Finally Friday Reads: The Regime of Chaos and Death

Posted: January 31, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Broligarchy, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Corrupt and Political SCOTUS, kakistocracy, kleptocracy, MAGA Assholes | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

“State of the Union.”John (repeat1968) Buss, @johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The last ten days of our country’s life have been wrought with chaos, death, and higher prices.  This is what you get in a kakistocracy because no one in charge knows what they’re doing. We’ve had the first in-air collision in nearly a quarter of a century.  There was already a shortage of air traffic controllers and pressure on the FAA by Congress to allow higher levels of traffic when these steps were taken by FARTUS and Elonia to dismantle the FAA and related regulations.  Elonia is making the rounds at all Government Agencies, ensuring chaos and disruption abound. This is from Public Notice. “DCA crash puts Trump’s appalling unfitness on full display. When crisis hits, he makes it worse.”

Donald Trump’s first actions back in the White House included demolishing an air travel security advisory group, forcing out the head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for corrupt reasons, implementing a hiring freeze for air traffic controllers as part of a bigoted rampage against women and people of color, and sending blanket resignation offers to the remaining FAA employees.

Then tragedy struck. Nine days after Trump took office, a military helicopter collided with a passenger jet just above Reagan National Airport (DCA) airport, killing 67 people. A report indicates staffing in DCA’s air traffic control tower at the time of the collision was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic.”

It’s America’s worst aviation disaster since 2001. And it shows the danger of wantonly destroying a federal government whose functioning remains vital for, among other things, keeping air travelers safe.

Does the new president have regrets about any of this? Of course not. Instead, Trump responded to the disaster by appointing an acting FAA head a day late and a dollar short, then held a dystopian media event where he signed an order pinning blame for the crash on Biden, Obama, and the Democratic Party in general.

Actually, Axios shows the facts that Air traffic controllers and airfield operations specialists are overwhelmingly white men. I had an aunt who was an Air Traffic Controller in Boulder, Colorado, back in the 1960s.  The training, testing, and demands on them were stringent, and even more so now.

President Trump rallied against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in air traffic control as having contributed to the deadly plane crash outside of D.C. Wednesday, but the data paints a different picture.

The big picture: Statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau and IPUMS show air traffic controllers and airfield operations specialists are predominately male and white.

By the numbers: 78% are men, while 22% are women, per data from the U.S. Census Bureau and IPUMS.

  • 71% identify as non-Hispanic white.

  • The data includes air traffic controllers and airfield operations specialists working in air transportation or services incidental to transportation.

CBS News reports the latest update on the tragedy. One thing stood out given the shortage of air traffic controllers just made worse by FARTUS and Elonia.

One air traffic control worker was managing the helicopters and some planes from the Reagan National Airport tower at the time of the collision, a job normally done by two people, two sources tell CBS News.

Also, the pilots of the Black Hawk helicopters and the American Airlines jet were ALL WHITE MEN. The co-pilot of the helicopter was a woman, per The Guardian. They were all seasoned aviators.

Elonia is making serious trouble at the US Treasury. This is from WAPO. “Senior U.S. official to exit after rift with Musk allies over payment system. A top Treasury career staffer, David A. Lebryk, announced his retirement. Surrogates of Musk’s DOGE effort had sought access to sensitive payment systems.”  My role at the New Orleans Fed included managing the Treasury TT&L payments and Bond Sales. My grandfather held a much bigger but same position at the Kansas City Fed during two World Wars.  I am seriously familiar with the amount of protection over FedWire and the other transmittal systems. I wouldn’t want anyone outside the Fed or a long-term Treasury employee near it.  You have no idea how tightly those things are monitored. A breach would seriously harm the economy and undermine the US Dollar. You also have to have security clearances. To my knowledge, Elonia hasn’t and wouldn’t be approved under the usual circumstances.

The highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department is departing after a clash with allies of billionaire Elon Musk over access to sensitive payment systems, according to three people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private talks.

David A. Lebryk, who served in nonpolitical roles at Treasury for several decades, announced his retirement Friday in an email to colleagues obtained by The Washington Post. President Donald Trump named Lebryk as acting secretary upon taking office last week. Lebryk had a dispute with Musk’s surrogates over access to the payment system the U.S. government uses to disburse trillions of dollars every year, the people said. The exact nature of the disagreement was not immediately clear, they said.

Officials affiliated with Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” have been asking since after the election for access to the system, the people said — requests that were reiterated more recently, including after Trump’s inauguration.

A spokeswoman for DOGE declined to comment. Lebryk could not be reached for comment late Thursday.

When Scott Bessent was confirmed as treasury secretary on Monday, Lebryk ceased to be the acting agency head.

Typically only a small number of career officials control Treasury’s payment systems. Run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the sensitive systems control the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to households, businesses and more nationwide. Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people across the country rely on the systems, which are responsible for distributing Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients and tax refunds, among tens of thousands of other functions.

The clash reflects an intensifying battle between Musk and the federal bureaucracy as the Trump administration nears the conclusion of its second week. Musk has sought to exert sweeping control over the inner workings of the U.S. government, installing longtime surrogates at several agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management, which essentially handles federal human resources, and the General Services Administration, which manages real estate. (Musk was seen on Thursday visiting GSA, according to two other people familiar with his whereabouts, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal matters. That visit was first reported by the New York Times.) His Department of Government Efficiency, originally conceived as a nongovernmental panel, has since replaced the U.S. Digital Service.

Yes, there are likely some places where the “bureaucracy” could be reduced, but the databases on the bank transfers should remain strictly off-limits to anyone who doesn’t have a security clearance.   Meanwhile, “Trump’s FCC chair investigates NPR and PBS, urges Congress to defund them
Brendan Carr described as “Trump’s Censorship Czar” as he launches media probes.”

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has ordered an investigation into NPR and PBS in a move that Democrats described as an attempt to intimidate the media.

“I am writing to inform you that I have asked the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau to open an investigation regarding the airing of NPR and PBS programming across your broadcast member stations,” Carr wrote in a letter yesterday to the leaders of NPR and PBS.

Carr alleged that NPR and PBS are violating a federal law prohibiting noncommercial educational broadcast stations from running commercial advertisements. “I am concerned that NPR and PBS broadcasts could be violating federal law by airing commercials,” Carr wrote. “In particular, it is possible that NPR and PBS member stations are broadcasting underwriting announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements.”

Carr’s letter did not provide any specific examples of underwriting announcements that might violate the law, but said the “announcements should not promote the contributor’s products, services, or businesses, and they may not contain comparative or qualitative descriptions, price information, calls to action, or inducements to buy, sell, rent, or lease.”

I guess FARTUS can hawk merch, but Sesame Street can’t.  These people are fucking insane.

Here are some other stomach-churning headlines.

I am having a hard time not being overwhelmed at this point. This doesn’t mention the disastrous Senate Hearings for Tulsi Gabbard, RFK jr, and Kash Patel.  RFK Jr looks more ready to be a California Raisin than head of HHS.  And wtf is with Kash Patel’s eyes?  This is from The Hill. “Top FBI officials brace for Trump shake-up.”

Top officials at the FBI are facing a shake-up by the Trump administration.

According to House Judiciary Committee Democrats, the five executive assistant directors of the bureau were notified they would be demoted.

“These changes will further jeopardize our national security, leaving the FBI with no experienced senior leadership and a partisan Trump loyalist heading up the Bureau’s response to increasing security threats from Russia, China, and other authoritarian adversaries,” the committee said in a fact sheet circulated to House Democrats.

The move targets the band of top officials who oversee the FBI’s five internal branches and are among the highest-ranking career positions in the bureau. Many report directly to the director and deputy director.

They oversee the FBI’s national security branch and criminal and cyber branch, among others.

The FBI and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

I wouldn’t want a kidnapped child’s case in the hands of any of these people.  This article is from the BBC. “Five takeaways from Gabbard and Patel’s confirmation hearings.” 

Several of President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees faced tough questioning from Republicans and Democrats alike during hours-long confirmation hearings on Thursday.

Former Democrat and military veteran Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick to be director of national intelligence, was grilled about her past remarks supporting government whistleblower Edward Snowden as well as her relationships with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syria’s former dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, a former federal prosecutor and Trump administration aide, was pressed on his prior comments praising those involved in the 6 January Capitol riots as well as his ties to the QAnon movement.

Read the analysis at the links.  I want to add one more thing that’s another mark on the path of the Louisiana Governor’s attempts to sideline professors he doesn’t like. Political firing of tenured professors is another MAGA mishap. “LSU law professor sidelined for political speech sues university. Professor alleges university is violating its own policies regarding tenured faculty.”  This is from the Louisiana Illuminator.

