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‘Slitting Throats’ and ‘Stone-Cold Dead’: DeSantis Ramps Up Violent Rhetoric

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Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, on the presidential campaign trail in New Hampshire in late July pledged to supporters he would root out the deep state from the federal government: “we are going to start slitting throats on Day One.”

Responding to DeSantis’ throat-slitting remarks, Professor of Political Science & Public Affairs Mark Copelovitch on August 4 observed, “In an actual serious country, using language like this in re: government employees would result in the man’s immediate resignation as governor & the end of national media covering him as a viable presidential candidate.”

Political historian Brian Rosenwald, also that day, commented on DeSantis’ rhetoric: “Put bluntly: this is the type of language that gets people killed. It reflects DeSantis’s unfitness, and every paper in America should have a headline tomorrow, ‘DeSantis’ violent rhetoric risks violence.'”

It wasn’t the first time DeSantis had used that term but it did make headlines. And it did elicit  letters from concerned federal government union heads.

“Governor DeSantis’ threat to ‘start slitting throats’ of federal employees is dangerous, disgusting, disgraceful, and disqualifying,” said American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley. “Federal employees – over a third of whom are veterans now wearing their second uniform in service to their country – have dedicated their lives to serving their fellow Americans.”

RELATED: DeSantis Using Same White Nationalist Rhetoric as El Paso Mass Shooter Who Slaughtered 23 in Anti-Hispanic Hate Crime

“No federal employee should face death threats from anyone, least of all from someone seeking to lead the U.S. government. Governor DeSantis must retract his irresponsible statement,” Kelley demanded.

Also in July, the Florida governor told the right wing website Real America’s Voice that he would not promote a current military officer to become Secretary of Defense – not because he believes in a civilian-run military, but because he wants his Defense Secretary to “slit some throats.”

“You know, they may have to slit some throats, and it’s a lot harder to do that if these are people that you’ve trained with in the past or that, you know, so we’re going to have somebody out there, you know, be very firm, very strong, but they are going to make sure that we have the best people in the best positions and there’s not going to be necessarily prior relationships that would cloud that judgment,” DeSantis said, according to Florida Politics.

These were not “one-off” gaffes. Ron DeSantis has a history of using violent rhetoric.

The Tampa Bay Times on Friday noted, “Violent imagery is a key part of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ verbal arsenal on the campaign trail.”

“DeSantis has used other violent rhetoric on the campaign trail, making headlines earlier this summer with his calls for deadly force against some people trying to break through wall at the U.S.-Mexico border while carrying drugs,” The Washington Post reported in early August.

“We are going to be the first president that’s going to be willing to lean against the Mexican drug cartels,” DeSantis had also said while in New Hampshire. “If they’re trying to bring fentanyl into our communities that’s going to be the last thing they do because at the border they’re going to be shot stone-cold dead.”

DeSantis made almost the exact same remark on Friday:

Law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis, commenting on DeSantis’ “stone old dead” remark, stated: “Extra-judicial executions are just murder by another name.”

The Washington Post‘s Greg Sargent in July pointed to DeSantis’ anti-immigrant rhetoric.

“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis released a plan for the southern border this week that uses the word ‘invasion’ at least five times. He later took this rhetoric to hallucinogenic extremes, declaring on Fox News that anyone with drugs who ‘is cutting through a border wall’ should end up ‘stone-cold dead,’” Sargent wrote. “The specter of a migrant ‘invasion,’ which carries white nationalist overtones, has been a mainstay of Donald Trump’s political vocabulary ever since he ran for president in 2016. But the fact that DeSantis and Trump — the leaders in polls for the Republican nomination — are both all in on this ugly notion shows how profoundly it is capturing the GOP.”

READ MORE: ‘Act of Open Hostility’: Trump Plans to Team Up With Tucker Carlson Instead of Attending GOP Debate

One year ago almost to the day, speaking at a rally in Orlando, DeSantis attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci, who for two administrations had been the federal government’s face of the response to COVID-19. the Florida governor said he wanted someone to “chuck” Fauci “across the Potomac.”

Fauci, now retired, was at the time an 81-year old immunologist and the chief medical advisor to the president, who began in public service in 1968 when he joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“I’m just sick of seeing him,” DeSantis said at a Florida GOP rally, as WFLA reported. “I know he says he’s going to retire. Someone needs to grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac.”

Back in June journalist Thomas Kennedy pointed to a photo from a DeSantis rally with an anti-immigration poster that read, “Stop the invasion.”

“Same rhetoric employed by the El Paso shooter and other violent white supremacists,” he noted. “They are inciting violence and they know what they are doing.”

MSNBC’s Medhi Hasan in June discussed DeSantis’ promise to “destroy leftism,” which he says is “dangerous.”

