

Keep the details murky, forget the CIA/Maidan putscht while we claw our way to WW3.

I am sure that Archduke Franz Ferdinand is trolling in his grave.

And anyone tRusting tRump's latest whirling dervish act should know better.

10:21 am
Cap said...

NPoV, the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine was the largest democratic mass-movement in Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, not some coup organized by the US and carried out by Ukrainian fascists as Putin like to claim. But let's assume that you and Putin are right, and a CIA coup brought the Ukrainian government to power. How does that justify Russia's annexing parts of Ukraine or violating the airspace of Poland and neighbouring countries?

Let's take a real CIA coup as an example. During the War of the Pacific (1879–1883), Chile annexed resource-rich territory from Peru and Bolivia. In 1973, almost a century later, a CIA-backed military coup brought Pinochet to power in Chile. Would that have justified Peru and Bolivia taking back lost lands? Of course not, the idea is ridiculous. So why is Putin justified in annexing parts of Ukraine?

11:22 am
Cap said...

Hoekstra made an ass of himself as ambassador to the Netherlands during Trump Season 1. He claimed that Muslim youth were burning politicians there. I wish Canadian reporters were as dogged and unforgiving as these Dutch ones were, both in dealing with Hoekstra's crap and PP's.
https://youtu.be/thIRJLsnIxY?feature=shared

7:14 pm

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