A tenured LSU law professor removed from his classes pending an investigation into alleged political comments is suing the university, saying it violated his First Amendment rights and its own policies.

Ken Levy, a professor of constitutional and criminal law, alleges he was removed from his classes earlier this month after political comments made on the first day of his Administration of Criminal Justice course were reported to Gov. Jeff Landry, which he believes led to calls to the university administration about his comments.

In his affidavit, Levy says that he brought up Landry’s comments regarding fellow law professor Nick Bryner and asked his students not to record his lectures because he didn’t want to be targeted by Landry.

“If Governor Landry were to retaliate against me, then f*** the governor and f*** that. — all of which was a joke and clearly said in a joking manner to highlight my no recording policy in class and the First Amendment,” Levy wrote in the affadavit.

Landry called on LSU to discipline Bryner last year for his comments about President Trump the day after the presidential election.

Levy argues in the affidavit that the actions taken against him stifle not only his right to free speech and academic freedom but that of other faculty members.

Landry spokeswoman Kate Kelly referred questions to LSU. University spokesman Todd Woodward has not yet responded to a request for comment.

Levy is asking a judge to grant a temporary restraining order that would allow him to return to teaching as well as an order prohibiting LSU from taking further action against him.

In the suit, Levy also alleges LSU also violated its own policies regarding the punishment of a tenured professor.

These actions are fascist purges.  I can only tell you that I feel much worse off than I did two weeks ago.  Also, I just paid $9.06 for 1/2 dozen eggs.  Do we have a task force on the Avian Flu yet?  They have one in Canada already.  Japan has one too.  Here’s a few headlines on that from a few weeks ago.  No word at the moment.  Just wondering how many people will die from this disease because FARTUS is an idiot.

New York Times: Trump Administration Temporarily Mutes Federal Health Officials. Scientific meetings were canceled, and research data on the bird flu outbreak was delayed, amid confusion over the directive.

Forbes:  Why The U.S. Could Be Making The Same Mistakes With Bird Flu As It Did With COVID-19. 

The first severe case of bird flu occurred last month in a Louisiana man hospitalized after having had contact with sick birds in a backyard flock. In addition, the state of California recently declared a state of emergency as the bird flu virus continues to spread among livestock in the state.

To date, there have been 66 confirmed human cases of bird flu in the United States, according to the CDC. The current public health risk remains low, as no sustained human-to-human transmission has occurred.

Some obvious questions remain- like how did the U.S. allow a patient to get severely ill from the virus? Also, are we repeating the same mistakes we made with the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020? Here are some reasons we may be repeating history.

You can read the reasons on the link.  I was a little slow getting this done today.  I was one the phone with doctors and vets all morning and it took longer than I thought it would.  Love you all and Stay Safe!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

  

Mostly Monday Reads: Coping with Crazy

Posted: January 27, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Colombia, Democratic Backsliding, kleptocracy | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

“It just comes naturally, “John (repeat1968) Buss
@johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Well, one of the most unqualified, mediocre white men ever started a full-scale attack on our troops and their morale as the American Defense Secretary.  He’s lowering troop morale. My Daddy didn’t tell me many stories about his time bombing NAZIs while based in Ipswich, England. His favorite story was that the crew was on a mission one day, and the mission commander was Jimmy Stewart. Can you imagine hearing that voice issuing orders from your radio?  My High School Russian History teacher was taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge. He wrote a memoir and it’s sitting in the National Archives. The one thing that really defines the Boomer generation is the war and the stories of our family members, who were all involved in one way or another. My Grandfather was in charge of War Bonds at the Kansas City Fed.  My other Grandfather worked for the Railroad, where troops and supplies were vital. One of my uncles was in the Navy, and the other was in Army Intelligence. They all had stories about that time. There were all kinds of people doing all kinds of things to save the American Way and its democracy.

If you ever find your way to New Orleans, I highly recommend the National World War 2 Museum. When the daughters and I took Dad there, it was very new. Dad was given hero treatment.  They only had their European theatre displays up, but there are more now.  Their big feature was the Higgins boats that stormed the beaches during D-Day that were made in New Orleans. Never in a million years would I expect some of the most honored war heroes to be erased from the textbooks of the military, the USAF’s military curriculum. This is from WSAF Channel 12 in Montgomery, Alabama.  A historic city for many reasons, but a lot of it comes from essential changes that improved the status of black Americans. You undoubtedly know their story. “Defense secretary orders immediate reversal of USAF’s removal of Tuskegee Airmen from the curriculum,”

Newly-confirmed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth confirmed Sunday in a social media post that the U.S. Air Force will continue teaching about the famed Tuskegee Airmen.

In a statement posted Sunday afternoon, Sen. Katie Britt said she has “no doubt” Hegseth will “correct and get to the bottom of the malicious compliance we’ve seen in recent days.”

Senator Katie Boyd Britt immediately sent this out to what’s left of Twitter.

“Little Big Man” Walt Handelsman,  https://www.nola.com/opinions/walt_handelsman/ 

Newsweek has more details here. 

The Air Force says it has reinstated training material on the Tuskegee Airmen and Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) after a brief delay to revise it in line with the Trump administration’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday, Hegseth clarified that any attempt to cut the Tuskegee Airmen training material had been “immediately reversed.”

The decision resolves a controversy that emerged as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth began his first day at the Pentagon.

After announcing this intervention, the country’s worst mediocre white christianist nationalist man in an office he’s got no busy holding making completely insulting and inappropriate decisions.  This happens when people are hired based on skin color, religion, and favoritism from the boss. We get the rule of mediocre white men and their misplaced confidence that makes the rest of us do the work so the entire outfit doesn’t go down the shitter.

Trump is also announcing big changes for the military comprised of volunteers who may soon be volunteering their asses straight back to being civilians at all this moral-lowering hate. It wasn’t enough that he summarily ousted the first woman Coast Guard Chief on his first full day in the office. This is what CNN has in its big story today. “Trump expected to sign executive orders to reshape the military, including banning transgender troops.”  This is the man who called people in the military “suckers” and “losers.”  Let’s just call all this for what it is.  It is racist.  It is misogynistic.  It defines every person by their sex and not by their gender identity or sexual preferences.  In short, it demeans every human being who is not a white male christianist and strips them of their Constitutional rights..

President Donald Trump on Monday is expected to sign four executive orders that would reshape the military, including banning transgender service members from serving in the US armed forces, gutting the military’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, and reinstating with back pay service members who were discharged for refusing to get vaccinated from Covid-19, two White House officials told CNN.

The orders, which were first reported by the New York Post, come as Trump’s nominee to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, was sworn in as secretary of defense on Saturday. Hegseth has long stated he planned to implement major cultural changes to the military, including ending DEI practices and removing “woke” service members.

Moments after his arrival at the Pentagon on Monday, Hegseth told reporters that there are “more executive orders coming.”

This is a purge and a crusade. We need to know more to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and our country.

That same FARTUS, the mediocre white man-in-chief, had a hissy fit at Colombia over the weekend.  The BBC reports today.“Colombia yields on US deportation flights to avert trade war.  Today’s lesson is not to surrender in advance. All those coffee-drinking Americans would not like the result more than Colombians. You have no idea how reliant we are on Colombia for goods. And to top it off, he couldn’t even spell the country’s name correctly in his Social Media Barf zone.  You can read about that at the BBC link.

A looming trade war between the US and Colombia appears to have been averted after the Colombian government agreed to allow US military flights carrying deported migrants to land in the Andean country.

The spat erupted on Sunday when President Gustavo Petro barred two military planes carrying Colombians deported from the US from landing.

The Trump administration responded by threatening to slap punitive tariffs on Colombian exports to the US.

President Petro at first said Colombia would retaliate by imposing tariffs on US goods, but the White House later announced that Colombia had agreed to accept migrants – including those arriving on US military aircraft – “without limitation or delay”.

The White House hailed the agreement with Colombia as a victory for Trump’s hard-line approach, after the country’s two leaders had exchanged threats on social media on Sunday.

“Today’s events make clear to the world that America is respected again,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a statement.

She added that the tariffs and sanctions which the Trump administration had threatened to impose on Colombia, should it not comply, would be “held in reserve, and not signed, unless Colombia fails to honour this agreement”.

She also said that President Donald Trump “expects all other nations of the world to fully co-operate in accepting deportation of their citizens illegally present in the United States”.

A cornerstone of Trump’s immigration policy is removing unlawful migrants from the US, with the promise of “mass deportations”.

It seems even the legacy media of the UK are weasel-wording his insanity.  A “spat”?  Look at those words as what we are talking about: human beings being herded around like cattle.

How do we cope with all of this? According to sociologist Jennifer Walter we must understand what is happening in this country and what to do about it. It is all about overwhelming our feelings, responses, and lives.

