Kat🐝

[The Space Coast Rocket @CoastRocket]

WE COUNT THE ENEMIES WE KILL. WE RARELY COUNT THE ONES WE CREATE.

Nidal Hasan was a patient on my floor in the surgical trauma ICU at Brooke Army Medical Center.

I wasn't there when he arrived. I had just left for my deployment to Mosul, Iraq. But the nurses and doctors who cared for him were my peers and my friends, and I know exactly what that required of them, because every one of us had done some version of it before. Before anyone tells me what strength looks like, understand what that work demands.

I have cared for a drunk driver who wiped out an entire family and landed in our ICU himself. I have cared for gang members who shot up a block while children were stepping off a school bus, then ended up on our unit with bullets of their own. I have kept alive people who murdered their own families and failed at taking their own lives. And in Iraq, I saved the lives of the very enemy fighters who had just tried to kill us and miraculously survived our response.

Every one of those patients got our best. Not because we felt anything for them, but because of who we were. You set aside anger, grief, prejudice and every personal feeling you have, because a life in front of you is a life in front of you. That's the oath. That's the duty.

So when Hasan came through those doors, my colleagues did what we had always done. They preserved the life of a man who murdered thirteen people and would have killed them too, given the chance. He killed those men and women in one of the very same buildings many Soldier's like myself have been in when I was stationed at Fort Hood.
He is alive today because they did their jobs. That was not sentiment. It was a hard, tangible expression of the values this country claims to stand for. Our principles had to mean something even when the person benefiting from them had violated everything we believed in.

Now the Pentagon plans to livestream his execution by firing squad on Dec. 3, and our leaders apparently believe turning his death into a public spectacle will demonstrate American strength. I think it demonstrates how little they understand the enemy they claim to be fighting. We kept Nidal Hasan alive, now our leaders want to make him a martyr.

Hasan walked into Fort Hood expecting to die. He believed his death would be rewarded. At his trial, he called no witnesses and offered no defense, and his own court-appointed lawyers worried he was seeking execution. He failed at martyrdom once. Now we're about to hand it to him, in high definition, for every extremist with an internet connection to replay, manipulate and celebrate.
We supply the footage. They supply the meaning.
Long after the politicians finish congratulating themselves, that video will still exist. Their moment of bravado becomes somebody else's recruiting material for decades. And this failure to think past the immediate display of power reaches far beyond one execution. We count the enemies we kill. We rarely count the enemies we create.

Look at the school in Minab, Iran, where multiple investigations attributed the strike that killed more than 100 children and their teachers to us. You cannot bury people's children beneath the rubble of their classrooms and expect a speech about American intentions to decide how they remember you. No denial brings those children home. No claim of good intentions makes their parents forget whose weapons killed them.
If those were our children, we would remember for the rest of our lives. We would demand accountability. Many of us would want vengeance. We would tell their stories to the next generation. We know this because we did exactly that after September 11.

Why do we imagine other people love their children less, grieve less deeply, or remember less clearly?

We have developed a horrifying talent for creating more terrorists than we will ever stop. We inflict suffering, evade responsibility, and then act as though the anger that follows came out of nowhere.

Think back to the first time you saw one of those al Qaeda videos of an American being beheaded. Remember the sickness in your stomach. Remember the rage. Remember thinking that only savages would film a killing and send it out for the world to watch. Now ask yourself what the rest of the world will see when the camera is ours.
Terrorist organizations stage executions for the cameras. Authoritarian regimes make death a public spectacle to feed fear and rage. Watching our own leaders reach for those same tools should force us to confront how much of ourselves we are surrendering in the name of defeating them.

The line separating us from the people we condemn has to live in our conduct. A flag cannot hold it for us. Neither can a uniform, a title, or a declaration that we are the good guys.
On that ICU floor, on a bloody street in Mosul, and in trauma bays across this country, people like my colleagues hold that line every day under circumstances most will never face. They keep monsters alive because their duty and their humanity are bigger than their hatred of what those monsters have done.

Execute him if that's the sentence. But do it the way a confident nation does; quietly, lawfully, and without giving him the stage he always wanted. Let him be forgotten.

