Stephen Cusack retweeted
My prayers go out to all those who were injured or lost their lives last Friday in the terrorist attack on worshippers at the Orthodox Church of Saint George in Hamoud, Jordan. I express my closeness to the community and the entire country, which is known for its peaceful coexistence and respect between different religions.
Stephen Cusack retweeted
Americans need to understand that by twice electing Trump they have lost two vital things that may take years to even partly restore - trust & respect. Nobody with any sense now trusts America & very few respect them. No doubt many in MAGA don't care, the f. you school of politics, but Americans will all pay a long & bitter price for the gross abuse of decency they have inflicted on the free world. You reap what you sow.
Stephen Cusack retweeted
In the last two weeks two stories of significance have been broken here on X that received international coverage, namely the Herbert Park hotel controversy and that stupid ad about the grannies. Would they have been broken otherwise?
Stephen Cusack retweeted
I've come to believe that one of the greatest myths Americans are taught from childhood is American exceptionalism.
We're told America is the greatest, freest, and most prosperous country on Earth. The shining example the rest of the world supposedly envies.
Let's look at some facts.
According to the FBI, America's murder rate fell to 4.1 per 100,000 people in 2025. That's a significant improvement, yet still roughly 4.7 times the EU's 2024 homicide rate.
The United States incarcerates people at several times the rate of most Western European countries. School shootings remain a recurring national tragedy.
Meanwhile, millions of Europeans enjoy affordable healthcare, accessible higher education, stronger worker protections, paid leave, and comprehensive privacy protections.
And despite decades of immigration, including from the Middle East, Europe's homicide rates remain dramatically lower than America's.
Yet Americans are constantly told nobody enjoys greater freedom or opportunity.
And that brings me to MAGA.
I see a movement increasingly defined by ultranationalist rhetoric, with deeply concerning influences from white nationalism and Christian nationalism.
A movement where questioning the national mythology is treated as betrayal.
The responses to my posts have been revealing.
MAGA accounts repeatedly accuse me of being a bot, despite the fact that my X account is publicly ID-verified.
Others call me a traitor.
A traitor to what, exactly?
I'm a U.S. Army veteran who served his country. I live abroad, exercise my constitutional right to free speech, and advocate for Americans to enjoy better healthcare, education, public safety, and individual freedoms.
Which part of that constitutes treason?
Meanwhile, their president has reopened Russian diesel imports, with the first shipment reportedly heading toward New York.
His administration's negotiations with Moscow have also included a proposed multibillion-dollar acquisition of Russian-owned Lukoil assets involving investors with business connections to his family and senior negotiators.
Where's the outrage over those dealings with Russia?
I'm not negotiating business arrangements with Moscow. I'm not facilitating Russian energy purchases. I'm not participating in proposed transactions involving Russian oil assets.
I'm an American living in Europe who wants better living conditions for his fellow Americans.
And somehow, I'm the traitor?
Here's what I've learned.
Patriotism isn't blind allegiance to a politician, a political movement, or a national mythology.
It's having the courage to recognize your country's shortcomings and demand better.
America has accomplished extraordinary things. But believing that makes it inherently superior to every other nation isn't patriotism. It's exceptionalism turned into dogma.
You cannot improve a country when you've been conditioned to believe it has already achieved perfection.
And criticizing America because you want it to improve doesn't make you a traitor.
It makes you an American exercising the very freedoms you were taught to cherish.
Stephen Cusack retweeted
🇦🇺 🇺🇸 An Australian woman has a rather devastating response to Americans who insist that everyone loves the United States and secretly dreams of living there.
“Australians aren’t jealous of America, we mostly feel sorry for you.”
She also makes a much more interesting point. Believing that you already live in the greatest country on Earth is intellectually lazy. If you’ve been told your entire life that nowhere else comes close, why bother looking?
And that is precisely what makes this mentality so limiting.