 As a sociologist, I need to tell you:
 
𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗺 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹.
 
1/ The flood of 200+ executive orders in Trump’s first days exemplifies Naomi Klein’s “shock doctrine” — using chaos and crisis to push through radical changes while people are too disoriented to effectively resist. This isn’t just politics as usual — it’s a strategic exploitation of cognitive limits.
2/ Media theorist McLuhan predicted this: When humans face information overload, they become passive and disengaged. The rapid-fire executive orders create a cognitive bottleneck, making it nearly impossible for citizens and media to thoroughly analyze any single policy.
3/ Agenda-setting theory explains the strategy: When multiple major policies compete for attention simultaneously, it fragments public discourse.
Traditional media can’t keep up with the pace, leading to superficial coverage. The result? Weakened democratic oversight and reduced public engagement.
What now?
1/ Set boundaries: Pick 2-3 key issues you deeply care about and focus your attention there. You can’t track everything — that’s by design. Impact comes from sustained focus, not scattered awareness.
2/ Use aggregators & experts: Find trusted analysts who do the heavy lifting of synthesis. Look for those explaining patterns, not just events.
3/ Remember: Feeling overwhelmed is the point. When you recognize this, you regain some power. Take breaks. Process. This is a marathon.
4/ Practice going slow: Wait 48 hrs before reacting to new policies. The urgent clouds the important. Initial reporting often misses context.
5/ Build community: Share the cognitive load. Different people track different issues. Network intelligence beats individual overload.
 
Remember: They want you scattered. Your focus is resistance.

You may read many sources to get you to focus on how they will continue to manipulate you if you let them. This one actually comes from the period of the first adventure of FARTUS (Felon, Adjudicated Rapist, and Traitor of the US)  in 2018. “The Authoritarian Regime Survival Guide” is posted on  Verfassungblog.   It’s written by Martin Mycielski, who studies Democratic Backsldiing

1. They will come to power with a campaign based on fear, scaremongering and distorting the truth. Nevertheless, their victory will be achieved through a democratic electoral process. But beware, as this will be their argument every time you question the legitimacy of their actions. They will claim a mandate from the People to change the system.

Remember – gaining power through a democratic system does not give them permission to cross legal boundaries and undermine said democracy.

2. They will divide and rule. Their strength lies in unity, in one voice and one ideology, and so should yours. They will call their supporters Patriots, the only “true Americans”. You will be labelled as traitors, enemies of the state, unpatriotic, the corrupt elite, the old regime trying to regain power. Their supporters will be the “People”, the “sovereign” who chose their leaders.

Don’t let them divide you – remember you’re one People, one Nation, with one common good.

You may read a lot more at that link.  So, the most recent rabbit hole I went down deals with learning more about Global Backsliding. I thought I’d share some reads for you. The first comes from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  “Understanding and Responding to Global Democratic Backsliding. As the world faces a democratic recession, many of the most common explanations fall short. But looking more closely at antidemocratic leaders’ motivations and methods reveals valuable insights about different types of backsliding and how international actors should respond.” The paper is written by by Thomas Carothers and Benjamin Press. This is its summary page.

Over the past two decades, democratic backsliding has become a defining trend in global politics. However, despite the extensive attention paid to the phenomenon, there is surprisingly little consensus about what is driving it. The most common explanations offered by analysts—ranging from the role of Russia and China and disruptive technologies to the rise of populism, the spread of political polarization, and democracies’ failure to deliver—fall short when tested across a wide range of cases.

A more persuasive account of backsliding focuses on the central role of leader-driven antidemocratic political projects and the variety of mechanisms and motivations they entail. This paper identifies and analyzes three distinct types of backsliding efforts: grievance-fueled illiberalism, opportunistic authoritarianism, and entrenched-interest revanchism. In cases of grievance-fueled illiberalism, a political figure mobilizes a grievance, claims that the grievance is being perpetuated by the existing political system, and argues that it is necessary to dismantle democratic norms and institutions to redress the underlying wrongs. Opportunistic authoritarians, by contrast, come to power via conventional political appeals but later turn against democracy for the sake of personal political survival. In still other backsliding cases, entrenched interest groups—generally the military—that were displaced by a democratic transition use undemocratic means to reassert their claims to power. Although motivations and methods differ across backsliding efforts, a key commonality among them is their relentless focus on undermining countervailing governmental and nongovernmental institutions that are designed to keep them in check.

As international democracy supporters continue to refine their strategies of responding to democratic backsliding, they must better differentiate between facilitating factors and core drivers. Such an approach will point to the need for a stronger focus on the nature of leader-driven antidemocratic projects, identifying ways to create significant disincentives for backsliding leaders, and bolstering crucial countervailing institutions. Moreover, they should deepen their differentiation of strategies to take account of the diverse motivations and methods among the three main patterns of backsliding. Only in this way will they build the needed analytic and practical capacity to meet the formidable challenge that democratic backsliding presents.

The concept that grabbed me was the type of backsliding and the first type, grievance-fueled illiberalism, which sounds pretty spot on for what we are enduring and fighting against now. You’ll notice our new technologies are helping these movements spread.  It helps to see where else this has happened. I have no doubt FARTUS, and his close relationship with Erdogan are that of student and mentor.

Some backsliding leaders employ a grievance-centered strategy: they mobilize a widely held sense of frustration to justify dismantling the existing set of democratic norms and institutions, which they blame for having created the conditions that gave rise to the grievance. The grievances they embrace are diverse—ranging well beyond core economic conditions to include racial, religious, and ethnic marginalization and public frustration over corruption, crime, or general governance fecklessness.

A grievance-fueled illiberal drive typically begins with a political figure articulating and politicizing a grievance. In some cases, this grievance is widely and openly shared, especially in cases where corruption or misgovernance has disillusioned many with the existing political system and inspires a search for political alternatives. In Hungary, for example, Orbán and his Fidesz party came to power in 2010 by appealing to the widely held frustration among Hungarians with the previous Socialist government and its perceived mishandling of the economy and its inability to address the devastation of the 2007–2008 global financial crisis. Similarly, in Brazil, Bolsonaro exploited widespread citizen outrage at the Brazilian political class for its pervasive corruption, which had been put on vivid display during the mid-2010s by a series of prominent scandals and investigations.

In other cases, entrepreneurial illiberal political actors articulate grievances that have festered below the political surface for some time. Advancing such grievances may, at first, seem taboo. But as they tap into that grievance, they normalize it and thus reframe what is politically possible. In Turkey, for example, Erdoğan found electoral success in the early 2000s by making appeals to conservative religious values, in a break from long-standing norms of the staunchly secular Turkish Republic. As he appealed to the latent sense among many Turkish citizens that religion had been unduly displaced from public life, he normalized increasingly explicit calls to revisit the principles underlying liberal democracy, including strict separation of religion and public life, respect for religious minority groups, and an equal playing field for opposition. Similarly, in India under the BJP, Modi has articulated a novel vision of Hindu nationalism and directly confronted the country’s liberal founding ideas by arguing that a single religious group should hold a special place in sociopolitical life. And in the United States, Trump appealed to racial and social class grievances that had long simmered below the surface of the country’s politics, normalizing discriminatory speech and stoking anti-minority sentiments as well as anti-elite anger. In still other cases, political leaders politicize frustrations that had not previously been salient. In the Philippines, for example, Duterte played up the threat of drug use and trafficking, which until his campaign had not registered among voters’ major concerns.35

The next phase of the grievance-fueled illiberal drive entails linking the grievance with democratic norms and institutions. In many cases where the grievance is explicitly directed at the governing class—as in Brazil or Hungary—this process is relatively straightforward. But in others, some political maneuvering and artfulness are required to make this link. In India, for example, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu nationalist organization, and the BJP, its political wing, spent years arguing that the country’s Hindu majority was being unfairly oppressed by the country’s long-standing liberal, secular political order and that correcting this wrong would require a wholesale reform of norms and institutions. And in the Philippines, Duterte argued during his campaign that drug use was enabled by political elites who didn’t do enough to punish them. He ran on a campaign of rooting out corruption and circumventing democratic norms and institutions that would stop him from solving the problem—namely by killing criminals.

If and when such drives yield an electoral victory, the government then sets about confronting the norms and institutions that have putatively perpetuated the grievance.

You may read more at the link if you want to. I’m beginning to feel like I’m assigning homework, which is not my intent.  I think, though, we must embrace the concept that this was the plan all along, and there were a lot of organizations and people enabling our slide. My hope is that through knowing these things, we can deal better with what is going on around us.  I still believe that knowledge is power.

