hookaleft
hookaleft's JournalSeriously, I am having an emotional and mental breakdown
Every freaking day there are assaults upon democracy. The corruption is rampant. They get in your face and dare you to fight them. We have little wins here and there but overall they are winning. They are destroying the military, the justice department, all the institutions that have been placed to do the good work for the people. It is an all out assault. Project 2025 is being implemented at break neck speed. It is so fast that no one can stop it. I don't know how we can stop it or even slow it down. And most of the people of this country are unaware. I am so scared.
Retired Military Leaders Warn: Trump Purge Of Top Ranks Endangers The Nation
Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, a former U.S. Army Europe commander, is warning that President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — by forcing seasoned military figures out of leadership roles — are promoting instability in the U.S. Armed Forces. But Hertling isn't the only veteran who is sounding the alarm. Retired U.S. Army Adm. William H. McRaven, writing in The Atlantic, emphasizes that the United States needs detailed "answers" about all the firings and resignations taking place at the Pentagon during Trump's second presidency.
"Every president and secretary of defense has the right and, moreover, the responsibility to remove officers who are failing to meet the high standards expected of senior leaders," McRaven argues in his Atlantic article. "But when crucial decisions regarding the professionalism, effectiveness, or morale of the military are made, the people and their duly elected representatives have a right to know why these decisions were made. In recent months, President Trump, upon advice from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, has relieved or forced the retirement of some of the finest officers that have ever served this nation. I have personally worked with most of them in combat."
https://www.nationalmemo.com/mcraven-trump
Did you know that Leon Black bailed out of a Congressional Hearing today regarding the Epstein files?
They had to produce subpoenas mid-hearing to get him to answer questions and he refused. He was combative and walked out. I have to give it to Comer. He was finally trying to get answers regarding the Epstein files. But it does leave me suspicious.I am wondering if a big story is about to break.
Who are the 25 men hiding behind Secret Epstein Victim Settlements?
Moneyman Leon Black refuses to cooperate, abruptly leaves Congressional hearing
The House Oversight Committee took the unusual step yesterday of issuing subpoenas mid-hearing to force an uncooperative witness — Jeffrey Epstein’s former client Leon Black — to answer questions about secret out-of-court legal settlements he may have made with young women.
Black, who has denied any wrongdoing and insists he didn’t know about Epstein’s crimes, abruptly left the hearing after the Committee’s chairman, Rep. James Comer, issued the subpoenas during the closed-door meeting on Friday.
Black’s quick exit has to make one wonder just how many young women he made settlements with, especially since he also paid Epstein over $170 million for what his lawyer called “tax and estate planning services” — and in 2023, he also paid $62.5 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands over his ties to Epstein, who owned an island where Epstein sexually abused an untold number of victims.
Black did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the USVI settlement, but it raises questions about why he would pay such a sum if he had nothing to hide.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-203573870
OMG You have to see this
I know it is a video. But hear me out. These are Mike Johnson's comments that he delivered today. YOU HAVE GOT TO HEAR THIS!
He is telling EVERYONE that if the Democrats win no one will be protected. You have to see it.
Far-right stokes fears of 'nightmare' Democratic midterm sweep to push for election takeover
The lies: A nefarious plot to remove President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance from office. Assassinating MAGA supporters. Reshaping the United States into a complete communist country.
Over the past week, prominent far-right figures and influential election deniers have escalated their rhetoric about what will happen if Democrats emerge victorious in this fall’s midterms.
The alarming statements — buoyed by recent primary victories by progressive candidates in California, New York, Washington, D.C. and elsewhere — raise concerns that conservative figures with close ties to the president may be using their connections to push the Trump administration to take drastic measures to interfere in November’s elections.
Former Trump senior advisor Steve Bannon, who now hosts a popular daily podcast, devoted Wednesday’s episode to fallout from this week’s primary elections, where progressive candidates backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) in New York City all won.
Bannon warned that, come November, voters will have to choose between Republican candidates or a Democratic party that he claimed will assassinate MAGA supporters.
“The other path is going to be a combination of Mangione and Mamdani,” Bannon said, referring to Luigi Mangione, the 29-year-old data engineer accused of killing a healthcare CEO. “They’re going to line you up and shoot you, which they will.”
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/far-right-stokes-fears-of-nightmare-democratic-midterm-sweep-to-push-for-election-takeover/
They are also calling for Trump to administer Martial Law.
We need our Democratic states to call out their National Guard to protect the elections.
These Mutha Fuckers are Assisting the Authoritarian takeover of this country
The Senate Republicans are laying down for Trump. They refuse to protect our country. They refuse to stand up to the unprecedented abuse of executive power. It is the authoritarian playbook. And it doesn't help that we have a Supreme Court that is in on it. They are the enemy and deserve to be treated as such. How they can possibly sleep at night just baffles me. They know that they are destroying our democracy and they don't care. Why??? How could they do that?? It doesn't make any sense to me.
