Thanks for putting this analysis together. Having led a non-profit campaign to challenge the then-emerging “violent extremism” framework in the 2000s, it terrifies me to see its arbitrary lens turned on trans communities today, 20 years later.
I had a chance to debate Sebastien Gorka on Al Jazeera in 2011. His arguments supporting detention without trial then were no more persuasive than his concerns with trans people now. The video appears at the end of this recent post exploring the impact of Trump administration policies on the economy. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/a-dozen-ways-that-the-trump-administration
Interesting that DOJ just removed from its website a document from the National Institute of Justice reporting that right wing, nationalist, white supremacist groups murdered 6 times more people than all the left wing "extremist" groups put together.
I recall many years ago, but after 9/11, Dick Cheney declaring that the US would have to "go to the dark side" in pursuit of those he chose for it to pursue. Is there now anything other than the dark side for the government? Armed masked men in black with no ID using brutality as they see fit with no responsibility.
Many decades ago on TV, and on radio before that, members of the public would ask "Who was that masked man?!" as they wondered in admiration about one person doing a good deed then departing before taking personal credit for it. Now we have multiple people, teams of people, a department of people doing who knows what and not to be identified, not to avoid praise for good deeds but to avoid blame for bad deeds.
The US is going down the drain and those who are in power and should be held responsible for it, right up to the president himself, accept no responsibility as the throw accusations wildly about and issue threats against fellow Americans, in this case at trans people for the crime of self-definition. Heard any mention of liberty and justice for all lately? I haven't
We can't depend on anything anymore, even the most basic idea of innocent until proven guilty. The government is dedicated to defining a "them" as it wishes and then starting the pursuit. We are in a time machine taking us back to the days of McCarthy, the Palmer Raids and the Red Scare. There is ugliness in American society that is always reading to pop up and grab for power to punish. It is riding high right now.
Oh, I wish it were going back to something so innocent as McCarthyism. Sadly we are in the end stage of a project begun in the 40s, codified in the 80s, and now in full flower.
The comparison is Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain, and Netanyahu’s Israel.
Hitler offered a referendum to the German people that he be made effectively dictator and they approved it. I see that Trump's approval rating is at its lowest point. He wouldn't dare offer a referendum like Hitler did or it would be down voted. But the sad fact is that he already is acting the dictator and nobody is standing up to him. The founders created the separation of powers, but they didn't consider that Congress could be captured by the president, nor did they consider that Congress could be bought as is the case with AIPAC and lobbies in general.
Design ANY system and power will find a way to game it. It will devote its vast resources and any amount to time needed to bring a system into the fold. We rightfully admire what the founders did and over two hundred years is a decent run, but I think we are seeing what is inevitable. The midterms will tell if we the people can stem the tide.
Whistling past the graveyard means pretending there is no threat. There is a threat, but it comes from Trump's ability to use his power before the midterms.
Americans are typically apathetic about politics. Though Trump's supporters were on fire, in the election only 50%, not the usual 60% of the electorate that turns out in presidential elections voted. The majority of Americans were not and are not Trump supporters. His highest approval rating was right after his election when he won with only 27% of the electorate against a lackluster opponent.
My point is that apathy is evaporating with everything Trump does, not winning him support. The further into his term we go, the lower he sinks. The ideology driving what he does and his penchant for punishing even the slightest criticism using the government as his personal tool is alienating the public. The apathetic are becoming bothered.
At the midterms his control of Congress will end, but we have to get there first. Mamdani is an indicator of what we the people can make happen. Others like him are popping up across the country and raising money from the people, specifically avoiding big money.
As for technology vs 1938, the media is no longer a monopoly of commercial broadcasting, a very good thing for getting truth out to we the people.
Readers, is this person a Zionist? I can't say, but what he posts is a typical example of the kind of comment I get from Zionists as they shout at me from cars. Here are the features: 1) ANONYMITY which means no responsibility for what is said 2) PROFANITY that means nothing but lack of emotional control 3) use of TERMS WITH NO DEFINITION as in "a literal communist". What kind of a communist is not a literal one? 4) SHORT COMMENT INSTANTLY COMPOSED without any thought but lots of rage
I have to admit this is the first time I have been called a "maroon"
I disregard this written noise because it is nothing but intellectual cowardice, lack of courage to say who one is and to speak meaningfully with reason. It's mud throwing, any child can do it. Not a single point is made.
No, actually, since they stopped all the bullshit, recruitment is at the highest it's ever been. Good attempt though. Crazy when you make a war fighting group about war fighting and not feelings and sex changes what happens.
At least for the Air Force, recruitment goals have been lowered for this year. And the fact that ICE is offering recruitment bonuses of up to $50,000 has effectively poached many prospective members of the military. Plus, as far as I know, ICE has no restrictions on transgender officers.