So, it’s finally thawed out here. Temple and I can take our usual walks.  There’s a lot of mess to clean up because most of the plants will need a good few whacks with my machete. I really hope that you are doing every self-care trick that you know and that you can discover new, more powerful ones.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Finally Friday Reads: First, they came for …

Posted: January 24, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Incontinentia Buttocks Cabinet picks, kakistocracy, kleptocracy, MAGA Domestic Terrorism | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

First, they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Pastor Martin Niemöller

“Spoken like a true felon.” John (repeat1968) Buss  @johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The snow is beginning to melt here in chilly New Orleans.  The last bit I have to tackle is on the kitchen stairs. It’s been a trying week from many standpoints.  I’m not sure when I first read the poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller, which is reprinted at this link at the Holocaust Memorial. I imagine it was sometime in my early teens, but that’s irrelevant. What’s relevant is the headlines today that are horrifying and familiar to anyone familiar with the movies, the documentaries, and the stories from relatives of Germany before and during World War 2. No wonder the MAGAs are trying to ban The Diary of a Yong Girl by Anne Frank. Children and families are being snatched by ICE now.

So far, I have heard two over-the-top stories about the zealotry with which ICE, and soon, the military and other Federal Law Agencies are going after people. I read yesterday about Indigenous people getting scooped up in raids as well. We knew this would happen. This is from Newsweek.  “US Citizens Are Being Told To Carry Birth Certificates Amid ICE Raids.”

United States citizens, including Native Americans, are being warned to carry ID with them after reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers questioning and detaining people this week.

One such warning came from the Navajo Nation President, Buu Nygren, in Arizona, following reports that some residents had been approached by officials.

Newsweek reached out to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE for comment via email Friday morning.

With President Donald Trump’s plan to ramp up deportations of illegal immigrants, ICE and DHS will likely come under increased scrutiny in the coming weeks and months as they seek to show force when it comes to immigration enforcement. Any overstepping could result in legal action against the agencies.

Nygren’s post on Facebook Wednesday came a day before ICE carried out a raid in Newark, New Jersey, in which a U.S. veteran was reportedly detained by officials, along with some American citizens.

According to the tribal leader in Arizona, there had been “several concerns and unconfirmed reports” that immigration officials had detained Diné people in urban areas.

“My office is looking into this matter and will provide updates as they come,” he said in the post. “I am working actively with our state leaders and law enforcement to protect our Diné people.”

The speculation of who FARTUS and his gang of White Christian Nationalists will come after first is obvious and just as he promised. I’ll start with them coming for “leftist” professors first. This is from the New York Times. It’s Michelle Goldberg’s offering on her Op-Ed Column. “Trump’s Plan to Crush the Academic Left.”

Creeley, at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, predicts that many state legislatures, local officials and university trustees are going to enlist, either out of enthusiasm or expediency, in the crusade to bring the academic left to heel. “I think you’ll see professors investigated and terminated. I think you’re going to see students punished, and I think you’re going to see a pre-emptive action on those fronts,” he said.

Just look at what’s happened at Harvard this week. On Tuesday it announced that, as part of a lawsuit settlement, it would adopt a definition of antisemitism that includes some harsh criticisms of Israel and Zionism, such as holding Israel to a “double standard” and likening its policies to Nazism. Though Harvard claims that it still adheres to the First Amendment, under this definition a student or professor who accuses Israel of genocidal action in Gaza — as the Israeli American Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov has — might be subject to disciplinary action.

In a further act of capitulation, the Harvard Medical School canceled a lecture and panel on wartime health care that was to feature patients from Gaza because of objections that it was one-sided, The Harvard Crimson reported.

“I think that Harvard likely read the room, so to speak, from a political perspective, and decided to cut their losses,” said Creeley. In this period of capitulation, it probably won’t be the last school to fall in line.

Sara Dorn has written this for Forbes Magazine. “Deportations Have Started, White House Says: Everything To Know About Trump’s Plan. The “largest deportation operation” in U.S. history is underway as hundreds of “illegal immigrant criminals” were arrested Thursday and flown out of the U.S., the White House said, as the federal government, U.S. cities, and Mexico brace for a string of executive orders targeting illegal immigration to take effect.”

  • The White House said deportation flights began Friday, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement made 538 arrests and lodged 373 detainees on Thursday, in addition to hundreds of “illegal immigrant criminals” who were flown out of the U.S. on military aircraft.
  • ICE made 308 arrests Tuesday, Trump’s first full day in office, Border Czar Tom Homan told Fox News, similar to figures under the Biden administration, which made 282 daily arrests on average in September, the last month for which data is available.
  • The administration says removals will pick up quickly, though: ICE and Border Patrol agents have been ordered to deport people who cross the border without authorization immediately and conduct “expedited removals” for people found within the interior of the United States, CBS reports, while major raids are expected in various cities.
  • Trump on Monday signed a string of executive orders targeting immigration: The military was ordered to the border, migrants can no longer make advance appointments with border officials and they must wait in Mexico while their asylum cases play out.
  • Trump also suspended the parole program for migrants from four countries and is attempting to restrict birthright citizenship for children of undocumented and non-permanent immigrants, though a judge on Thursday blocked the policy while legal challenges to the order work their way through the courts.
  • While Trump has said the deportations would begin “very quickly,” the operations will likely require Congress to approve additional funding, as ICE already faces a budget shortfall to maintain existing deportation levels in the current spending plan that expires on March 14, according to NBC.
  • There are also logistical hurdles like a limited number of beds to hold people in pre-deportation and planes to use for deportation flights, though Trump ordered the military to assist with aircraft and detention space—and removals are only possible if countries are willing to accept deportees, posing a challenge, especially for people from U.S. adversaries like Venezuela.

“To be fair… there were a lot of flies on the stage.” John (repeat1968) Buss
‪@johnbuss.bsky.social‬

In The Atlantic, Jonathan Chait writes, “There Is No Resistance. The response to the January 6 pardons shows that the president faces no effective constraints from within his party.” Very few will stand up to him.

To see how far the lines of normal have moved since President Donald Trump freed the January 6ers, briefly return to the closing days of the 2024 presidential campaign. At the time, a hot issue was whether Trump harbored fascist tendencies, as some of his former aides alleged. The very notion struck most conservatives, including some who have criticized him from time to time, as ludicrous. “Trump says crude and unworthy things and behaved abysmally after the 2020 election,” National Review’s editor-in-chief, Rich Lowry, conceded, “but the idea that he bears any meaningful resemblance to these cracked movements is a stupid smear.”

Looking to dismiss the case, Lowry then reached for the wildest example of fascist behavior he could think of: “Obviously, Trump isn’t deploying a paramilitary wing of the GOP to clash with his enemies on the streets.”

I think the one thing we can say about the days since he took the reins is that he’s definitely a fascist, and what he is doing is fascist.  The lies and propaganda are over the top. I am tired of being gaslighted about Elon Musk’s Seig Heil.  If you haven’t seen the films of NAZI German and the Seig Heil that starts from the heart, you know what it is.  Holding your hand up in a wave is totally different.

While the Anti-Defamation League condemned the Seig Heil, Bebe Netanyahu defended him. This is from The Economic Times.  “Israeli PM Netanyahu defends Elon Musk: ‘Falsely smeared’ over Nazi salute row.”

On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk against accusations of making a Nazi salute. Netanyahu took to X (formerly Twitter) to express his support for Musk, stating, “Elon Musk is being falsely smeared. Elon is a great friend of Israel. He visited Israel after the October 7 massacre in which Hamas terrorists committed the worst atrocity against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.” He added,  “He has since repeatedly and forcefully supported Israel’s right to defend itself against genocidal terrorists and regimes who seek to annihilate the one and only Jewish state. I thank him for this.”

The controversy began on January 20, during the inauguration of US President Donald Trump. Musk made a gesture that many social media users likened to the “sieg heil” used by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Musk responded to the allegations by calling them baseless and stating that the gesture was taken out of context. “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired,” Musk posted on X.

Meanwhile,  “War crimes court issues warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister.”     However, this is most important today. This article can be found at AXIOS with its analysis by Andrew Solender.  Can we all start realizing the clear and present danger now?

A House Republican on Thursday introduced a proposed change to the Constitution that would allow President Trump to seek a third term in office.

Why it matters: The amendment has virtually no chance of becoming ratified but it is a marker of the depths of fealty the new president enjoys within the House GOP.

  • Republican House members have rushed to introduce bills that would codify Trump’s vision for expanding the U.S. borders by acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal, for instance.
  • The measure is an extreme long-shot: It would need a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress and be ratified by 38 states to be added to the Constitution.

Driving the news: Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) said Thursday he is introducing a two-page joint resolution to amend the 22nd Amendment, which sets the current two-term limit for presidents.