Looking beyond your own borders should be a source of inspiration. Other countries do things better. Some have better healthcare, others better education, infrastructure or social protections. There is absolutely nothing unpatriotic about noticing this and asking why your own country cannot do the same.
Every country has its problems. Australia does. Norway does. America certainly does. Nobody has invented the perfect society.
But every country also has something worth learning from.
And perhaps that is the greatest irony of all. The people most convinced that America has nothing to learn from the rest of the world may be the very people preventing it from becoming better.
Stephen Cusack retweeted
Nine Christians murdered in Jordan. No relentless sharing of their faces. None of you know their names.
@bbcnews couldn't even be bothered to tell you that two more died of their wounds.
An attack on Christians in Jordan does not fit their narrative. So it must be swept aside.
Stephen Cusack retweeted
Grandparents are not a danger to children. They're the backbone of Irish family life.
The Minister was right to pull this ad. Gary Gannon and Labour rushed to defend it instead.
I've tabled questions on what it cost and who signed it off. Every euro spent lecturing families is a euro that never reached a victim.
Stephen Cusack retweeted
This is a very important case
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr5y…
Stephen Cusack retweeted
I'm an American, a U.S. Army veteran, and I live in Europe.
And I'll tell you something that might upset a few people back home.
I want my fellow Americans to enjoy the same rights, freedoms, and quality of life that millions of Europeans already enjoy.
I want Americans to have access to affordable healthcare without worrying about going bankrupt because they got sick.
I want American students to pursue higher education without burying themselves in decades of debt.
I want Americans to enjoy stronger digital privacy laws, meaningful consumer protections, paid parental leave, and guaranteed paid vacation.
I want police officers held to rigorous standards of accountability, where de-escalation is emphasized and deadly force is genuinely a last resort.
I want Americans to understand that freedom isn't just about what the government cannot do to you. It's also about having the security and opportunity to actually enjoy your life.
And before someone starts screaming about socialism, understand something.
European countries are capitalist democracies. They have private businesses, entrepreneurs, private property, competitive markets, and individual liberties. They've simply made different decisions about what protections their citizens should enjoy.
Europe isn't perfect. No place is. But pretending America has nothing to learn from other democracies is ridiculous.
I served my country. I love my country. And I don't believe patriotism requires pretending that America is the best at everything.
In fact, I believe the exact opposite.
Real patriotism means wanting your country to improve, even when that means admitting another country does something better.
I don't want Americans to have fewer freedoms.
I want them to have MORE.
More protections. More opportunities. More security. More accountability. More freedom to live their lives without being financially destroyed by illness, education, or circumstances beyond their control.
And having lived on both sides of the Atlantic, I know that much of this is possible.
We should stop asking why Americans can't have these things and start asking why they're expected to settle for less.
Stephen Cusack retweeted
Ireland now has a more equal distribution of incomes than Denmark and Sweden, according to today's Eurostat figures.
Gini coefficient (lower = more equal)
Ireland: 27.2
Denmark: 28.2
Sweden: 28.6
Stephen Cusack retweeted
When Ireland joined Nato's Partnership for Peace a quarter of a century ago the neutrality fetishists claimed it amounted to the end of neutrality. It never arose in national discourse again. Exactly the same will happen in relation to the triple lock.
Former soldier Declan Power in today's Independent.
Stephen Cusack retweeted
Americans not only overwhelmingly support Ukraine over Russia, 70% now disapprove of tariffs. Good reason to believe that whoever is next president will tack back to policies voters actually want. US allies will benefit too.
Stephen Cusack retweeted
Now would be a good time to remind everyone of these Trump facts, because apparently some people still need the refresher.
Please meet the President of the United States:
Flew on Epstein’s plane at least seven times. Just friends, I guess.
Pleaded the Fifth more than 400 times in a single deposition. Nothing says “innocent” like refusing to answer a single question about your own business.
34 felony convictions. A record most people would call disqualifying. And 91 criminal charges.
