22 comments

  • like_any_other 10 hours ago

    Why would the war with Iran mean rising homeland threat? Aren't we "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here"? With how very proactive the US is with the first part of that strategy, the second part should be a breeze.

    • bayarearefugee 10 hours ago

      > Why would the war with Iran mean rising homeland threat? Aren't we "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here"?

      It turns out that when you do things like bomb a school and kill 175 innocent people (most of them children) it radicalizes their friends and families against you.

      Who would have thought?

      • hshdhdhj4444 10 hours ago

        As a bonus you were already promoting the extremists who supported bombing those kids.

        So you not only have more extremism you have extremist groups opposing each other, so there are no good sides. Just extremists on both sides.

      • like_any_other 8 hours ago

        It's not the "radicalization" (hating someone that bombed your school is hardly radical) that surprises me, but the location. With all of its bombs and drones and facial recognition cameras and PRISM internet surveillance, and last but not least, the Atlantic ocean, the US can't keep the fight "over there"?

  • camillomiller 9 hours ago

    While I’ve always doubted the conspiracies around previous domestic incidents, I’m absolutely convinced that Orange Mussolini, Kegseth, Goebbels Miller and co would all be capable of conspiring to organize a false flag large scale event to declare national emergency and avoid losing/suspend the next election. This would be a first step.

    • vetrom 8 hours ago

      People that repeat this line evince a basic lack of U.S. civics understanding -- the Executive branch simply does not have the authority to cancel or postpone elections.

      If somehow an election still has not completed, there is no legal action short of an amendment which would provide authority for the terms of the Executive or of Congress to extend beyond their end date as well, as mandated by the 20th Amendment.

      If the above somehow happened, the next holder of the office would follow the Presidential Succession acts, as defined and amended by Congress.

      That said, the U.S. has not cancelled its elections, even in the face of significant unrest, the Civil War, or two World Wars. That sort of suspension doesn't even fit possible hypothetical situations.

      If you think they're going to just outright coup and push that past the whole of the other branches of government, say so. Something such as 'suspending elections', in the U.S. is simple fearmongering. If we call that out for engineering, it should also be called out in other fields.

      • solid_fuel 8 hours ago

        > People that repeat this line evince a basic lack of U.S. civics understanding -- the Executive branch simply does not have the authority to cancel or postpone elections.

        They don't lack the understanding, they are simply paying enough attention to understand that the administration is already breaking the law and flagrantly violating the constitution. The prediction is not that the administration has the authority to cancel or postpone elections legally, but that they will try anyway. It is a reasonable belief, given all the crimes that they have committed so far.

        > If you think they're going to just outright coup and push that past the whole of the other branches of government, say so.

        That is the implication, yes. Before you dismiss it out of hand, remember that the president has already attempted a coup once before.

        So the situation we are in is apparent to anyone who has actually been paying attention: Congress is functionally non-existent right now, having given up congressional power over both taxation and war. The Supreme Court has demonstrated repeatedly that they are in the pocket of the administration, and even if they change their mind at the last minute when they realize they too will lose power under a dictatorship, they have no way to actually enforce their rulings.

        That leaves it to the states, roughly half of which will align with the administration, against the federal government. Bear in mind the distinguished individual currently in charge of the DoD is an alcoholic and religious extremist and under his leadership commanders throughout the military have started to refer to the war with Iran as a Holy War. [0] So it is unlikely the military will side with the constitution.

        [0] https://newrepublic.com/post/207270/military-leaders-iran-wa...

        • vetrom 6 hours ago

          > They don't lack the understanding, they are simply paying enough attention to understand that the administration is already breaking the law and flagrantly violating the constitution.

          Are you asserting that the current administration has materially interfered with elections? How so? Please attribute sources which spring forth from documentary disclosure, court discovery, or attributable sources.

          > Congress is functionally non-existent right now, having given up congressional power over both taxation and war.

