It’s a slow news day, as expected during the dead zone between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Most of the mainstream outlets are covering the ongoing battle between MAGAs and Tech bros over H1B visas, which Dakinikat in detail in yesterday’s post. Here’s one update to the story by Hafiz Rashid at The New Republic: Steve Bannon Joins War Against Elon Musk as MAGA Implodes.
Steve Bannon has joined the MAGA war between hard-line immigration opponents and tech executives like Elon Musk, taking the side of xenophobia on his War Room show Friday.
“H-1B visas? That’s not what it’s about. It’s about taking American jobs and bringing over essentially what have become indentured servants at lower wages,” the former Trump adviser turned pundit said, referring to the visa program that allows immigrants in specialized fields to work in the United States temporarily.
“This thing’s a scam by the oligarchs in Silicon Valley to basically take jobs from American citizens, give them to what become indentured servants from foreign countries, and then pay ‘em less. Simple. To let them in through the golden door,” Bannon added.
Musk set off the MAGA faithful on social media on Wednesday morning, posting on X about how more foreign tech workers need to be allowed to work in the United States because “there is a permanent shortage of excellent engineering talent.” Vivek Ramaswamy, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency sidekick, generated his own backlash from the right Thursday by suggesting American culture was to blame for why employers seek tech employees from overseas.
Many on the right disagreed vehemently, particularly racists like Laura Loomer, who spent most of Thursday on her X account attacking Musk and tech executives who share his views. Musk then retaliated against Loomer and his other MAGA friends turned critics that evening, allegedly censoring them on the platform by removing their verification badges and hurting their engagement.
Neither side is right on the issue, though. Bannon, Loomer, and other anti-immigration conservatives are motivated by nativism and racism in their opposition to foreign tech workers, and tech CEOs like Musk seek low-wage immigrants to work for long hours in their companies instead of American workers who don’t have a fragile visa status hanging over their heads.
Steve Bannon has labeled Elon Musk a “toddler” after the tech billionaire urged opponents of H-1B skilled migrant worker visas to “F*** YOURSELF in the face.”
Bannon, who served as Donald Trump‘s White House chief strategist for seven months in 2017, made the comment on social media platform Gettr, which is primarily used by conservatives….
Bannon’s comments are just the latest salvo in an increasingly bitter row within Trump’s MAGA [Make America Great Again] coalition over H-1B visas, and legal immigration more generally, which has pitted some of his key supporters in big business and Silicon Valley against more nativist elements.
Once in office Trump could struggle to placate both those in business who believe skilled legal migration boosts the U.S. economy, and those of his supporters who think it takes place at the expense of American workers….
In a post on his X social media platform, formerly Twitter, South African-born Musk commented: “The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B.
“Take a big step back and F*** YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.”
A screenshot of the post was shared by Bannon on Gettr, with Trump’s former strategist and 2016 campaign manager adding: “Someone please notify ‘Child Protective Services’— need to do a ‘wellness check’ on this toddler.” [….]
The H-1B visa allows American companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. These typically require theoretical or technical expertise in fields such as information technology (IT), engineering, mathematics, finance, medicine, science, or other professional disciplines.
The number is currently capped at 65,000 per year, though an additional 20,000 visas are made available annually for foreigners who graduate in the U.S. with a master’s degree or doctorate.
Luna from Sailor Moon
On a more serious note, as Trump prepares to take office, the U.S. faces the strong possibility of another pandemic. That is frightening, considering how badly Trump handled the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that Trump has nominated anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist Robert Kennedy Junior as head of the Department of Human Services (DHS).
A new report from PBS highlights the potential danger of bird flu turning into a full-blown pandemic in the United States.
In particular, PBS spoke with several experts who said the United States has been behind the ball when it comes to keeping a handle on the pandemic and they point to the fact that the United States Department of Agriculture has only recently started testing milk nationwide for bird flu contamination.
“It’s disheartening to see so many of the same failures that emerged during the COVID-19 crisis reemerge,” explained Tom Bollyky, the director of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Global Health Program….
Tom Peacock, a bird flu researcher at the Pirbright Institute in the United Kingdom, said that the real danger could come if the bird flu virus mutates in a way that makes it easily transmissible between humans.