  • Ogles’ amendment would allow any president to serve a third term if their first two terms were non-consecutive.
  • The text of the amendment would still prohibit a third term if the first two were consecutive — prohibiting former Presidents Bush, Obama and Clinton from running again — or a third full term for anyone who has served more than two years of someone else’s term.

What they’re saying: “It is imperative that we provide President Trump with every resource necessary to correct the disastrous course set by the Biden administration,” Ogles said in a statement.

    • “He is dedicated to restoring the republic and saving our country, and we, as legislators and as states, must do everything in our power to support him.”
    • Ogles is a member of the Trump-aligned House Freedom Caucus who introduced legislation to allow him to negotiate a purchase of Greenland.

The world must think the entire country has gone nuts to let these freaks back into office. This is from King’s College London. “What Trump’s second presidential term could mean for the world. With Donald Trump now sworn in as the 47th US President, academics from King’s have been sharing insights into the implications of his presidency for the USA and the rest of the world.”

Donald Trump’s latest term as US President is set to transform American politics, according to Dr Georgios Samaras, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the International School for Government.

He said Trump’s influential circle, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, and the drive to safeguard free speech has placed Facebook, Instagram, and X in near-complete control of cultural narratives. He said some of these involve “hateful rhetoric, authoritarian themes and misinformation which is increasingly going unchecked.”

…

Professor Andrew Blick appeared on LBC with Andrew Marr, who suggested Trump is behaving like “an old-fashioned European monarch”.

In response, Professor Blick said the US constitution was designed with in-built checks and balances, such as a separate election of the President to Congress, two chambers in the Congress and the Supreme Court. However he said the problem with this was that Trump, or those close to him, seemed to have a hold of all these things.

Comparing the US to the UK, he said there are weaker protections within Britain’s constitutional system which means if someone has strong majority in the House of Commons there are less limitations on what they can do.

He added that the UK has already “seen the Musk effect before the Trump presidency even started” with the owner of X shaping the agenda of British politics, such as the government announcing reviews following a series of posts by Musk. “Without his intervention would that have happened?” he asked.

Professor Blick suggested Keir Starmer and his team will be worried about upsetting Trump and what the consequences might be, although he said the obvious differences between the two political leaders could prove to be Starmer’s “superpower”.

The people of the UK are clearly not amused.  I still remember, as a kid watching Hitler Documentaries at school, how the German people fell for this nonsense. Now I know that being stupid, lazy, racist, and wanting to blame everyone else is an easy out.  It just takes one nutter with that snake oil to make these kinds of people fall in line. And as the poem implies, it takes the rest of us to be complacent.  It also takes legacy media and a corporate culture that values revenues and power over the people they sell stuff to.

Just watch out for yourselves! I can’t see this being reversed very quickly.  The only thing the courts have slowed down is the obvious attack on the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. However, we also know that the Supreme Court has been corrupted.  This is from CNN, as reported by Joan Biskupic, CNN’s Chief Supreme Court Analyst. “How the modern Supreme Court might view the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship.”   Many court decisions are explored in this article, and I suggest you review them. It includes Dred Scott and Wong Kim Ark.  These quotes from Justice Roberts from his confirmation hearings scare me.  Will we actually revisit Dred Scott?

Chief Justice Roberts received no questions about the Wong Kim Ark case during his 2005 Senate confirmation hearings. But Dred Scott was raised, and Roberts responded by calling it, “perhaps the most egregious examples of judicial activism in our history … in which the Court went far beyond what was necessary to decide the case.”

“And really, I think historians would say that the Supreme Court tried to put itself in the position of resolving the dispute about the extension of slavery, and resolving it in a particular way that it thought was best for the Nation,” he added. “And we saw what disastrous consequences flowed from that.”

Since then, Roberts has also alluded to Dred Scott in terms of his own legacy.

“You wonder if you’re going to be John Marshall or you’re going to be Roger Taney,” he said in 2010, contrasting the great 19th century chief justice with the chief justice who wrote Dred Scott.

“The answer is, of course, you are certainly not going to be John Marshall,” Roberts said. “But you want to avoid the danger of being Roger Taney.”

We are so fucked.

The final thing that scares the shit out of me is what the pardons of jailed domestic terrorists that threatened abortion clinics will do to further radicalize the movement again. This is from the BBC.  “Trump pardons anti-abortion activists ahead of rally.” It’s reported by Robert Greenall.

US President Donald Trump has pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists, including some convicted of blockading a reproductive health clinic and intimidating staff and patients.

The pardons were part of a round of executive orders signed by Trump on Thursday, one of several in the first week of his presidency.

Trump described the convictions as “ridiculous”, but abortion rights campaigners said the move was evidence of his opposition to abortion access.

The orders came a day before anti-abortion protesters were due to come to Washington DC for the annual March for Life, which the president is due to address by videolink.

He’s the only US President who has attended the rally in person.

So, today’s big thing will be the Pete Hegseth Vote in the Senate.  This is from The Guardian. “Senate to vote on Pete Hegseth confirmation for secretary of defense. Former Fox News host accused of sexual assault, financial mismanagement and excessive alcohol use appears to have enough Republican votes.”

The Senate will vote on Friday night on the nomination of Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s controversial pick for US secretary of defense, but mounting concerns over Hegseth’s personal history and inexperience have raised doubts about his chances of confirmation.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host and army veteran, cleared a key procedural hurdle on Thursday, after 51 Republican senators voted to advance his nomination toward a final vote. But two Senate Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, joined their Democratic colleagues in voting against advancing Hegseth’s nomination because of their skepticism about his qualifications.

“After thorough evaluation, I must conclude that I cannot in good conscience support his nomination for secretary of defense,” Murkowski said in a statement on Thursday. “I commend Pete Hegseth’s service to our nation, including leading troops in combat and advocating for our veterans. However, these accomplishments do not alleviate my significant concerns regarding his nomination.”

Hegseth can only afford to lose the votes of three Senate Republicans, assuming every Democratic senator opposes his nomination, so it appears he is still on track for confirmation. Two Republican senators who had been viewed as potential no votes, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both supported advancing Hegseth’s nomination on Thursday.

In a floor speech delivered on Friday, the Senate majority leader, Republican John Thune, praised Hegseth’s qualifications and predicted he would steer the Pentagon in a new, forward-thinking direction.

“A veteran of the army national guard who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr Hegseth will bring a warrior’s perspective to the role of defense secretary and will provide much-needed fresh air at the Pentagon,” Thune said.

And yet, Hegseth continues to be dogged by questions about allegations of sexual assault, excessive alcohol use and financial mismanagement of two non-profits that he led. On Thursday, news broke that Hegseth paid $50,000 in a settlement to a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017.

Did I mention we are so fucked?  Vive la résistance

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

 

Mostly Monday Reads:

Posted: December 30, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: kakistocracy, kleptocracy, Regime of Chaos, Republicans against democracy | Tags: , , , , | 10 Comments

Thank you for your service, President Carter. John (repeat1968) Buss

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Yesterday, we lost a good man, a veteran, a fine president, and an outstanding public servant.  I gave my very first vote to Jimmy Carter in 1976. I could not put the man who forgave Richard Nixon back in office. Former President Carter helped rebuild New Orleans after Katrina and spent many days and weeks in the 9th ward. He led an amazing and good life. This is from the Carter Center.

Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the United States and winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, died peacefully Sunday, Dec. 29, at his home in Plains, Georgia, surrounded by his family. He was 100, the longest-lived president in U.S. history.

President Carter is survived by his children — Jack, Chip, Jeff, and Amy; 11 grandchildren; and 14 great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his beloved wife, Rosalynn, and one grandchild.

“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” said Chip Carter, the former president’s son. “My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs.”

There will be public observances in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., followed by a private interment in Plains, Georgia. The final arrangements for President Carter’s state funeral, including all public events and motorcade routes, are still pending. The schedule will be released by the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region at https://jtfncr.mdw.army.mil/statefunerals/.

Members of the public are encouraged to visit the official tribute website to the life of President Carter at www.jimmycartertribute.org. This site includes the official online condolence book as well as print and visual biographical materials commemorating his life.

The Carter family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to The Carter Center, 453 John Lewis Freedom Parkway N.E., Atlanta, GA 30307.

I found this article in the Washington Post intriguing. “11 facts about Jimmy Carter that may surprise you. The peanut farmer-turned-president, who died Sunday at 100, put solar panels on the White House and once spent 89 seconds inside a melting nuclear reactor.”

Jimmy Carter, the Georgia peanut farmer who became the 39th president of the United States, was known for his no-frills lifestyle, early focus on climate change and concerns about growing divisions in the country.