I expect our leaders to show at least as much discipline as the nurses who had to care for him.
They keep telling us they are defending what makes America different. Every day, they make that difference harder to see.

Robert W. Burns III is the editor and publisher of The Space Coast Rocket, an Army veteran and a retired trauma nurse. The views expressed in this column are his own.

[PoliticsGirl @IAmPoliticsGirl]

13 years old. I can’t. What are we doing here America?

[Ed Krassenstein @EdKrassen]

Woah! Pete Hegseth sent troops to a known Iranian target in Kuwait with an ACTIVE warning and ZERO drone defenses.

He ignored it.

Six Americans dead. Then he lied and called it a “squirter” through a “fortified” position.

Republicans held hearings for years over Benghazi. Where the hell is the same outrage now?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

[👑 ♤ Lake Ontario  @LakeOntario16]

I was given my name by the Iroquois Nation many hundreds of years ago. By 1660 my name was printed on maps by the Europeans as they accepted the Native name which means Beautiful waters.
In 1867 the Canadian government decided to use my name for their providence.

[David J. Bier @David_J_Bier]

Setting aside the fact that Trump was convicted of fraud, here are all the people who committed fraud and were pardoned by Trump:
Rod R. Blagojevich (Wire fraud under color of official right (8 counts)), Brian KelseyBrian Kelsey (Conspiracy to defraud the United States), Devon Archer (Conspiracy to commit securities fraud; securities fraud), Trevor Milton (Securities fraud; wire fraud (2 counts)), Jason Galanis (Conspiracy to commit securities fraud (2 counts); securities fraud; investment adviser fraud), Ozy Media, Inc. (Conspiracy to commit securities fraud; conspiracy to commit wire fraud), Carlos Roy Watson (Conspiracy to commit securities fraud; conspiracy to commit wire fraud), Michele Fiore (Conspiracy to commit wire fraud; wire fraud (6 counts)), Scott Howard Jenkins (Honest services mail fraud; honest services wire fraud (3 counts)), Julie Chrisley (Conspiracy to commit bank fraud; bank fraud (5 counts); wire fraud), Todd Chrisley (Conspiracy to commit bank fraud; bank fraud (5 counts)), Lawrence S. Duran (Conspiracy to commit health care fraud; health care fraud (11 counts)), Michael Gerard Grimm (Aiding/assisting preparation of false and fraudulent tax returns), Marian I Morgan (Conspiracy to defraud the United States; wire fraud (7 counts); transfer of funds taken by fraud (5 counts)), John G. Rowland (Conspiracy to defraud the United States), Charles Overton Scott (Conspiracy to commit securities fraud; securities fraud), George Anthony Devolder Santos (Wire fraud — the Party Program Scheme), Glen Casada (Conspiracy to defraud the United States; honest services wire fraud (4 counts); use of fictitious name to carry out a fraud), Cade Cothren (Conspiracy to defraud the United States; honest services wire fraud (6 counts)), Robert Henry Harshbarger, Jr. (Health care fraud), Joseph Lewis (Conspiracy to commit securities fraud; securities fraud (2 counts)), David Gentile (Conspiracy to commit securities fraud; conspiracy to commit wire fraud; securities fraud; wire fraud (2 counts)), Enrique Roberto Cuellar (Honest services wire fraud; honest services wire fraud conspiracy), Imelda Rios Cuellar (Honest services wire fraud; honest services wire fraud conspiracy), Jacob Deutsch (Conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud), Adriana Isabel Camberos (Conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud; wire fraud (7 counts)), Andres Enrique Camberos (Conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud; wire fraud (7 counts)), Julio M. Herrera Velutini (Honest services wire fraud (2 counts)), David Levy (Conspiracy to commit securities fraud; securities fraud), Hollie Ann Nadel (Conspiracy to commit money laundering and bank fraud), Mark T. Rossini (Honest services wire fraud), Wanda Vazquez Garced (Honest services wire fraud), Terren Scott Peizer (Securities fraud; insider trading (2 counts)), Timothy S. Smith (Conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service), Stephen E. Buyer (Securities fraud (4 counts)), Joshua L. Davis (Conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate the Clean Air Act), Matthew Sidney Geouge (Conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate the Clean Air Act; tax evasion), Adam R. Kidan (Conspiracy to commit wire fraud and mail fraud; wire fraud), Danny Preston Conrad (Embezzling by postal employee), Jack Charles Harvard (False statement to a federally insured bank, and aiding and abetting), Jeremy Young Hutchinson (Conspiracy to commit bribery; aiding and abetting filing of false income tax return; conspiracy; criminal forfeiture)