“Even if there’s only a 5 percent chance of a bird flu pandemic happening, we’re talking about a pandemic that probably looks like 2020 or worse,” he told PBS. “The U.S. knows the risk but hasn’t done anything to slow this down.”
Keith Poulsen’s jaw dropped when farmers showed him images on their cellphones at the World Dairy Expo in Wisconsin in October. A livestock veterinarian at the University of Wisconsin, Poulsen had seen sick cows before, with their noses dripping and udders slack.
But the scale of the farmers’ efforts to treat the sick cows stunned him. They showed videos of systems they built to hydrate hundreds of cattle at once. In 14-hour shifts, dairy workers pumped gallons of electrolyte-rich fluids into ailing cows through metal tubes inserted into the esophagus.
“It was like watching a field hospital on an active battlefront treating hundreds of wounded soldiers,” he said.
Nearly a year into the first outbreak of the bird flu among cattle, the virus shows no sign of slowing. The U.S. government failed to eliminate the virus on dairy farms when it was confined to a handful of states, by quickly identifying infected cows and taking measures to keep their infections from spreading. Now at least 875 herds across 16 states have tested positive.
Experts say they have lost faith in the government’s ability to contain the outbreak.
“We are in a terrible situation and going into a worse situation,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. “I don’t know if the bird flu will become a pandemic, but if it does, we are screwed.”
To understand how the bird flu got out of hand, KFF Health News interviewed nearly 70 government officials, farmers and farmworkers, and researchers with expertise in virology, pandemics, veterinary medicine, and more.
Together with emails obtained from local health departments through public records requests, this investigation revealed key problems, including deference to the farm industry, eroded public health budgets, neglect for the safety of agriculture workers, and the sluggish pace of federal interventions.
Case in point: The U.S. Department of Agriculture this month announced a federal order to test milk nationwide. Researchers welcomed the news but said it should have happened months ago — before the virus was so entrenched….
Far more bird flu damage is inevitable, but the extent of it will be left to the Trump administration and Mother Nature. Already, the USDA has funneled more than $1.7 billion into tamping down the bird flu on poultry farms since 2022, which includes reimbursing farmers who’ve had to cull their flocks, and more than $430 million into combating the bird flu on dairy farms. In coming years, the bird flu may cost billions of dollars more in expenses and losses. Dairy industry experts say the virus kills roughly 2 percent to 5 percent of infected dairy cows and reduces a herd’s milk production by about 20 percent.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said her agency will need to start taking “extraordinary measures,” or special accounting maneuvers intended to prevent the nation from hitting the debt ceiling, as early as January 14, in a letter sent to congressional leaders Friday afternoon.
“Treasury expects to hit the statutory debt ceiling between January 14 and January 23,” Yellen wrote in a letter addressed to House and Senate leadership, at which point extraordinary measures would be used to prevent the government from breaching the nation’s debt ceiling — which has been suspended until Jan. 1, 2025.
The department has in the past deployed what are known as “extraordinary measures” or accounting maneuvers to keep the government operating. But once those measures run out the government risks defaulting on its debt unless lawmakers and the president agree to lift the limit on the U.S. government’s ability to borrow.
“I respectfully urge Congress to act to protect the full faith and credit of the United States,” she said.
The news comes after President Joe Biden signed a bill into law last week that averted a government shutdown but did not include President-elect Donald Trump’s core debt demand to raise or suspend the nation’s debt limit. The bill was approved by Congress only after fierce internal debate among Republicans over how to handle Trump’s demand. “Anything else is a betrayal of our country,” Trump said in a statement.
After a protracted debate in the summer of 2023 over how to fund the government, policymakers crafted the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which included suspending the nation’s $31.4 trillion borrowing authority until Jan. 1, 2025.
Notably however, Yellen said, on Jan. 2 the debt is projected to temporarily decrease due to a scheduled redemption of nonmarketable securities held by a federal trust fund associated with Medicare payments. As a result, “Treasury does not expect that it will be necessary to start taking extraordinary measures on January 2 to prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations,” she said.
Muta from Whisper of the Heart
Will the Republicans have a Speaker of the House by mid-January? They not only have to deal with the debt ceiling, but also they will need a Speaker in order to count and certify the electoral votes on January 6, 2025.
