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Mulberry Heel
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No, it really isn't. To cut down on fraud you're going to need more agents. And you didn't even address why Trumpers want to sharply reduce the number of agents. The reason - which you simply refuse to discuss - is obvious. The fewer agents the IRS has, the more difficult it becomes to stop fraud and catch waste. And as others have already pointed out, the IRS didn't add all of those agents to catch Venmo abusers, lol.
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“… It is not clear whether the provision can survive under special procedures Republicans are using to push the legislation through Congress on a simple majority vote. Such bills must comply with strict rules that require that all of their components have a direct effect on federal revenues.
But by including it, Republicans were seeking to use their major policy bill to weaken federal judges. Under the rules that govern civil lawsuits in the federal courts, federal judges are supposed to order a bond from a person seeking a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction.…”
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Trump’s Lie About Dead “White Farmers” Just Got Even More Grotesque
That photo he brandished to Cyril Ramaphosa was from the Democratic Republic of Congo—whose refugees the Trump administration is pointedly not welcoming to America.
Trump’s Lie About Dead “White Farmers” Just Got Even More Grotesque
That photo he brandished to Cyril Ramaphosa was from the Democratic Republic of Congo—whose refugees the Trump administration is pointedly not welcoming to America.
newrepublic.com
“Because President Trump deeply values accuracy and integrity in public conduct, he will be mortified to learn that a photo he brandishedduring his recent Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa perpetrated a massive deception. The photo was supposed to display dead white South African farmers—a Trump obsession—but instead, it showed body bags from the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is producing humanitarian horrors.
This abomination came as Trump ambushed Ramaphosa by displaying numerous printouts of web pages to illustrate a “genocide” against whites underway in his country. But Reuters now reports that one of the printouts displayed imagery taken from a Reuters video shot in Congo of humanitarian workers moving dead victims from the war with Rwanda-backed rebels.
… But there’s another ugly irony here that shouldn’t pass unnoticed: The Trump administration has suspended foreign aid to Congo and the resettlement of refugees from that nation, thus abandoning countless victims of the very same real-life humanitarian catastrophe that he’s cherry-picking imagery from to portray an atrocity against whites that isn’t actually happening.
… As it happens, the video he showed Ramaphosa of crosses designed to depict a killing field full of white corpses also turned out to be a wild distortion.
Trump’s broader claim of a white genocide has similarly been debunked. Yet Trump has sought to feed this gutter conspiracy theory by resettling several dozen white Afrikaners in the United States, even as he’s suspended the resettlement of refugees from everywhere else in the world.
…
What’s more, according to the United Nations, Trump’s cuts have “severely impacted” humanitarian efforts in Congo. Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International, argues that these are taking a toll on victims of the conflict there: The cuts, he says, “affected services for people displaced by the fighting, including emergency food aid, clean water, shelter, and emergency malnutrition support.”
In fairness, under Trump this conflict recently saw a partial diplomatic breakthrough, though this continued a process initiated by his predecessor. As The Washington Post’s David Ignatius reports, this achievement could ultimately make a real difference. But this doesn’t justify stalling resettlement of refugees from the war or dramatically curtailing foreign aid to the region….”
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“… Trump’s “white genocide” imagery draws heavily on a kind of internationalized “great replacement theory” that’s popular among white nationalists. In this storytelling, embattled white populations around the world must come to each other’s rescue to avoid elimination.Trump’s Lie About Dead “White Farmers” Just Got Even More Grotesque
That photo he brandished to Cyril Ramaphosa was from the Democratic Republic of Congo—whose refugees the Trump administration is pointedly not welcoming to America.
Trump’s Lie About Dead “White Farmers” Just Got Even More Grotesque
That photo he brandished to Cyril Ramaphosa was from the Democratic Republic of Congo—whose refugees the Trump administration is pointedly not welcoming to America.
“Because President Trump deeply values accuracy and integrity in public conduct, he will be mortified to learn that a photo he brandishedduring his recent Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa perpetrated a massive deception. The photo was supposed to display dead white South African farmers—a Trump obsession—but instead, it showed body bags from the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is producing humanitarian horrors.