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

"I was not shocked that he helped somebody. My shock is that he was murdered. And no one has given us the complete truth or anyone has been held accountable. And it's been 7 months! ... there was more effort in vilifying him than pursuing justice" -- Alex Pretti's parents

[Jesus Freakin Congress @TheJFreakinC]

🚨BREAKING: An ICE agent POINTED A GUN at a U.S. citizen, through her car window, while threatening her, in Falls Church, Virginia.

And the excuse?

They claimed she “almost ran them over.”

Except… she had a dash cam recording the entire thing.

She immediately called their bullshit:

“You are so full of shit. I didn’t almost run anyone over.”

The agent tells her, “You aren’t funny.”

She responds, “You aren’t funny.”

Then he threatens her… “Keep it up, I will arrest you.” While he has his gun aimed inches away from her.

She says, “I’m a legal citizen, for what?”

And they keep threatening her with arrest.

Then, the agent repeats the accusation that she tried to run them over.

So, she tells him, “Run you over when? I have dash cam recording. That’s a lie.”

And suddenly… they WALK AWAY.

Because if she had actually tried to run federal agents over, why did they just leave after she called their bullshit, and said she had video proving them wrong?

And just to emphasize the seriousness of what happened…

An ARMED federal agent had his GUN POINTED AT A WOMAN, through her car window, while threatening her with arrest.

Pointing a firearm at someone is an enormous use of force that should NEVER be treated casually… especially when the supposed justification is an accusation they apparently couldn’t… or wouldn’t… back up.

She wasn’t arrested.

They didn’t show her evidence that she committed a crime.

They just threatened her, pointed a gun at her, and repeatedly told her they would lock her up if she continued following them.

And the SECOND she says, “I have it on dash cam,” they WALK AWAY.

Because apparently the threat disappears when there’s a camera that can prove what actually happened.

This is exactly why people need to DOCUMENT these encounters.

Because when armed federal agents can point guns at citizens, and make accusations with seemingly no consequences, the public needs cameras.

And when they threaten you for asking, “For what?”

keep recording.

[Man City Brazil @ManCityBrazil]

O comentarista suíço David Lemos, encerrou a transmissão resumindo com precisão os problemas desta Copa do Mundo, ele foi perfeito.

🗣️"Não há dúvidas de que esta foi a Copa do Mundo mais comercial da história e também uma das mais politizadas."

"Não esqueceremos os preços que pessoas sem grande poder aquisitivo tiveram de pagar para viver sua paixão pelo futebol."

"Em alguns casos, sequer puderam entrar no país por causa de sua nacionalidade, fossem torcedores, jornalistas ou até árbitros, como o somali Omar Artan."

"Também lembramos do tratamento inaceitável dado à seleção do Irã, que não pôde defender suas chances de forma adequada durante o torneio."

"E há ainda o caso de Folarin Balogun. Vimos um presidente se vangloriar de ter ligado para o presidente da FIFA para conseguir retirar a suspensão de um jogador."

"A política se infiltrou no coração do futebol, embora a FIFA afirme querer mantê-la acima de tudo. Fica claro que isso só vale até certo ponto."

"Foi uma Copa do Mundo em que todas as partidas foram disputadas em quatro tempos, e cuja final teve um intervalo de quase 30 minutos."

"A crise tem dois nomes: dinheiro e poder. Hoje existe uma crise de confiança entre muitos dos envolvidos no futebol e a FIFA."