During his single White House term, from 1977 to 1981 — almost one-third of which was clouded by the 444-day-long Iran hostage crisis — the Navy veteran brokered a historic peace accord between Egypt and Israel and pioneered renewable energy as a cheaper alternative to foreign oil. He was the first Democratic president since 1888 not to win reelection. As the United States’ longest-living former president, he spent decades working to advance peace and humanitarianism, efforts for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Here are some facts that may surprise you about Mr. Carter, who died on Sunday at the age of 100 at his home in Plains, Georgia.

Jimmy Carter was the first future president born in a hospital

James Earl Carter Jr. was delivered on Oct. 1, 1924, in a 60-bed hospital in Plains. — becoming the first future president to be born in such a setting. A hospital birth may seem unremarkable today, but at the beginning of the 20th century, nearly all childbirths still took place at home, including the majority at the time of Mr. Carter’s birth. His mother, Lillian, was a registered nurse at the unit in which he was delivered, and his father, James Earl, was a farmer. Four years later, the family moved from Plains to a nearby farm — where his father grew corn, cotton, peanuts and sugar cane.

He was the first president to be inaugurated by a nickname

When Mr. Carter was sworn into office in 1977 on a family Bible held by his wife, Rosalynn Carter, he took the presidential oath of office using the name “Jimmy” instead of “James” — his actual first name, which he rarely used. Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, who also used their nicknames in the White House, opted to be sworn in using their full names during their inaugurations. After Mr. Carter was sworn in, the organizers of his inauguration ceremony floated a giant peanut-shaped balloon in a parade to honor his roots.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were married longer than any other presidential couple

They were married for 77 years. The day after Jimmy took Rosalynn on a date to the movies — in 1945 — he told his mother that he knew he wanted to marry Rosalynn. A year later, when he was 21 and she was 18, they were married. “Over the years, we became not only friends and lovers, but partners,” Rosalynn said close to seven decades later, at Jimmy’s 90th birthday celebration. “He has always thought I could do anything.” The pair had known each other for all of Rosalynn’s life; she lived down the road in their hometown of Plains and was a frequent playmate of Ruth Carter, Jimmy’s little sister.

You may read more at the link.  Former President Carter was a man of principles and strongly held ethics. He stands in contrast to what gets put into the White House again next month. This is just out from the AP. “An appeals court upholds a $5 million award in a sexual abuse verdict against President-elect Trump.”  No wonder this piece of trash is selling merch while supposedly preparing for his next 4 years running the country into the ground.  How could people vote for a felon and adjudicated rapist?

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a jury’s finding in a civil case that Donald Trump sexually abused a columnist in an upscale department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a written opinion upholding the $5 million award that the Manhattan jury granted to E. Jean Carroll for defamation and sexual abuse.

The longtime magazine columnist had testified at a 2023 trial that Trump turned a friendly encounter in spring 1996 into a violent attack after they playfully entered the store’s dressing room.

Trump skipped the trial after repeatedly denying the attack ever happened. But he briefly testified at a follow-up defamation trial earlier this year that resulted in an $83.3 million award. The second trial resulted from comments then-President Trump made in 2019 after Carroll first made the accusations publicly in a memoir.

In its ruling, a three-judge panel of the appeals court rejected claims by Trump’s lawyers that trial Judge Lewis A. Kaplan had made multiple decisions that spoiled the trial, including his decision to allow two other women who had accused Trump of sexually abusing them to testify.

The judge also had allowed the jury to view the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump boasted in 2005 about grabbing women’s genitals because when someone is a star, “you can do anything.”

“We conclude that Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings,” the 2nd Circuit said. “Further, he has not carried his burden to show that any claimed error or combination of claimed errors affected his substantial rights as required to warrant a new trial.”

Meanwhile, we’re about to get steamrolled.  Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice has this analysis today, as the Vivek and Elonia comments on American workers hit them below their belts. “Trumpers discover a type of bigotry they oppose (against themselves). Vivek Ramaswamy gives MAGAs a taste of their own medicine.”

Donald Trump hasn’t even been inaugurated yet, and his leading supporters are already tearing at each other’s throats like a pack of frothing and foul-smelling Klansmen over whether there are any good immigrants.

“Take a big step back and F**K YOURSELF in the face,” Elon Musk tweeted Friday night in defense of immigrants who worked for him, in response to a Trump supporter with a more hardline view.

The spectacle of billionaire Musk, techbro Vivek Ramaswamy, would-be Goebbels Steve Bannon, and gibbering Islamophobe and Trump-whisperer Laura Loomer all screaming and bellowing at each other is entertaining in a morbid way. Acrimony is inevitable in a coalition held together by bile, hatred, and racism. And if Democrats can get their act together, they may well be able to take advantage of MAGA dissension.

At the same time, it’s important not to not over-interpret the intra-Trumper feud. Racism is a lie, which means it’s always incoherent — and racist coalitions often therefore end up fighting amongst themselves about who’s in the in group and who gets targeted by the regime.

But historically, these arguments at the margins have often coexisted with massive human rights abuses. Ramaswamy and Bannon may disagree about the exact trajectory of MAGA. But they can still come together to hurt a lot of people — and that is exactly what they will try to do.

For MAGA, all bigotry is not created equal

This week’s round of MAGA on MAGA violence was ignited by Loomer, who was most recently in the news for her oddly close relationship to Trump in the weeks following the Butler shooting.

On December 23, Loomer attacked Sriram Krishnan, who Trump selected as an advisor on artificial intelligence, criticizing his support for H-1B visas. H-1Bs allow highly skilled workers to come to the US to work and are especially prevalent in tech, where they’re used by many Indian and Chinese engineers. Loomer tweeted that support for H-1Bs was “not America First policy.”

…

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo pointed out that the MAGA spat is the inevitable outcome of “Trump’s deep-seated and extreme transactionalism.” Indeed, Trump has few real policy commitments beyond self-aggrandizement and revenge.

Various people — Musk, Loomer, Bannon, RFK Jr., whoever — glommed onto Trump for fame or fortune or to advance their own agendas. Now they have to fight among themselves because Trump himself doesn’t really care enough to impose a vision, much less any kind of discipline.

That’s certainly part of the dynamic here. But it’s also important to note that the ideological divisions on display are in part the natural result of founding a movement on racism and bigotry.

Racism is as thoroughly debunked as any ideology can be. There is no consistent difference in intelligence or ability between different groups of humans; we’re all the same race. That means that “racial differences” are all made-up nonsense.

And that in turn means that two racists are likely to make up slightly different nonsense from each other. MAGA can hate all immigrants, but idolize Musk — or, if they hate Musk, they can idolize Melania. Ramaswamy can spew a bunch of racist tropes and apply them to Americans as a group rather than to other groups we’re more used to seeing get picked on.

Again, there is more to read at the link.  Just in time for the man who botched COVID-19 with deadly results, we have a new Virus sweeping the country. This is from The Hill.  “Norovirus outbreaks surging across the US: CDC data.”

Norovirus cases are surging across the country this winter, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data.

There were 91 outbreaks reported by state health departments during the week of Dec. 5, up from 69 in the last week of November, according to the CDC.

The highest number for the same period over the last several years was 65 outbreaks.

But the data are not comprehensive. Currently, state, local and territorial health departments are not required to report individual cases of norovirus illness to the CDC, and only 15 states participate in the National Outbreak Reporting System.

Additionally, the CDC pointed out some people may not seek health care for their illness, and most hospitals and doctor’s offices do not generally test for norovirus.

Norovirus is extremely contagious and can cause diarrhea, vomiting, nausea and stomach pain within 12 hours to 47 hours after being exposed, the agency said.

Most people with norovirus get better within one to three days, but they can still spread the virus for a few days after.

Norovirus is the leading cause of foodborne illness in the United States. Each year, there are about 2,500 reported outbreaks. They can occur throughout the year but are most common between November and April, the CDC said.

Just in time for the Republicans who want to dismantle the FDA. Speaking of today’s Republicans, this may or may not shock you.  This is from AXIOS. “Nearly half of GOP voters support using military to put immigrants in camps.”Russell Contreras has the analysis.

Almost half of Republican voters believe the U.S. military should round up undocumented immigrants and put them into detention camps until they can be deported, a new survey finds.

Why it matters: President-elect Trump has suggested that he’ll use the military in immigration raids and turn to a 1798 law to put immigrants in camps.

  • His base appears to support those plans despite the likely fierce opposition from most Americans.

By the numbers: 46% of Republicans endorse using the military in mass deportation raids and placing immigrants in camps, according to a nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) post-election survey.

  • That’s more than double that of independent voters (19%) who agree with the idea.
  • And that’s more than five times as Democratic voters (8%) who supported this policy.