          I'd say the current non-talking filibuster grandstanding shows this to be patently false. As such the conclusions in the rest of the paragraph are unsupportable.

          > Iran as a Holy War. [0]

          As I have mentioned elsewhere, the only reporting I can see from this comes from a single source activist litiguous organization who says their sources are anonymous. If any of those sources were actionable, IGs, their own lawyers, and numerous members of Congress would absolutely jump on them. It would be a carreer-makibg litigation move against any administration. Why havent they?

      • ytoawwhra92 8 hours ago

        People repeat the line because POTUS has publicly mused about exactly this.

      • bmitc 8 hours ago

        > the Executive branch simply does not have the authority to cancel or postpone elections

        The executive branch doesn't have the authority of nearly anything it now does. That hasn't stopped it.

        • vetrom 6 hours ago

          Do you mean to say that the Executive Branch does not have the authority to govern in accordance of the rougly 58% of the electorate which voted for them?

          Do you mean that they are exceeding ther mandate as defined by the written, customary, and precedential body of law?

          Do you mean that the government just dosent matter and that we should not be a nation of laws?

          I don't really think those are questions in scope for HN, but people that I have a good reason to think don't understand plain basics of U.S. Constitutional law are opining otherwise.

          For example, unlike Italy where I'm guessing the parent commentor hails from, or the Russian Federation of which Putin's activities have been quoted, U.S. law does not permit the President to unilaterally change elections. That is the singular point at issue here.

          • camillomiller 6 hours ago

            Wow, normalizers like you are exactly why America is fucked.

            • vetrom 6 hours ago

              Okay, but what about my questions? Regardless of what you think of me, are those assertions invalid? How so?

              • camillomiller 5 hours ago

                >>Do you mean to say that the Executive Branch does not have the authority to govern in accordance of the rougly 58% of the electorate which voted for them?

                It has the authority to do that, it does not have the authority to break the law, which applies to them as well. The majority didn't elect trump to be king. Actions like the Tariffs and deployment of ICE in Minnesota, or the DOJ not prosecuting clear crimes from the Epstein Files are all indications that they, how to put, do not give a fuck.

                >>Do you mean that they are exceeding ther mandate as defined by the written, customary, and precedential body of law?

                Yes, provably so. In fact the tariffs are a good example, of both the illegal nature of Trump's executive decision and his complete carelessness about the decision of the supreme court.

                >>Do you mean that the government just dosent matter and that we should not be a nation of laws?

                You should, and your government is right now a group of grifters with no qualification who are trying to dismantle exactly that, one step at a time. Your attempts at justifying their behaviour with legal finesse is a travesty and a clear dialectical game in favor of their objectives, and I would consider you an accomplice to their illegal plan to take over the USA.

      • camillomiller 6 hours ago

        What country are you currently looking at? What administration are you thinking about? We are dealing with the most corrupt abomination of government ever seen in a Western democracy, they've proven over and over they don't give a fuck about the law, and you come and give me a fucking ted talk about checks and balances? Man the delusion runs deep.

        • vetrom 6 hours ago

          Quotes and indepedently verifiable sources, please. For many metrics, this administration could be painted as the most law abiding administration of a Western Republic, in decades.

          • camillomiller 2 hours ago

            You are completely deranged, and possibly a dangerous person.

    • bigbaguette 9 hours ago

      Putin did precisely this in the 90s to justify the second war in Chechnya so it became basically textbook

      • kgwxd 8 hours ago

        He's doing this one too.

  • keernan 9 hours ago

    >>The FBI, Homeland Security, and the National Counterterrorism Center were preparing to put out a joint intelligence statement on Friday to state and local authorities alerting them of a heightened threat due to the ongoing war in Iran, a senior DHS official said.

    The WH blocked them from issuing the warning.

    Trump's 'thin skin' comes first. Public safety isn't even a close second.

  • al2o3cr 9 hours ago

    [dead]