"Nas próximas semanas, muito dinheiro será distribuído a diversas federações e a muitos agentes do futebol, que serão educadamente convidados a permanecer em silêncio."

"Esperamos que tudo isso seja levado em consideração e que não volte a acontecer."

[Kat🐝 @1986katkat]

Alexa can finally relax now that Alexi Lalas won’t be on all the time

[Emoluments Clause @Emolclause]

#BREAKING: Liz Oyer: “I was shocked to hear Mr Blanche’s testimony about this yesterday. What he said about my firing is provably false. His claim that it had nothing to do with the concerns I raised is contradicted by documents and evidence. His claim that he tried to call me before sending marshals to my home is flat out false. His claim that it is normal for DOJ to use armed law enforcement officers to deliver mail to the homes of its former employees is preposterous. The casual lies that Mr Blanche tells, even while sitting in this chair testifying to this committee, are emblematic of a much larger problem. To the American public, it looks like Mr Blanche is running DOJ as Donald Trump’s personal law firm. Americans across the political spectrum rely on DOJ to keep us safe and free. Mr Blanche has shown that he is willing to put all of that at risk to serve a political agenda. I beg the members of this committee to think about what this is costing our country. Please do not degrade our justice system further by promoting Mr Blanche.” 😳

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

I spent the last few months talking to people across the political spectrum, and to people who want nothing to do with politics at all. Here is what I learned.

We are not a divided country. We are a country being divided, on purpose, by an American oligarchy that profits from the fight. They’ve captured our government, denied our healthcare, looted our treasury, and saddled us with crippling debt.

I believe in a New New Deal. Healthcare as a human right. The right of every family to a decent home, and an end to endless wars.

And a dividend paid to every American from the AI economy, because these machines were built on the whole of human inheritance. That inheritance belongs to all of us, and not just to the handful of men playing God with our very existence.

And none of it happens if we just move on. Donald Trump, his family, and his administration are robbing us blind, not just of our money, but of our faith in one another, and they have to answer for it. Truth and reconciliation, not revenge. Then we break the system that let them do it.

The question is not whether we will lose our democracy. The question is whether we will fight to take back what has already been stolen.

I learned in recovery that you can’t heal what you won’t name. Neither can a country.

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

Putin

Last night Donald Trump released a declassified document that says his own intelligence community identified Putin as personally running an operation to defeat my father in 2020, built around a fake Burisma corruption scandal centered around me and executed through prominent Americans.

Trump tasked his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to fly to Kyiv and meet a known Russian agent.

The Americans who ran, laundered, and legitimized the operation:

Donald Trump. Rudy Giuliani. John Solomon. Joe DiGenova. Victoria Toensing. Lev Parnas. Igor Fruman. Chanel Rion. Sean Hannity. Steve Bannon. Miranda Devine. Ken Vogel. Ron Johnson. Chuck Grassley. James Comer. Jim Jordan.

To name a few.

An operation formally sanctioned by Trump's own Treasury Department on September 10, 2020, and expanded to include more named actors on January 11, 2021.

Oh, and don't forget the Russian-linked FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, who later pleaded guilty to making the entire Burisma bribery story up.

The record exists and we have all the receipts, and more.

[Maine @TheMaineWonk]

This is why Trump HATES @ossoff: He’s too good at this.

OSSOFF: Did the President pardon a man who worked with the Sinaloa Cartel to facilitate massive narco trafficking into the US?

CLAYTON: Word Salad… He was a convicted narco trafficker.

OSSOFF: Did the President of the United States pardon a convicted narco trafficker?

CLAYTON: Yes.

[Jesus Freakin Congress @TheJFreakinC]

🚨This video is terrifying.

And it’s another example of how ICE is making everyone less safe.

At Las Vegas International Airport, two people, in plain clothes, are seen trying to handcuff a man.

The man is screaming for help.

When the person filming asks a TSA agent what is happening, the agent replies, “It’s law enforcement.”

But when the person filming walks over and starts recording the people claiming to be law enforcement, one of them tries to swat the phone away.

Then, as more people begin watching, they get up and leave.