What they’re saying: “There have been questions in the Trump era where I’ve thought…I can’t believe that we need to know the answer to this question,” Robert P. Jones, president and founder of PRRI, tells Axios.

  • “I guess the good news is that three-quarters of the country rejects this idea that we should be putting immigrants in the country illegally into internment camps guarded by the military.”
  • Jones said the bad news is that nearly half of people who consider themselves members of a mainstream political party do.

State of play: Trump said in his recent TIME “Person of the Year” interview that he would be open to using camps to hold detained immigrants in the U.S.

  • Trump in the TIME interview suggested deporting 21 million people, which would likely require an increase in detention centers to hold people suspected of being in the U.S. without authorization before they’re deported.

Reality check: Study after study shows there are 11 million undocumented people in the country, not 21 million, as Trump has repeatedly and falsely said.

  • There are roughly 24.5 million noncitizen immigrants in the U.S., including those here awaiting asylum decisions or otherwise here lawfully, according to the Pew Research Center.

This is the annual American Values Survey. You may read about their methodology at the link.  Ask me again why I never leave Orleans Parish anymore.  I try not to run into these kinds of folks.

Zoom in: The PRRI survey also found that American voters who hold highly authoritarian views were six times as likely to endorse putting undocumented immigrants into such camps than American voters who reject authoritarianism (48% v. 8%).

Lawyer Marc E. Elias suggests you watch him discuss how Joe Biden and Senate Democrats had a big victory in confirming federal judges with Brian Tyler Cohen.

So that’s it for me this year!  I will see you in the New Year!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Finally Friday Reads: MAGA-Extended Boxing Day

Posted: December 27, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: Elon Musk, kakistocracy, kleptocracy, Tech Bro Wars | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

On this Boxing Day, let’s call it for what it is. Elder Abuse. John Buss, @johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Boxing Day is a holiday celebrated in the United Kingdom and some of the commonwealth nations.  Boxing Day used to be a day to donate items and food to the needy, but like everything Decemberish, it has been melded into the Crassmas season and has become a shopping event. It was never a literal “boxing day,” although other sports events often coincide with the holiday.  It was also a day to share the haul with employees and tradespeople.  It’s been around since the 1740s but has morphed into just another day to go shopping for deals, much like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The original holiday dates back to the 1660s. It was generally a day that the aristocracy gave their servants a break to visit family and bring home a few leftovers and bestowed gifts.  Funny how those things morph the more that Corporations take things over.

I liked John’s cartoon take, and today, it seems more literal than usual since there is much unhappiness in the MAGA house as the rank and file learn more of the plans the Tech Dudes have for the country. I’ve always wondered how Kash and Vivek, with their swarthy complexions, sat with the obviously xenophobic and angry wipipo that make up the MAGA base. Maybe the base thought they were just an extension of the old Memsahib days of Colonial India.  After all, Memsahib Incontinentia Buttocks certainly needs an entourage since he’s incapable of doing much of anything these days.

It appears, however, that Memsahib Laura Loomer recognized some boundary overstepping from Vivek even though it all popped up on Boxing Day when giving the help a break was in order.  Any job that takes more tha basic math and a lot of technological training does not have a large pool of Americans able to do the work. I experienced this first hand getting quite mathy degrees in Finance and Economics, which require the same kind of math that astrophysics, rocket science, engineering, and climatology require.  Grad school degree programs with heavy math are full of students from the Middle East and Asia. Most Americans wind up with an MBA where the courses really don’t even go beyond the early undergrad level. One of my grad school colleagues from Punjab was a great gift to me during my grad school year.  He lived with me after Katrina for a while and helped me get through the mathy parts of my qualifiers.  His first calculus class came in the 5th grade.  Imagine that!

So, given that the Tech Bros need math geeks there was bound to be an issue inventually.  And this year’s Boxing Day has proven to be a MAGA match-up between the base and Memsahib Incontinentia Buttocks and her entourage of Tech Bros.  With all things MAGA,  one’s race and nationality eventually become the screaming points.

I have to use The Times of London as my first source.  It just seems so fit for a replay of Victorian Colonial Politics and nativism.  I just hope they don’t take it out on the Indian Diaspora and their children, which includes my colleagues and family. “Maga’s uncivil war: Musk and Ramaswamy under fire in ‘culture war.’ Vivek Ramaswamy, who will co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency, blamed American ‘culture of mediocrity’ for a lack of talented specialist workers.”  Ouch.  We may have put a man on the moon back in the day, but you may also remember that was due to many black women doing the math for the dudes.  We’re not what we used to be because of the long-term war on education by Republicans and their Fundamentalist crusaders who like those low educational attainment voters.

Elon Musk’s tech bros have clashed with the Maga rank and file over immigration for Silicon Valley workers, exposing the fragile alliance forged to put Donald Trump in the White House.

The chief executive of Tesla — who spent $277 million backing Trump and other Republicans during November’s election — believes America must attract top engineering talent to secure technological dominance over China.

Musk, 53, who has been put in charge of cutting government waste in Trump’s incoming administration, joined other prominent Silicon Valley figures in criticising a lack of highly-skilled workers to meet the industry’s demands at a time of intense competition over artificial intelligence.

Trump’s base — energised by the president-elect’s harsh rhetoric — is broadly opposed to immigration, however, whether skilled or unskilled, and argues that Americans should be prioritised over foreign workers.

Much of the debate is over H-1B visas, which Silicon Valley relies upon to bring in specialist workers with technical skills. Critics say that the visas have been exploited to allow in mediocre talent at the expense of Americans who demand higher wages.

Vivek Ramaswamy, 39, a biotech entrepreneur who ran for the Republican presidential nomination before dropping out to back Trump, ignited a furious response on X by sharing a lengthy post outlining why he thought America lacked the necessary technical talent.

Ramaswamy, who will lead the Department of Government Efficiency with Musk, blamed culture for the perceived shortfall.

“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long — at least since the Nineties, and likely longer. That doesn’t start in college, it starts young,” he said.

“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

Ramaswamy referenced the television shows Boy Meets World, Saved by the Bell and Family Matters as examples where a bookish character played second fiddle to a cool kid to bolster his point.

Ramaswamy is not wrong about the culture here, but he really is not the best messenger for the MAGA crowd.  As I said, those of us in techy Grad School areas have known this since the 70s, although a huge number of my colleagues were from Iran or Hong Kong back then. That’s changed, obviously. However, if you really want to get down with the American brainiacs at University these day,s you need to speak with the women.  Black women are excelling in these areas. This Talking Points Memo article is a bit more explicit. “Who Got Duped? MAGA Activists Worry That Nativism And Tech Oligarchy May Not Go Hand In Hand.” Josh Kovensky has the analysis.

Over the past few days, a fight has erupted within the MAGA right over legal immigration, specifically about whether the country should admit more high-skilled immigrants.

On the one side, you have opportunistic tech oligarchs like Elon Musk and David Sacks. These are incredibly wealthy figures who are open about using their newfound influence in government to serve both their ideological and their private business interests. On the other are figures like Laura Loomer, Nick Fuentes, and other nativist (and often openly racist) online personalities who had been vocal Trump supporters long before the Silicon Valley right joined the coalition.

The two sides began to argue on Sunday, after Donald Trump appointed Sriram Krishan, a partner at Andreesen Horowitz, as a White House policy adviser on Artificial Intelligence to work with Sacks, the Trump administration’s crypto and AI czar.

This may seem like a relatively minor White House appointment. However, Krishan has also been a proponent of removing country caps on green cards and H1-B visas, which allow American companies to hire foreign workers for certain specializations.

To the far-right, nativist influencers that have from the start glommed onto Trumpian scapegoating of immigrants, Krishan’s position crossed a line. Loomer, an anti-immigrant provocateur who traveled with Trump during his campaign, called it “deeply disturbing.” Sacks replied, perhaps not fully understanding his audience, by noting that Indian immigrants face an 11-year wait for green cards.

This was catnip for Loomer, who replied by suggesting that Sacks was in on a new version of the great replacement theory, and spent the next several days making vile statements about immigrants, accusing those who disagree with her on H1-B visas of hating Americans, and demanding that senior Trump officials denounce their Silicon Valley allies. Sacks, whose recent political positions have included strident opposition to American support for Ukraine, denounced the “crude” attacks.

Soon, other Trump-involved tech oligarchs, like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, jumped into the fray. Musk wrote that “the number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low. Think of this like a pro sports team: if you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be. That enables the whole TEAM to win.”

Ramaswamy swooped in on Thursday to explain his view that American companies were forced to hire foreign skilled labor due to a deficit in homegrown American culture itself.

“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” Ramaswamy wrote, adding later: “More math tutoring, fewer sleepovers.”