Please, all they've achieved is to degrade the military's readiness by the elimination of qualified leaders and replaced them with boot lickers like champagne pete.
"The Air Force had to reduce its target recruiting goal by several thousand airmen due to ongoing congressional budget delays, but is still on pace to hit its newly revised benchmark by the end of this month, according to the service."
Lowering the recruiting goal indicates to me that recruitment overall is down. Subsequently hitting the revised recruitment goal is not the same thing as recruitment increasing under Trump, as you stated. My understanding is that absolute total recruitment numbers are down, not that revised (read: lowered) recruiting targets are not being met. I speculate that someone noticed the Air Force wasn't on track to meet its mid-year hiring goal by the middle of the year (June 30, 2025), and decided to fudge the numbers to make it look better.
Additionally, my understanding is that financial recruitment incentives have been key to maintaining (or at least slowing the shrinking) of the military for several years, including during the previous Trump administration. Now that ICE recruitment has even steeper financial incentives to join I also understand that ICE is functionally poaching new military recruits, thus lowering recruitment even more. Is that incorrect?
“The Air Force and Space Force have met — and surpassed — their recruiting goals for 2025, three months ahead of schedule, officials announced Monday.”
I got a $3500 USN Enlistment bonus in 1985. I’d need to go deep to see if the current bonuses are atypical.
Does this mean that Caitlin Jenner is now a Nihilistic Violent Extremist? No more invites to Mar-a-Lago for her, I presume. This is batsh*t nuts, and innocent people will be hurt, or worse.
Thank you, Ken, for exposing more lunacy on the part of the US government. The McCarthy Era is looking benign.
So you mean whatever the ADL counts. Which includes 'micro aggressions'
I will admit I have never been Jewish, though my adopted moms were. I know from experience they suffered more discrimination for being gay and women than for being Jewish. In fact one of them was an heiress from an important Jewish family in New Haven, and whose (ex) husband had worked for a major laboratory in the region. She counted another Jew, Ginsberg, among her friends.
I suspect that unless you are wearing your religion on your sleeve, no one actually knows you are a Jew. And very few people care even if you are. Most US Jews, like my moms, are white Europeans. There is nothing more remarkable about Jews than there is about being Episcopalian.
Now, being black or brown or being female? That's not something you can 'hide' - it's obvious. And I can promise you that people who belong to those sub-segments are far more discriminated against than white, European men.
Where can you find the statistics on this? I looked up the official fbi numbers and they are broken down into vague “racial/ethnicity” groups nothing too specific. Not disagreeing, just curious.
The struggles faced by marginalized communities are intertwined with the struggles of class oppression, racism, and sexism. It reminds me of the turtle in the well math problem. Each day the turtle climbs up X amount of feet and then slides back down X amount of feet. In one week's time, how far did the turtle get? Historically, society seemingly makes progress; civil rights, women’s rights, sexual harassment training in the workplace come to mind. However, we slide backwards when we target yet another marginalized group; this time specifically, the transgender community. If we continue to favor the status quo; white men dominance over all others, we will never get out of the well. Our current events place the turtle at the bottom of the well where it is drowning.
Good luck finding two trans people who can agree on where to get brunch, much less form an organized terror cell.
The same is pretty much true for Democrats and other lefties.
If you believe the Democrats are of the ‘Left’ you are sadly misinformed.
Well, I can't argue that point. I included Dems only because the shoe fit them as well as the lefties.
As Athens did to its enemies, so Athens did to itself. Thucydides
Good reporting, but fuck, I hate it here
Thanks for putting this analysis together. Having led a non-profit campaign to challenge the then-emerging “violent extremism” framework in the 2000s, it terrifies me to see its arbitrary lens turned on trans communities today, 20 years later.
I had a chance to debate Sebastien Gorka on Al Jazeera in 2011. His arguments supporting detention without trial then were no more persuasive than his concerns with trans people now. The video appears at the end of this recent post exploring the impact of Trump administration policies on the economy. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/a-dozen-ways-that-the-trump-administration
Interesting that DOJ just removed from its website a document from the National Institute of Justice reporting that right wing, nationalist, white supremacist groups murdered 6 times more people than all the left wing "extremist" groups put together.
Why can't we get a non-batshit-crazy administration? We just trade one thing for another.
I recall many years ago, but after 9/11, Dick Cheney declaring that the US would have to "go to the dark side" in pursuit of those he chose for it to pursue. Is there now anything other than the dark side for the government? Armed masked men in black with no ID using brutality as they see fit with no responsibility.
Many decades ago on TV, and on radio before that, members of the public would ask "Who was that masked man?!" as they wondered in admiration about one person doing a good deed then departing before taking personal credit for it. Now we have multiple people, teams of people, a department of people doing who knows what and not to be identified, not to avoid praise for good deeds but to avoid blame for bad deeds.