The man is left with a handcuff still attached to one of his wrists. He is visibly shaken and says they stole his belongings.

Think about how dangerous this is.

The government is normalizing armed agents, in plain clothes, grabbing people in public, without immediately identifying themselves in a way bystanders can verify. That creates confusion, panic, and makes it impossible for ordinary people to know whether they’re witnessing a lawful arrest, or a kidnapping.

In this case, people intervened… They started asking questions, and filming.

If no one had stepped in, who knows what would have happened to that man.

A government that expects people to simply accept unidentified agents, taking someone away without question, is making every person in this country less safe.

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

Ossoff: "Here's what's going to happen tonight: the world's most famous sore loser will deliver a prime-time presidential sour grapes address to pursue his 6-year-old grievances about the 2020 election, while his war in the Middle East spirals out of control and the cost of living continues to rise for Americans across the country. I expect the president to reheat debunked conspiracy theories about the repeatedly litigated and audited and confirmed 2020 presidential election in Georgia, an election that Donald Trump lost. And let me be very clear about this: if the President declares Georgia's election illegitimate, or if the President declares Georgia's sitting United States Senators illegitimate, he is declaring Georgia voters illegitimate. It's Donald Trump who tried to defraud Georgia voters in that election, Donald Trump who tried to commit election fraud when he called Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger -- and it was caught on tape, and you should play the tape to your viewers today -- and badgered and bullied Georgia's top election official to 'find him' the votes that he needed to win in a state where he had lost."

[Ed Krassenstein @EdKrassen]

Wow! During Todd Blanche's confirmation hearing, Jeffrey Epstein survivor Dani Bensky just seemingly accused Todd Blanche and the Trump administration of intentionally releasing her personal information!

"I'm a teacher. In my school, if a student released a nude photo depicting a peer's sexual assault and abuse, they would almost certainly face expulsion. And yet, this is what our Department of Justice did to crime victims.

"Today, Todd Blanche has been at the helm of the release of nude images of survivors, the outing of Jane Does, and the exposure of more than 100 victims' identifying information and documents describing horrific acts of abuse, including my own.

"Instead of treating this release as its own violation and holding the man who led it accountable, you have a decision on whether you place him in the highest law enforcement position in this country.

"In December, before the document release, our attorneys submitted 350 victims' names to the Department of Justice as victims' names to be redacted prior to the release. In that first release, I found my name in two places.

"In that next release in January, my name appeared again. But this time, the redactions were so far worse. The files displayed not only my name, but my phone number, my former addresses, where I worked, and other identifying information.

"When my name appeared in the third file release, it became difficult to believe that this was not intentional."

[Chris D. Jackson @ChrisDJackson]

Isn't it funny how the mainstream media suddenly loses interest when the truth destroys one of its favorite anti-Biden narratives.

Yes, you read that right: @HunterBiden won a defamation case over bullshit claims that he was corrupt.

And remember the FBI informant who claimed Joe and Hunter Biden took bribes from Burisma? He pleaded guilty to lying. But you probably didn't know that because it only made it to the back page headlines at the time.

The press gave the accusations endless headlines and wall-to-wall coverage. But when the stories collapse, the accusers are exposed, and the Bidens are vindicated?
Crickets.

Because the lie was profitable. The truth was inconvenient.

The lie gets the headline. The Bidens get smeared. The truth gets buried.

[Acyn @Acyn]

Jack Smith: I'll give you an example from from my life. I resigned as special counsel. I know I need to get a lawyer because the president has said he wants to jail me for doing my job. And so I retain lawyers, as soon as that becomes public, the president and the justice department target that law firm, and they do it because they don't want me to have counsel. They don't want to have anyone represent me…

[Queen Chimerazilla ☭🐾 @Qveen_Potato]

Didn't y'all get mad at Michelle Obama for having a vegetable garden

[Warren Gunnels @GunnelsWarren]

Can’t stop thinking about how Wall Street is celebrating Elon Musk becoming the world’s first trillionaire, while he single handedly eliminated humanitarian aid that will lead to the needless deaths of 4.5 million of the poorest children in the world in the next 4 years.