This abomination came as Trump ambushed Ramaphosa by displaying numerous printouts of web pages to illustrate a “genocide” against whites underway in his country. But Reuters now reports that one of the printouts displayed imagery taken from a Reuters video shot in Congo of humanitarian workers moving dead victims from the war with Rwanda-backed rebels.
… But there’s another ugly irony here that shouldn’t pass unnoticed: The Trump administration has suspended foreign aid to Congo and the resettlement of refugees from that nation, thus abandoning countless victims of the very same real-life humanitarian catastrophe that he’s cherry-picking imagery from to portray an atrocity against whites that isn’t actually happening.
… As it happens, the video he showed Ramaphosa of crosses designed to depict a killing field full of white corpses also turned out to be a wild distortion.
Trump’s broader claim of a white genocide has similarly been debunked. Yet Trump has sought to feed this gutter conspiracy theory by resettling several dozen white Afrikaners in the United States, even as he’s suspended the resettlement of refugees from everywhere else in the world.
…
What’s more, according to the United Nations, Trump’s cuts have “severely impacted” humanitarian efforts in Congo. Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International, argues that these are taking a toll on victims of the conflict there: The cuts, he says, “affected services for people displaced by the fighting, including emergency food aid, clean water, shelter, and emergency malnutrition support.”
In fairness, under Trump this conflict recently saw a partial diplomatic breakthrough, though this continued a process initiated by his predecessor. As The Washington Post’s David Ignatius reports, this achievement could ultimately make a real difference. But this doesn’t justify stalling resettlement of refugees from the war or dramatically curtailing foreign aid to the region….”
The “farmers” trope gives all this a producerist feel: The white populations are the salt of the earth in their homelands, under siege from shiftless, rootless, swarthy masses being manipulated against them by dark international forces or even by the globalists themselves.
Trump, Miller, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt don’t use this precise language. But they constantly describe white South Africans as a “persecuted minority”—even as they taunt us with their refusal to settle genuine victims of mass persecution from the rest of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the Middle East. The flaunting of this contrast is itself the intended message.
The depravity of it all was perfectly captured by Reuters video journalist Djaffar Al Katanty, who shot the image Trump used. “In view of all the world,” Al Katanty said, Trump manipulated his work to broadcast the story that “white people are being killed by Black people.” …”
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Background:
—> https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/...e_code=1.Jk8.OVEq.16ofUhDgaVNQ&smid=url-share
“… The administration is welcoming white South Africans after suspending the program for everyone else, including other Africans who have waited in refugee camps for years and were vetted and cleared, and Afghans who supported the U.S. war in their country.
… A convergence of factors has fueled the administration’s hostile approach to South Africa.
… His most influential advisers include hard-right conservatives executing an agenda influenced by white victimhood. The officials who might have rebuffed Mr. Trump’s ideas have been replaced by loyalists, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who are willing to turn his impulses into policy.
… To Mr. Trump, South Africa is a cautionary tale for the United States.
In the 1990s, when one of his advisers mentioned a news item projecting that nonwhite people could become the majority in the United States, Mr. Trump shot back that there would be a revolution should that happen. “This isn’t going to become South Africa,” he said, according to a book about the president, “Confidence Man,” by Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter.
… Years later, in August 2018, one of Mr. Trump’s favorite newscasters crystallized his views of South Africa. Tucker Carlson, a Fox News host at the time, said that South Africa’s president had begun “seizing land from his own citizens” under a new law that Mr. Carlson called “the definition of racism.”
“Racism is what our elites say they hate most — Donald Trump is a racist they say — but they pay no attention to this at all,” Mr. Carlson said.
Within hours of the newscast, Mr. Trump had fired off a tweet claiming that there was “large-scale killing” of white farmers in South Africa, and that he had directed the State Department to “closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations.”
“South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers,” he wrote, tagging the accounts of Fox News and Mr. Carlson. …”
The Road to Trump’s Embrace of White South Africans
The Trump administration’s hostile approach to South Africa was shaped by a convergence of factors. —> https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/...e_code=1.Jk8.OVEq.16ofUhDgaVNQ&smid=url-share“… The administration is welcoming white South Africans after suspending the program for everyone else, including other Africans who have waited in refugee camps for years and were vetted and cleared, and Afghans who supported the U.S. war in their country.