Trump has promised to take a number of steps on “day 1” of his administration, including pardoning people who were convicted of crimes on January 6 2021 and beginning plans for mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. A couple of related stories:
With Donald Trump winning back the White House, his Big Lie that Jan. 6 was just an enthusiastic rally that got out of hand, rather than an insurrectionist mob he unleashed to disrupt the count of the 2020 electoral college, has new currency.
A new congressional Republican report, spearheaded by MAGA lapdog Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) has recommended a criminal probe of former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) for co-chairing the House Jan. 6 investigation. Loudermilk’s report reached a through-the-looking-glass conclusion that Cheney & co. had promoted “a false, pre-determined narrative that President Trump was personally responsible for the breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6 and should therefore be held accountable.”
Trump is returning to the Oval Office with an explicit agenda to rewrite history — and upend convictions. He has vowed to issue “Day One” pardons to Jan. 6 criminals and defendants, whom he has called “great patriots,” “hostages,” and “warriors.” During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump referred to Jan. 6 itself as “a day of love.” And when he recently summoned tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg to Mar-a-Lago, Trump reportedly prompted his guests to rise and place their hands over their hearts, while listening to a rendition of the national anthem sung by jailed Jan. 6 defendants.
It is not precisely clear whom Trump wants to pardon. But the list of Jan. 6 convicts includes many serving long sentences for serious felonies — ranging from injuring police officers to sedition. In mid-December, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., who has handled many Jan. 6 criminal cases, spoke out from the bench. District Court Judge Amit Mehta said the idea that Trump could pardon the former head of the Oath Keepers militia haunts him: “The notion that Stewart Rhodes could be absolved is frightening — and ought to be frightening to anyone who cares about democracy,” Mehta said, per a courtroom report in Politico. In 2023, Mehta handed down an 18-year sentence to Rhodes for “seditious conspiracy.” (The prison term included a terrorism enhancement.)
Asked by Rolling Stone if Trump planned to pardon Rhodes — or others imprisoned on seditious conspiracy charges, like Enrique Tarrio, the ex-honcho of the Proud Boys — the presidential transition team didn’t rule it out. “President Trump will make pardon decisions on a case-by-case basis for those who were denied due process and unfairly targeted by the justice system,” says Trump transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt.
In the buildup to Jan. 6 and in its aftermath, Rhodes spearheaded militia activity that that saw Oath Keepers lieutenants stockpile weapons across the border in Virginia, creating “Quick Reaction Forces” or QFCs, that could be activated in the hoped-for scenario that Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act and summon militia groups to battle his enemies to help him cling to power.
Rhodes was outside the Capitol during the rioting, but communicated with members in the building. When Rhodes received a report that members of Congress were in danger and looking to flee, he replied, per court documents, “Fuck ‘em.” At sentencing, Rhodes compared himself to the Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Mehta told Rhodes to his face that he was no “political prisoner” — but rather an “ongoing threat and peril to this country.”
Daren Humbert Vaughn:, Gikkingen from The Cat Returns
Mexico is developing a cellphone app that will allow migrants to warn relatives and local consulates if they think they are about to be detained by the U.S. immigration department, a senior official said Friday.
The move is in response to President-elect Donald Trump’s threats to carry out mass deportations after he takes office on Jan. 20.
The app has been rolled out for small-scale testing and “appears to be working very well,” said Juan Ramón de la Fuente, Mexico’s secretary of foreign affairs.
He said the app would allow users to press a tab that would send an alert notification to previously chosen relatives and the nearest Mexican consulate. De la Fuente described it as a sort of panic button.
“In case you find yourself in a situation where detention is imminent, you push the alert button, and that sends a signal to the nearest consulate,” he said.
U.S. authorities are obliged to give notice to home-country consulates when a foreign citizen is detained. Mexico says it has beefed up consular staff and legal aid to help migrants in the legal process related to deportation.
DENVER (AP) — A Colorado man is facing possible bias-motivated charges for allegedly attacking a television news reporter after demanding to know whether he was a citizen, saying “This is Trump’s America now,” according to court documents.