As you might imagine, MAGA nativists of various stripes regard this Silicon Valley defense of skilled immigration with a paranoid and often racist eye. Fuentes, the groyper leader, described Ramaswamy’s position as an attempt to get “500 million indians to move here.” Others reacted to Ramaswamy’s premise that there may be something wrong with America. Jeremy Carl, a senior fellow at the nativist Claremont Institute, pushed back in a gentler fashion while still suggesting that Ramaswamy’s vision would “destroy the things that actually make America great.”

Ah, the fury of a mediocre white male! Never fear!   MAGA Super Karen Laura Lurid to the rescue! “‘Should MAGA stay home in 2026?’ Laura Loomer wages ‘racist’ war against ‘tech bros’ over Indian migrants. The far-right provocateur is taking aim at Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy over their support of highly skilled workers from India, claiming that the country’s residents have a low IQ and describing Indians as “third-world invaders.”  This is from The Independent and was written by Justin Baragona.

Trump acolyte and self-proclaimed “proud Islamophobe”Laura Loomer is threatening to tell MAGA to “stay home” during the next midterm elections amid an escalating feud with “tech bros” Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy over Silicon Valley’s reliance on foreign-born workers.

Loomer has engaged in a multi-day social media tirade over President-elect Donald Trump’s recent appointment of Indian-American entrepreneur Sriram Krishnan as a senior policy adviser for AI, prompting the loyal MAGA supporter to rage about Krishnan’s support of H-1B visas for Indian immigrants.

With the Trump administration promising an immediate crackdown on immigration, Loomer has launched a series of attacks on Indians described as “racist” following Krishnan’s appointment, which she called “deeply disturbing.” Describing workers from India as “third-world invaders,” Loomer also took issue with Musk and Ramaswamy defending the tech industry importing “super talented engineers” from overseas.

“The average IQ in India is 76,” Loomer tweeted at one point, along with several other posts disparaging Indians and their home country.

Loomer, who previously sparked backlash for making bigoted remarks about Kamala Harris’s Indian heritage, has found supportamong what some have described as “OG MAGA” in her civil war against Trump-supporting tech entrepreneurs. In particular, she has received quite a bit of backing from “groypers,” the followers of notorious white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

Musk and other Tech Dudes actually joined the fray.  The Hill has this headline today. “Musk, Ramaswamy defend Silicon Valley’s foreign-born hires.”  Julia Shapero reports the story. Sorry this is taking me so long to write. I’m either spewing tea at the screen or peeing myself laughing so hard.  It’s making things complicated.  Someone forgot to tell them you can’t say that quiet part out loud.  The mediocre white guys get very angry.

Conservative tech leaders quickly jumped to Krishnan’s defense. David Sacks, who Trump has tapped to serve as White House AI and crypto czar, said the Andreessen Horowitz partner was arguing for the elimination of per-country caps on green cards.

“Sriram still supports skills-based criteria for receiving a green card, not making the program unlimited,” Sacks wrote on X. “In fact, he wants to make the program entirely merit-based. Supporting a limited number of highly skilled immigrants is still a prevalent view on the right. Sriram is definitely not a ‘career leftist’!”

Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir Technologies, also argued that Krishnan is “America First.”

“For USA to have the highest standard of living, generous govt services, and strongest military, we need to recruit the best and brightest and build the best companies,” Lonsdale said. “I’m against more low-end H1B immigrants; but let’s win at the talent game.”

The discussion of Silicon Valley’s hiring practices comes as Trump prepares to implement an ambitious and controversial immigration strategy, promising mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and potentially naturalized citizens. Musk and Ramaswamy have both voiced support for Trump’s immigration plans.

This just makes me go all Kipling with the thoughts of The White Man’s Burden.  You could also read Mark Twain’s “To the Person Sitting in Darkness.” It’s actually a good Christmas reading.  I can’t believe we’re having these discussions again.   This headline is good for shits and giggles.   The Rolling Stone may be the guiding light this year in such a dark season. “Trump Ally Laura Loomer Says Elon Musk Is ‘Silencing’ Her Amid Immigration Spat.  As Loomer railed at Musk for backing legal immigration for skilled tech workers, his X platform took away Loomer’s blue-check verification badge.” Musk actually deactivated her account!   Here’s the story from Mediaiate. “Elon Musk’s Critics Stripped of Verification Badge After Publicly Challenging Billionaire: ‘The Beginning Stages of Censorship’.”  Charlie Nash has the lede.

Several conservative critics of billionaire Trump surrogate Elon Musk were stripped of their verification badges on X after publicly challenging Musk’s stance on immigration.

Trump ally Laura Loomer, New York Young Republican Club president Gavin Wax, InfoWars host Owen Shroyer, and the pro-Trump ConservativePAC were all stripped of their verification badges after criticizing Musk’s controversial remarks about American workers and foreign H-1B visa holders.

“[Musk] has removed my blue check mark on X because I dared to question his support for H1B visas, the replacement of American tech workers by Indian immigrants, and I questioned his relationship with China,” wrote Loomer in a post on Musk’s social network X, formerly known as Twitter.

She continued:

Looks like Elon Musk is going to be silencing me for supporting original Trump immigration policies.

I have always been America First and a die hard supporter of President Trump and I believe that promises made should be promises kept. Donald Trump promised to remove the H1B visa program and I support his policy. Now, as one of Trump’s biggest supporters, I’m having my free speech silenced by a tech billionaire for simply questioning the tech oligarchy.

Elon has decided to retaliate by removing my blue check and demonetizing me.

I guess he doesn’t really believe in Free speech after all.

Loomer ended her post with a link to Truth Social – President-elect Donald Trump’s own social network.

While several Musk allies claimed Loomer had been stripped of her verification for changing her photo, Loomer dismissed those claims and called the move “retaliation.”

Responding to the suggestion that her verification check was removed for an unrelated reason, Loomer wrote, “I mean right after @elonmusk called me a troll today, my account verification was taken away, my subscriptions were deactivated and I was banned from being able to buy premium even though I was already paying for premium. Clearly retaliation.”

Where has she been that this is actually news to her? I’m going to finish with this analysis from The Daily Beast.  This comes under the heading of Peace on Earth and Goodwill to MEN. “All-Out MAGA Civil War Engulfs Trump Already. TECH BROS UNDER FIRE.  Trump’s winning electoral coalition couldn’t quite make it through the season of goodwill.”  Nico Hines has the analysis.  It’s a Skunk Fight!!!!  Even Matt Gaetz got into the rift!

Well, that didn’t take long.

The logic-twisting alliance between Silicon Valley’s new oligarchs and the home-spun patriotism at the heart of the Republican grassroots movement is shattering before our very eyes.

MAGA stalwarts like Laura Loomer and Matt Gaetz are already turning their fire on the tech bros who helped bankroll Donald Trump’s comeback bid for the White House before he is even sworn in as president for a second time.

It was always going to end in tears, but few observers predicted that an all-out MAGA civil war would erupt before we even reach the New Year.

Overnight, Trump cheerleaders have used Elon Musk’s platform to attack the world’s richest man—and many now claim Musk is using his social media omnipotence to shut them down.

“Never insult the monarch,” MAGA chronicler Mike Cernovic warned his 1.3 million followers. Musk replied: “I am constantly insulted on this platform.”

That was the final straw for Laura Loomer, a failed Republican congressional candidate who got so close to Trump during the campaign that she accompanied him on the plane to the presidential debate with Kamala Harris.

“This is America. We don’t have a monarchy. This is outrageous,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter, after claiming that she was being censored on the platform by Musk.

Loomer waded into the Boxing Day culture war sparked by Vivek Ramaswamy’s controversial post claiming that “American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.” A debate over H1B visas has quickly descended into a bitter feud between those—led by the tech crowd—who believe importing highly skilled workers from abroad will boost the American economy and those—like Trump himself—who have long argued that the visas are being abused by companies seeking cheaper foreign labor to the detriment of American workers.

The traditional white working-class bedrock of the MAGA movement, which sprang from the Tea Party, has always been intensely focused on reducing immigration, something Trump championed during his first term, symbolized by his promised wall along the border with Mexico.

Musk tried to steer a path between the two sides, with a “clarification” of his DOGE partner’s comments by saying that H1Bs should only be used for the very top talents, but the MAGA majority appeared not to be placated.

Loomer claimed Musk and Ramaswamy infiltrated the movement for their own ends. “I have been more loyal to President Trump and his agenda than ANYONE. And I have only been punished for it. Pay attention MAGA. This is how you will all be treated now that Big Tech has infiltrated MAGA. “President Musk” is starting to look real,” she said.

I can only imagine what watching this soap opera evolve as we get farther into January. Goddesses Bless us, Everyone!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

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