… A convergence of factors has fueled the administration’s hostile approach to South Africa.
… His most influential advisers include hard-right conservatives executing an agenda influenced by white victimhood. The officials who might have rebuffed Mr. Trump’s ideas have been replaced by loyalists, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who are willing to turn his impulses into policy.
… To Mr. Trump, South Africa is a cautionary tale for the United States.
In the 1990s, when one of his advisers mentioned a news item projecting that nonwhite people could become the majority in the United States, Mr. Trump shot back that there would be a revolution should that happen. “This isn’t going to become South Africa,” he said, according to a book about the president, “Confidence Man,” by Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter.
… Years later, in August 2018, one of Mr. Trump’s favorite newscasters crystallized his views of South Africa. Tucker Carlson, a Fox News host at the time, said that South Africa’s president had begun “seizing land from his own citizens” under a new law that Mr. Carlson called “the definition of racism.”
“Racism is what our elites say they hate most — Donald Trump is a racist they say — but they pay no attention to this at all,” Mr. Carlson said.
Within hours of the newscast, Mr. Trump had fired off a tweet claiming that there was “large-scale killing” of white farmers in South Africa, and that he had directed the State Department to “closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations.”
“South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers,” he wrote, tagging the accounts of Fox News and Mr. Carlson. …”
heelinhell
Iconic Member
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Details emerge on February strike in Somalia:
theintercept.com
“… the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and its supporting strike group launched the “largest airstrike in the history of the world”from an aircraft carrier on Somalia in February, said Adm. James Kilby, the Navy’s acting chief of naval operations, while speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations’ Robert B. McKeon Endowed Series on Military Strategy and Leadership on Monday.
… A Navy official clarified that Kilby’s “off the cuff” remarks did not mean the airstrike was comparable to the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II or even other massive bombing raids like President Richard Nixon’s 1972 Linebacker II raids in North Vietnam, also known as the “Christmas bombings.”
… according to the official. “It’s the effort from a single carrier in such a short time span,” he said, noting that the Hornets each struck their target in rapid succession. “This was a time span of minutes, it was everything hitting, and all of it coming from one aircraft carrier. That’s historically significant.”
… At the time of the mega-strike in the Horn of Africa, AFRICOM downplayed the scale of the attack using boilerplate language. “In coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia, U.S. Africa Command conducted airstrikes against ISIS-Somalia on Feb. 1, 2025,” reads the press release. “The command’s initial assessment is that multiple ISIS-Somalia operatives were killed in the airstrikes and no civilians were harmed.”
… In the months since the strike, two F/A-18 jets have fallen off the deck of the USS Harry S. Truman. In both incidents, personnel were injured in the course of the accident, and the approximately $60 million warplanes were lost to the sea.
… During his first overseas trip as defense secretary, Hegseth met with senior AFRICOM leaders and signed a directive easing policy constraints and executive oversight on air attacks. “The president and the secretary of defense have given me expanded authorities,” Gen. Michael Langley, the chief of AFRICOM, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month. “We’re hitting them hard. I now have the capability to hit them harder.”
The Trump administration even boasted about its growing body count in Somalia on Monday.
“We haven’t forgotten the threat posed by Jihadis. 10 more were permanently removed from the battlefield in Somalia yesterday,” the White House posted on X above black-and-white footage that shows a bomb dropped on men innocuously walking in a rural area. “That brings the total to over 100 bloodthirsty terrorists killed since President Trump was sworn in.” The administration added: “WWFY/WWKY: We will find you, and we will kill you.”
… The United States has been conducting attacks in Somalia since at least 2007, with airstrikes skyrocketing during Trump’s first term. From 2007 to 2017, under the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the U.S. military carried out 43 declared airstrikes in Somalia. During Trump’s first term, AFRICOM conducted more than 200 air attacks against members of al-Shabab and the Islamic State group. The Biden administration conducted 39 declared strikes in Somalia over four years.
The U.S. has carried out almost 30 airstrikes in Somalia during Trump’s second term, accordingto AFRICOM and White House announcements. At this pace, AFRICOM is poised to equal or exceed the highest number of strikes in Somalia in the command’s history, 63 in 2019.…”
U.S. CONDUCTS “LARGEST AIRSTRIKE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD” (SORT OF)
The U.S. launched 16 jets from the USS Harry S. Truman to drop 125,000 pounds of bombs on a cave complex in Somalia, killing 14.