The Autocratic Legal Playbook
UCLA Law Review, Forthcoming
UCLA School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 25-31
62 Pages Posted: 15 Aug 2025 Last revised: 3 Mar 2026
Scott L. Cummings
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - School of Law
Date Written: August 14, 2025
Abstract
This Article examines the development and rapid innovation of the autocratic legal playbook in America: the strategic blueprint used to destroy democracy through law. It argues that this playbook, with roots in autocratizing countries abroad, is now being implemented with brutal efficiency in the United States through the unprecedented abuse of executive power. The Article analyzes how autocracy has taken hold of the world’s oldest democracy with such velocity and examines what it means for the future of democracy around the world. It begins by defining the autocratic legal playbook as the roadmap for using law to undermine democratic guardrails that keep the executive within constitutional limits. The Article traces the evolution of the American playbook from Hungary’s autocratic transformation after 2010, to President Trump’s failed effort to overturn the 2020 election, to Project 2025, to the Trump 2.0 strategy of “flooding the zone” with executive orders. The Article’s central contribution is to reveal the operating principles and tactical innovations of the American playbook—premised on the subversion of truth and the conflation of legitimate policy change with illegitimate democratic attacks—while demonstrating how these principles are being systematically mobilized to target and disable independent institutions that check executive power: government legal offices, law firms and the bar, courts, administrative agencies, universities, civil society, and the media. Because the core of autocratic legalism is creating the appearance of legality to justify attacks on the rule of law, the Article pays special attention to the legal profession, showing how actions against lawyers and courts are designed to achieve the ultimate autocratic objective: controlling the authority to define law. The Article concludes by considering how to “reverse engineer” the playbook, drawing on critical lessons from how democracies have died, and been resuscitated, in other countries to outline steps for saving American democracy in this watershed moment—before it is too late.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5392409
As opposition mounts, House cancels vote on VA overhaul bill
House Democrats and veterans service organizations warned that a bill Republicans claim will increase benefits "robs Peter to pay Paul" and hastens efforts to privatize veteran health care.
House Republicans on Thursday gaveled floor activity for the week, effectively cancelling a planned vote on a controversial Veterans Affairs Department overhaul bill that packages bipartisan benefits increases with cuts to others and increased privatization of health services.
The House planned this week to debate and ultimately vote on the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act (H.R. 9237), a collection of more than 60 bills related to the VA and veteran care, including benefits increases for severely disabled veterans and the families of service members who died in the line of duty. Its centerpiece is the Major Richard Star Act (H.R. 2102), a bill that would allow veterans who were forced to retire early due to a combat injury to collect their full military retirement pay in addition to their VA disability benefits.
But Democrats warned at a press conference Thursday that the larger bill is an effort to “hijack” the Major Richard Star Act, which has more than 300 House sponsors and a discharge petition just five signatures short of forcing a floor vote, and anchor it with $60 billion in cuts to other veterans’ benefits, like those associated with tinnitus and sleep apnea, alongside plans to further prioritize veterans’ health care and abridge VA psychologists’ collective bargaining rights.
“This bill pits veterans against veterans,” said Rep. Chris Deluzio, D-Pa. “I think it stabs those serving right now in the back, many of whom are currently fighting a war. When it comes time for them to apply for their benefits for conditions linked to their service, they will see those benefits cut . . . The same politicians who added nearly $5 trillion to our national debt to pay for tax giveaways to the rich and powerful, who cut health care to help pay for those tax giveaways, now want to force other veterans to pay for these very important VA benefits increases.”
snip>
https://www.govexec.com/management/2026/06/house-cancels-vote-va-overhaul-bill-opposition-mounts/414440/?oref=ge-featured-river-top
Iran war live: Israel attacks Lebanon as Netanyahu says troops to stay
Israel continues to attack southern Lebanon as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Israeli military is “not going to withdraw” from occupied areas.
Lebanese group Hezbollah has accused Israel of targeting civilians trying to return to their homes in Lebanon’s south, killing two people and wounding a third.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/6/26/iran-war-live-israel-attacks-lebanon-as-netanyahu-says-troops-to-stay
Breaking: Katie Phang just won her lawsuit regarding Releasing the Epstein Files
Judge orders DOJ to produce, unredact sought after Epstein files
On Thursday, a federal judge based in Washington, D.C., ordered the Justice Department to unredact additional pages of the Epstein files in a suit brought by attorney and independent journalist Katie Phang.
The preliminary injunction orders redactions be removed in key documents of interest in the files, including “at least eight email exchanges with Mr. Epstein regarding a ‘torture video’ and sexual activity with young women, including minors” as well as interviews with a woman who said she was abused by President Trump as a minor.
“The Attorney General’s arguments are unpersuasive. First, Ms. Phang has identified ‘some concrete consequences of not receiving the information.’ She has identified ‘half a dozen stories she is currently unable to report’ because the Attorney General has not disclosed the information,” U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan wrote in a decision that also found Phang had a right to bring the case under the Administrative Procedures Act
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5941665-doj-epstein-files-lawsuit/
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