The US is going down the drain and those who are in power and should be held responsible for it, right up to the president himself, accept no responsibility as the throw accusations wildly about and issue threats against fellow Americans, in this case at trans people for the crime of self-definition. Heard any mention of liberty and justice for all lately? I haven't
We can't depend on anything anymore, even the most basic idea of innocent until proven guilty. The government is dedicated to defining a "them" as it wishes and then starting the pursuit. We are in a time machine taking us back to the days of McCarthy, the Palmer Raids and the Red Scare. There is ugliness in American society that is always reading to pop up and grab for power to punish. It is riding high right now.
Oh, I wish it were going back to something so innocent as McCarthyism. Sadly we are in the end stage of a project begun in the 40s, codified in the 80s, and now in full flower.
The comparison is Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain, and Netanyahu’s Israel.
Hitler offered a referendum to the German people that he be made effectively dictator and they approved it. I see that Trump's approval rating is at its lowest point. He wouldn't dare offer a referendum like Hitler did or it would be down voted. But the sad fact is that he already is acting the dictator and nobody is standing up to him. The founders created the separation of powers, but they didn't consider that Congress could be captured by the president, nor did they consider that Congress could be bought as is the case with AIPAC and lobbies in general.
Design ANY system and power will find a way to game it. It will devote its vast resources and any amount to time needed to bring a system into the fold. We rightfully admire what the founders did and over two hundred years is a decent run, but I think we are seeing what is inevitable. The midterms will tell if we the people can stem the tide.
Hitler offered this AFTER he’d unleashed brown shirts, muzzled the press, staged the Reichstag fire, and imprisoned his political opponents.
You may be whistling past the graveyard.
Plus, think how little technology existed in 1938.
Whistling past the graveyard means pretending there is no threat. There is a threat, but it comes from Trump's ability to use his power before the midterms.
Americans are typically apathetic about politics. Though Trump's supporters were on fire, in the election only 50%, not the usual 60% of the electorate that turns out in presidential elections voted. The majority of Americans were not and are not Trump supporters. His highest approval rating was right after his election when he won with only 27% of the electorate against a lackluster opponent.
My point is that apathy is evaporating with everything Trump does, not winning him support. The further into his term we go, the lower he sinks. The ideology driving what he does and his penchant for punishing even the slightest criticism using the government as his personal tool is alienating the public. The apathetic are becoming bothered.
At the midterms his control of Congress will end, but we have to get there first. Mamdani is an indicator of what we the people can make happen. Others like him are popping up across the country and raising money from the people, specifically avoiding big money.
As for technology vs 1938, the media is no longer a monopoly of commercial broadcasting, a very good thing for getting truth out to we the people.
409 days to the midterm election.
You support Mamdani, a literal communist, and you're talking about fighting back against dictators. You're a fucking maroon.
Readers, is this person a Zionist? I can't say, but what he posts is a typical example of the kind of comment I get from Zionists as they shout at me from cars. Here are the features: 1) ANONYMITY which means no responsibility for what is said 2) PROFANITY that means nothing but lack of emotional control 3) use of TERMS WITH NO DEFINITION as in "a literal communist". What kind of a communist is not a literal one? 4) SHORT COMMENT INSTANTLY COMPOSED without any thought but lots of rage
I have to admit this is the first time I have been called a "maroon"
I disregard this written noise because it is nothing but intellectual cowardice, lack of courage to say who one is and to speak meaningfully with reason. It's mud throwing, any child can do it. Not a single point is made.
Here is another quote from a time in the not so distant past that’s so similar to ours…
The poem ‘ First They Came… ‘ by Martin Niemoller
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Thank you for writing it all down. With a time stamp and date. This is reporting for now and for the future. We need you, Ken. Great work.
"A ban on transgender people serving openly in the military was reinstated."
Isn't DOD - sorry, DOW - struggling with recruitment as it is?! Who's going to patrol the streets of sanctuary cities?
No, actually, since they stopped all the bullshit, recruitment is at the highest it's ever been. Good attempt though. Crazy when you make a war fighting group about war fighting and not feelings and sex changes what happens.
At least for the Air Force, recruitment goals have been lowered for this year. And the fact that ICE is offering recruitment bonuses of up to $50,000 has effectively poached many prospective members of the military. Plus, as far as I know, ICE has no restrictions on transgender officers.
that is a pretty sweet recruitment bonus... no doubt. I just wonder if it's paid up front.
Please, all they've achieved is to degrade the military's readiness by the elimination of qualified leaders and replaced them with boot lickers like champagne pete.
Who are these "qualified" leaders you speak of? Our military has been a shambles since 2021.