U.S. Conducts “Largest Airstrike in the History of the World” (Sort Of)
The U.S. launched 16 jets from the USS Harry S. Truman to drop 125,000 pounds of bombs on a cave complex in Somalia, killing 14.
theintercept.com
“… the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and its supporting strike group launched the “largest airstrike in the history of the world”from an aircraft carrier on Somalia in February, said Adm. James Kilby, the Navy’s acting chief of naval operations, while speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations’ Robert B. McKeon Endowed Series on Military Strategy and Leadership on Monday.
… A Navy official clarified that Kilby’s “off the cuff” remarks did not mean the airstrike was comparable to the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II or even other massive bombing raids like President Richard Nixon’s 1972 Linebacker II raids in North Vietnam, also known as the “Christmas bombings.”
… according to the official. “It’s the effort from a single carrier in such a short time span,” he said, noting that the Hornets each struck their target in rapid succession. “This was a time span of minutes, it was everything hitting, and all of it coming from one aircraft carrier. That’s historically significant.”
… At the time of the mega-strike in the Horn of Africa, AFRICOM downplayed the scale of the attack using boilerplate language. “In coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia, U.S. Africa Command conducted airstrikes against ISIS-Somalia on Feb. 1, 2025,” reads the press release. “The command’s initial assessment is that multiple ISIS-Somalia operatives were killed in the airstrikes and no civilians were harmed.”
… In the months since the strike, two F/A-18 jets have fallen off the deck of the USS Harry S. Truman. In both incidents, personnel were injured in the course of the accident, and the approximately $60 million warplanes were lost to the sea.
… During his first overseas trip as defense secretary, Hegseth met with senior AFRICOM leaders and signed a directive easing policy constraints and executive oversight on air attacks. “The president and the secretary of defense have given me expanded authorities,” Gen. Michael Langley, the chief of AFRICOM, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month. “We’re hitting them hard. I now have the capability to hit them harder.”
The Trump administration even boasted about its growing body count in Somalia on Monday.
“We haven’t forgotten the threat posed by Jihadis. 10 more were permanently removed from the battlefield in Somalia yesterday,” the White House posted on X above black-and-white footage that shows a bomb dropped on men innocuously walking in a rural area. “That brings the total to over 100 bloodthirsty terrorists killed since President Trump was sworn in.” The administration added: “WWFY/WWKY: We will find you, and we will kill you.”
… The United States has been conducting attacks in Somalia since at least 2007, with airstrikes skyrocketing during Trump’s first term. From 2007 to 2017, under the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the U.S. military carried out 43 declared airstrikes in Somalia. During Trump’s first term, AFRICOM conducted more than 200 air attacks against members of al-Shabab and the Islamic State group. The Biden administration conducted 39 declared strikes in Somalia over four years.
The U.S. has carried out almost 30 airstrikes in Somalia during Trump’s second term, accordingto AFRICOM and White House announcements. At this pace, AFRICOM is poised to equal or exceed the highest number of strikes in Somalia in the command’s history, 63 in 2019.…”
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spcmtn
Active Member
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Well, it didn't match their bigoted and heartless views, so it has to be wrong.
superrific
Legend of ZZL
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That Rubio declaration is something else. Yeah, the requirement of due process in the United States before flying people to South Sudan had an impact in Libya? Dude didn't even know where any of these countries were before last week. I'd bet he still can't name a single city in any of those three countries except Tripoli.
Mulberry Heel
Iconic Member
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- 2,178
Yep. They could throw a lot more money into public ed and keeping decent and affordable healthcare benefits for state employees and a whole host of things, including rebuilding western NC. But cutting taxes on the wealthy and corporations to practically nothing while starving state services, especially public ed, is the top priority for NC Republicans. But I'll guarantee you that every western NC county that was seriously affected by Helene will continue to vote heavily Republican, except for Buncombe and Watauga of course.
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theel4life
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Amazing that we just continue to sit around and do nothing about this corrupt piece of shit as he runs roughshod on this country.
