@DanCorderOnAir Bafana have great players and play really good football but there is no end result. Too many basic mistakes and tackles that will be punished at international level. PL is so strong in SA but PL soccer at a higher level does not work!
We're going around the Moon. Come watch with us. Artemis II's four-astronaut crew is lifting off from @NASAKennedy on an approximately 10-day mission that will bring us closer to living on the Moon and Mars. The launch window opens at 6:24pm ET (2224 UTC). https://t.co/X27QJejNDt
@ManUtd This club has become a joke, consistently terrible decisions and managed badly from the top exec's and board, then they throw the manager under the bus. Ineos and the Glazers are a disgrace.
@megynkelly And now all the research the US government purchases via funding to Harvard institutions is available for purchase to other governments and businesses?
Let’s be absolutely clear: this is not national security policy. It is ideological purging, cloaked in authority, executed without process, and aimed directly at dissent.
Per Tulsi Gabbard’s announcement, seven individuals have had their security clearances or classified access revoked—without adjudication, without evidence of mishandling information, and without invocation of formal review under DNI Directive 8320.02 or Executive Order 12968. There was no due process, no hearing, no application of standard clearance revocation procedures applied across agencies. Just a political order from the White House.
Let’s dismantle the predictable right-wing talking points before they arrive:
Talking Point 1: “Biden did the same to Trump in 2021.”
False. Biden never revoked Trump’s clearance because Trump was never granted post-presidency access to begin with. Former presidents do not automatically retain classified access; it is extended on a need-to-know basis, typically for national continuity or diplomatic consultation. After Trump incited an insurrection and attempted to overturn an election, the Biden administration declined to extend that courtesy. That was not a revocation. That was a national security judgment consistent with historical precedent and security norms.
What is happening now is categorically different: Gabbard is revoking clearances from individuals—some of whom hold no current office—purely because they defied Trump or told the truth under oath. This isn’t a judgment of risk. It’s a retribution list.
Talking Point 2: “These people are political actors, not intelligence professionals.”
That argument collapses under scrutiny. Fiona Hill and Alexander Vindman are decorated national security professionals who served under both Democratic and Republican administrations. They were targeted not for misconduct, but for truthfully testifying during Trump’s first impeachment. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are lifelong conservatives who defended democracy after January 6. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are the current and former highest-ranking elected officials in the country.
The common thread is clear: every individual on this list challenged Trump’s narrative or his power. This isn’t about officeholding. It’s about punishing perceived disloyalty—even retroactively.
Talking Point 3: “Presidents have full authority over classification—this is legal.”
Yes, but legality is not legitimacy. Authoritarians rarely violate law—they exploit it. This is the weaponization of classification authority to dismantle democratic norms. Just as the Espionage Act has historically been misused to suppress whistleblowers, this is the abuse of clearance revocation to silence dissent and signal to every future official: oppose us, and your access to truth will be erased. McCarthyism operated under the same logic—legal tools used to criminalize opposition.
Talking Point 4: “They posed a security risk.”
Where is the risk assessment? Where is the evidence? Clearance revocation requires cause—mishandling of classified materials, criminal indictment, or credible insider threat analysis. None of that applies here. Not one person named has been credibly accused, much less charged, with a security violation. There is no finding. No inquiry. No precedent.
Only a directive.
This is not about safety. It is about submission.
When national security becomes a loyalty test, democracy is not protected—it is dismantled.
This is not a neutral act. It is a stress test on whether truth, law, and institutional integrity can withstand the brute force of executive retribution. If this stands uncontested, it will become the template—not just for Trump, but for any future executive who decides that the intelligence community exists not to protect the nation, but to punish its critics.
If the courts, Congress, or the intelligence community do not intervene to stop this abuse, then the precedent is set—and the firewall is gone.
History will not be kind to silence in this moment.