I’m surprised Ken liked your factually incorrect statement. Well, tbh, I’m not. Recruiting went up after Trump took office.
https://www.army.mil/article-amp/286027/army_meets_fiscal_year_2025_recruiting_goals_four_months_early
Interesting! Thank you. I suppose recruiting is indeed different across branches. The Air Force moved the goalposts for recruiting mid-year.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/06/17/air-force-lowered-annual-recruiting-goal-due-budget-woes-still-track-hit-target-month.html
Your linked article says the Air Force is 96% of the way to its annual target set last year. The Air Force hit their FY 2025 target five months early.
https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2025/07/02/air-force-space-force-hit-recruiting-goals-months-ahead-of-schedule/#:~:text=The%20service%20rallied%20in%202024,still%20represents%20an%2011%25%20increase.
The article I linked (from June 2025) states:
"The Air Force had to reduce its target recruiting goal by several thousand airmen due to ongoing congressional budget delays, but is still on pace to hit its newly revised benchmark by the end of this month, according to the service."
Lowering the recruiting goal indicates to me that recruitment overall is down. Subsequently hitting the revised recruitment goal is not the same thing as recruitment increasing under Trump, as you stated. My understanding is that absolute total recruitment numbers are down, not that revised (read: lowered) recruiting targets are not being met. I speculate that someone noticed the Air Force wasn't on track to meet its mid-year hiring goal by the middle of the year (June 30, 2025), and decided to fudge the numbers to make it look better.
Additionally, my understanding is that financial recruitment incentives have been key to maintaining (or at least slowing the shrinking) of the military for several years, including during the previous Trump administration. Now that ICE recruitment has even steeper financial incentives to join I also understand that ICE is functionally poaching new military recruits, thus lowering recruitment even more. Is that incorrect?
From my AirForce times link.
“The Air Force and Space Force have met — and surpassed — their recruiting goals for 2025, three months ahead of schedule, officials announced Monday.”
I got a $3500 USN Enlistment bonus in 1985. I’d need to go deep to see if the current bonuses are atypical.
Military recruitment is not increasing if the military lowers the recruitment goals. Whether or not they meet those goals are moot.
ICE recruitment bonuses right now are up to $50,000.
Don't argue with an idiot. She'll pull you down to her level and beat you with experience.
This is going to get innocent people hurt or worse.
So I guess they’re also going after Mormons, Bisexuals, Nihilists, Gamers, and anyone associated with Pepe imagery.
The absurdity of absurd. It's so absurd that the pace of absurdity is outpacing ones head to wrap around the bigness of this heave of absurd.
Does this mean that Caitlin Jenner is now a Nihilistic Violent Extremist? No more invites to Mar-a-Lago for her, I presume. This is batsh*t nuts, and innocent people will be hurt, or worse.
Thank you, Ken, for exposing more lunacy on the part of the US government. The McCarthy Era is looking benign.
Yay. First came the hispanics. Then the Trans. Then the Jews? The Blacks? Whose next?
Nah, the Jews are fine. Gay people and Women are next.
Jews have the highest amount of hate crimes done against them by far. It's not even close.
What are you counting as a hate crime?
Whatever the FBI counts.
Oh. Wow.
So you mean whatever the ADL counts. Which includes 'micro aggressions'
I will admit I have never been Jewish, though my adopted moms were. I know from experience they suffered more discrimination for being gay and women than for being Jewish. In fact one of them was an heiress from an important Jewish family in New Haven, and whose (ex) husband had worked for a major laboratory in the region. She counted another Jew, Ginsberg, among her friends.
I suspect that unless you are wearing your religion on your sleeve, no one actually knows you are a Jew. And very few people care even if you are. Most US Jews, like my moms, are white Europeans. There is nothing more remarkable about Jews than there is about being Episcopalian.
Now, being black or brown or being female? That's not something you can 'hide' - it's obvious. And I can promise you that people who belong to those sub-segments are far more discriminated against than white, European men.
FBI does not rely on ADL. It's prosecuted crimes.
Also, there are very many visible Jews. All you need to do is wear a star of David, a yarmulke, or walk out of a synagogue.
Where can you find the statistics on this? I looked up the official fbi numbers and they are broken down into vague “racial/ethnicity” groups nothing too specific. Not disagreeing, just curious.
This is from Perplexity.
I was wrong: Black people face more than Jews. Jews are their highest in religion.
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/which-group-faces-the-most-hat-FWxYM6W.Q6i4IRmidJ36Nw#0
Thanks
The struggles faced by marginalized communities are intertwined with the struggles of class oppression, racism, and sexism. It reminds me of the turtle in the well math problem. Each day the turtle climbs up X amount of feet and then slides back down X amount of feet. In one week's time, how far did the turtle get? Historically, society seemingly makes progress; civil rights, women’s rights, sexual harassment training in the workplace come to mind. However, we slide backwards when we target yet another marginalized group; this time specifically, the transgender community. If we continue to favor the status quo; white men dominance over all others, we will never get out of the well. Our current events place the turtle at the bottom of the well where it is drowning.