“Everyone knows if I’m the nominee, I will beat Biden and I will serve two terms. I will be able to destroy leftism in this country and leave woke ideology on the dust bin of history,” DeSantis pledged.

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White House Mum After Classified Info Reportedly Appears on Musk’s DOGE Website

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The White House has yet to comment after classified information reportedly appeared on Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency website — information related to one of the federal government intelligence agencies his SpaceX company does business with.

“Elon Musk’s team at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has posted classified information about the size and staff of a U.S. intelligence agency on its new website, raising bigger concerns about where Musk’s programmers got this information and what they are doing with it,” HuffPost reported Friday afternoon.

“DOGE’s database provides details on the National Reconnaissance Office, the federal agency that designs, builds and maintains U.S. intelligence satellites. Not only are NRO’s budgets and head counts classified, but the prospect of Musk’s tech team meddling in sensitive personnel information is setting off alarms for some in the intelligence community,” HuffPost explained. “Musk can’t claim he wasn’t aware that the National Reconnaissance Office is one of the nation’s intelligence agencies. His company, SpaceX, has a $1.8 billion contract with NRO to build hundreds of spy satellites.”

READ MORE: ‘United States of Extortion’: New Trump Ukraine ‘Shakedown’ Called ‘Cheap Mafia’ Move

A Senate staffer who works on intelligence matters told HuffPost that DOGE sharing this information “is absolutely a problem under the current intelligence standards.”

“These 25-year-old programmers, I don’t think they have enough experience to know what they don’t know,” the aide said. “Really, the question is: Where did they get this information and what are they doing with it?”

HuffPost also reported that a White House spokesperson “did not respond to a request for comment on where DOGE workers got this information, why they are sharing it publicly and if the president is concerned about DOGE workers accessing sensitive data.”

National security and civil liberties journalist Marcy Wheeler directed her ire at U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), the Chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

“I’m curious if you’re at all alarmed that one of USG’s Satellite Contractors, Elon Musk, just leaked details about satellite intelligence agency NRO on his DOGE site?” she asked in a social media post.

READ MORE: ‘Disgust’: Vance’s ‘Disturbing’ Speech Alarms Europe, Sparks Foreign Policy Fears

 

Image via Reuters

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‘United States of Extortion’: New Trump Ukraine ‘Shakedown’ Called ‘Cheap Mafia’ Move

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Just weeks into his second term, President Donald Trump’s administration is not only grappling with a growing colossus of self-inflicted crises, but is now igniting international tensions as well. The administration is pressuring Ukraine to relinquish rights to half of its valuable precious metals—just as Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin prepare to begin negotiations to end Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine.

“Multiple lawmakers here in Munich told me the U.S. Congressional delegation presented Zelensky with a piece of paper they wanted him to sign which would grant the U.S. rights to 50% of Ukraine’s future mineral reserves,” Washington Post foreign policy and national security columnist Josh Rogin reported Friday afternoon from the Munich Security Conference.

“Zelensky politely declined to sign it,” he added.

Trump has made it clear he expects Ukraine to hand over the rights to its rare earth minerals, which are extremely valuable.

READ MORE: ‘Disgust’: Vance’s ‘Disturbing’ Speech Alarms Europe, Sparks Foreign Policy Fears

“Rare earths are a group of 17 metals used to make magnets that turn power into motion for electric vehicles, cell phones, missile systems, and other electronics. There are no viable substitutes,” Reuters reported. The news outlet also noted that Trump “said on Monday he wants Ukraine to supply the United States with rare earth minerals as a form of payment for financially supporting the country’s war efforts against Russia.”

“We’re telling Ukraine they have very valuable rare earths,” Trump said. “We’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earths and other things.”

Trump’s expected haul: “close to $300 billion,” or more.

“We are going to have all this money in there, and I say I want it back. And I told them that I want the equivalent, like $500 billion worth of rare earth,” Trump said Monday, CBS News reported. “They have essentially agreed to do that, so at least we don’t feel stupid.”

The New York Times on Wednesday suggested Kyiv may be willing to play ball with the billionaire businessman.

“President Trump says he wants to make a deal for minerals from Ukraine in exchange for aid. That followed a long effort by Ukrainian officials to appeal to Mr. Trump’s transactional nature.”

Earlier this week Bloomberg reported on Trump’s call with Putin, saying, “European leaders, who were broadly aligned with Washington under Biden, were stunned to learn of the call and some said it appeared to signal that Trump was selling out Ukraine.”

“Trump is skeptical of providing more aid,” Bloomberg continued, “and if he does then he wants the US to be compensated – perhaps in the form of access to Ukraine’s mineral wealth. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was in Kyiv today to work on that part of the deal.”

READ MORE: ‘Brazen Criminality’: Allegations of ‘Quid Pro Quo’ Fly After Border Czar’s Admission

Garry Kasparov, the internationally famous Russian chess grandmaster and now vice president of the World Liberty Congress, likened Trump’s demand to that of a Mafia don.