Accused of sexual misconduct or assault by at least 26 women. But sure, tell me again how he’s a great guy.
6 corporate bankruptcies. The self proclaimed greatest businessman alive somehow keeps running out of money.
5 draft deferments. Funny how the toughest guy in the room never actually showed up for duty.
4 criminal indictments. Not two. Not three. Four.
2 impeachments. A club of exactly one president.
2 of his own companies convicted of criminal tax fraud. Convicted. Not accused. Convicted.
1 fake university shut down. 1 fake charity shut down.
Even his charity was a grift.
Paid 25 million dollars to settle the Trump University fraud lawsuit because scamming people who believed in you costs money eventually.
Ordered to pay 5 million dollars in the first E Jean Carroll sexual abuse verdict, then hit with 83.3 million more in the second.
A jury said it twice so nobody could pretend it was a fluke.
Ordered to pay 2 million dollars for looting his own so called charity.
Stealing from a charity with his own name on it.
Found liable for business fraud and originally slapped with a penalty topping 450 million dollars, later thrown out on appeal while the fraud finding itself stuck to him anyway.
First president in modern history to increase the deficit every single year of a full term. Fiscal responsibility, apparently, was always just a talking point.
Kept the debt to GDP ratio above 100 percent for his entire first term.
Presided over the largest single day point drop in Dow Jones history at the time. So much for the guy who claimed to be a genius with money.
Set the record for the longest government shutdown in US history in his first term at 35 days, then couldn’t resist beating his own miserable record in his second term with a 43 day shutdown, followed by yet another shutdown just months later. Encore nobody asked for.
Added roughly 2.25 trillion dollars to the national debt in his first year back in office alone, pushing the debt past 39 trillion dollars.
Somebody remind me who the party of fiscal discipline is again.
Pushed through the largest defense budget increase since World War Two while the debt kept climbing anyway.
Purged more than 300,000 federal employees in his first year back.
Efficient, if your goal is chaos.
Pardoned nearly 1,600 January 6 Capitol rioters.
At least 40 of those pardoned rioters have already been rearrested, charged, or sentenced for new crimes since walking free. Shocking absolutely nobody.
His family’s crypto ventures, including a meme coin and World Liberty Financial, pulled in more than 1.4 billion dollars in disclosed earnings while he sat in the Oval Office.
Draining the swamp was apparently code for filling his own pockets.
Sent the National Guard into American cities at a cost of nearly 500 million taxpayer dollars in 2025 alone.
His own tariffs are projected to cost the average American household more than 2,500 dollars this year.
You’re paying for this. Not China. You.
No more foreign wars. Peace deal with Russia and Ukraine on Day One.
None of this is a conspiracy theory, a rumor, or something you saw in a group chat.
It is the actual, documented record, sitting in plain sight for anyone willing to look.
So the next time someone tells you to relax and give him a chance, ask them how many more indictments, judgments, and shutdown records he needs to rack up before that chance runs out.
Credit: Charles Curtis Rone
Stephen Cusack retweeted
Good move by Jim O'Callaghan. Can he now trace the exact origin of this insane video and how it got public funding?
Stephen Cusack retweeted
What on earth is the mindset that produces propaganda like this?
Progressives are telling our children that they might have been “born in the wrong body” and need to be pumped full of hormones or undergo life-altering, irreversible surgery. And at the same time, they’re telling them to be wary of their own grandparents.
It’s deeply sinister.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we need to get these ideological zealots out of positions of power and influence. Because it seems that every day they’re sitting in rooms dreaming up new ways to spread their poison.
Stephen Cusack retweeted
Every now and then the public get a view of the true extent of Woke zealotry. The beware-of-your-granny ad is one example. The Family A vs Family B schoolbook controversy from a while back was another.
Stephen Cusack retweeted
Not before time. That taxpayers' money was used to make and distribute that video was a disgrace.