“Trump wants to give Russia something for nothing and expects Ukraine to give America something for nothing. Cheap mafia behavior,” he charged.

Olga Lautman, a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and researcher of organized crime and intelligence operations in Russia and Ukraine, deemed the move “extortion.”

“This extortion by the [Trump] regime is outrageous. Europe needs to step up asap and help Ukraine,” she urged.

Professor Roland Paris, director of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, doubly mocked the administration: “The United States of Extortion. (Can Google update its maps with this new name?)”

The Atlantic’s David Frum, a Bush 43 speechwriter, declared it, “Gangsterism.”

Jay Nordlinger, a senior editor for the right wing National Review, blasted the administration:

“The United States ought to back Ukraine because it is the right thing to do, morally, and, above all, because it is in the hard U.S. interest to do so. To shake down a country that is struggling for its very existence is, to my sense, repulsive.”

The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser called it simply, “A shakedown.”

READ MORE: Trump Admin Orders Immediate Mass Firing of Some Federal Workers — 200,000 Possibly at Risk

 

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‘Disgust’: Vance’s ‘Disturbing’ Speech Alarms Europe, Sparks Foreign Policy Fears

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JD Vance’s speech on Friday at the Munich Security Conference deeply offended European leaders, drawing widespread criticism and fueling serious concerns about President Donald Trump’s foreign policy.

“Hard to convey the level of disgust with and rejection of Vance remarks,” explained veteran foreign policy journalist Laura Rozen, “which included lecturing Europe to be more open to Musk promoting the German far right party and which ignored Russia.”

Vance’s speech, Rozen continued, “was not about Europe doing more to protect European security. It was telling them how to be internally—more open to right wing/ hate speech/techno oligarchd/Russian election interference.”

“Truly disturbing,” she concluded.

READ MORE: ‘Brazen Criminality’: Allegations of ‘Quid Pro Quo’ Fly After Border Czar’s Admission

The New York Times did not hold back. Its headline reads: “Vance Tells Europeans to Stop Shunning Parties Deemed Extreme.”

A member of France’s armed services committee “could not believe [Vance] did not mention Ukraine/Russia,” Rozen noted, while adding that “the German defense minister was the most forceful in expressing his rejection.”

Indeed, Tom Nutall, the Berlin Bureau Chief for The Economist wrote: Blistering response by Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defence minister, to JD Vance’s speech.”

Nutall quoted the minister as saying: “Democracy does not mean that a vociferous minority can decide what truth is…democracy must be able to defend itself against extremists.” 

Pistorius continued, describing himself as “a staunch believer in the Transatlantic Alliance,” and “a staunch ally and friend of America,” Real Clear Politics reported.

“The American dream is something that has always fascinated me and influenced me, and this is why I cannot just ignore what we heard before, I cannot not comment on the speech we heard by the U.S. Vice President.”

“This democracy … was just called into question by the U.S. vice president. And not just the German democracy, but Europe as a whole, he spoke of the annulment of democracy and if I understood him correctly, he compares the condition of Europe with the condition that prevails in some authoritarian regimes.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is not acceptable. That’s it. This is not acceptable,” Pistorius declared.

Damian Boeselager, a member of the European Parliament, wrote: “JD Vance speech at the MSC was a disgrace. Telling Europe how to run a democracy and free speech while centralizing all power in the hands of a couple of power hungry people is a horrible cynicism.”

READ MORE: Trump Admin Orders Immediate Mass Firing of Some Federal Workers — 200,000 Possibly at Risk

The Guardian reported that the European Union’s “foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, reacting to US vice president JD Vance’s speech, said it felt like Washington was ‘trying to pick a fight’ with Europe.”

Other experts also agreed with Rozen’s remarks.

“This is definitely how most foreign policy elites in Europe interpreted US Vice President Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference,” wrote Dr. Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the U.S. and Americas program at the London-based think tank Chatham House, and a professor of international relations at the University of London.

“Exactly this. Another disturbing glimpse into MAGA thinking,” added David Hartwell, a former UK Ministry of Defense intelligence analyst.

“Shocking hypocrisy from Vance – lecturing Europe on democracy when he serves as vice president to a man who attempted a coup in the US,” wrote Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator for the Financial Times.

“It does not appear,” noted former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath, who has a Master of Arts in international and global security studies from Johns Hopkins University, “that Vance, Hegseth or Trump on the same page when it comes to Europe, Ukraine, Russia. No coherent message. The world has no idea what American foreign policy is right now. I don’t think [the Trump] team knows either.”

Watch a portion of Vance’s remarks below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Corruption’ Claims Fly Over Musk’s Modi Meeting as Trump Shrugs: ‘I Don’t Know’

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