Patrick Thomas Egan, 39, was arrested Dec. 18 in Grand Junction, Colorado, after police say he followed KKCO/KJCT reporter Ja’Ronn Alex’s vehicle for around 40 miles (64 kilometers) from the Delta area. Alex told police that he believed he had been followed and attacked because he is Pacific Islander.
After arriving in Grand Junction, Egan, who was driving a taxi, pulled up next to Alex at a stoplight and, according to an arrest affidavit, said something to the effect of: “Are you even a U.S. citizen? This is Trump’s America now! I’m a Marine and I took an oath to protect this country from people like you!”
Alex, who had been out reporting, then drove back to his news station in the city. After he got out of his vehicle, Egan chased Alex as he ran toward the station’s door and demanded to see his identification, according to the document laying out police’s evidence in the case. Egan then tackled Alex, put him in a headlock and “began to strangle him,” the affidavit said. Coworkers who ran out to help and witnesses told police that Alex appeared to be losing his ability to breathe during the attack, which was partially captured on surveillance video, according to the document.
According to the station’s website, Alex is a native of Detroit. KKCO/KJCT reported that he was driving a news vehicle at the time.
The office of New York’s attorney general released body camera footage Friday showing the fatal beating of a state prisoner this month by correctional officers who punched and kicked him repeatedly while he was handcuffed on an infirmary bed.
The incident, which has drawn outrage from political leaders and was condemned by the officers’ union as “incomprehensible,” is being investigated by state Attorney General Letitia James. The inmate, Robert Brooks, 43, died in the hospital a day after the Dec. 9 attack.
“I do not take lightly the release of this video, especially in the middle of the holiday season,” James said at a virtual news conference.
“These videos are shocking and disturbing,” she added.
Brooks can be seen in the videos with his hands cuffed behind his back. In one video, he is sitting up as an officer presses his foot down on him. He is then punched by two officers.
At another point, he is forcefully yanked from the bed by his shirt collar and held up above the ground, his face visibly bloodied.
Last week, Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to begin the process of firing 14 workers at the Marcy Correctional Facility in Oneida County, where the incident occurred. They include correctional officers, sergeants and a prison nurse. In the interim, all have been suspended without pay, except for one officer, who already resigned.
In a statement following the release of the videos, Daniel Martuscello, the commissioner of the state corrections department, said his office has launched its own investigation in an effort to bring “institutional change.”
Read much more at the NBC News link.
Those are my recommended reads for today. Take care, everyone.
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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 useThe Times of Londonas 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.
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.
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.
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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As we inch close to January 20 and another Trump administration, my feeling of dread only grows stronger. Already, Trump is dominating the news and acting as if he is in charge.
Last time, Trump had the “adults in the room” to occasionally hold back his efforts to destroy the country; this time, he only has Elon Musk, and Trump still doesn’t seem to comprehend that Musk is manipulating him. It’s going to be every bit as chaotic and exhausting as last time. And, of course, there will be the ugly Trump social media posts. Here’s his Christmas greeting from Truth Social:
Pieter Bruegel the Elder – Hunters in the Snow
Isn’t that sweet? I will never understand how anyone could stand to be in the same room with this monster, let alone vote for him for POTUS.
There’s not much exciting news today, but I’ve found some interesting reads.
The bald eagle has landed in the U.S. code after President Joe Biden signed a bill Tuesday making the predator the official national bird.
Congress passed the measure with unanimous support.
Although the bird of prey is at the center of the Great Seal of the United States, it was never formally recognized as the country’s official bird. Some of the Founding Fathers — Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson — were tasked with creating a national seal but simply couldn’t come to an agreement.
In 1782, a version of the seal with a bald eagle was submitted by Secretary of the Continental Congress Charles Thomson and approved. Most Americans are familiar with the seal’s eagle carrying a flag-emblazoned shield holding an olive branch in one talon and arrows in the other.
Franklin was historically against the decision, arguing in a letter to his daughter that the bald eagle was “a bird of bad moral character.”
Either way, the U.S. has not had an official bird in the almost 250 years since its founding.
Nearly eight years ago, reports began circulating in Washington that the Trump administration was going to be chaotic. One obvious sign was the rapid turnover of aides close to the president. Within months, Trump had replaced his chief of staff, national security advisor, press secretary and counselor to the president. Ultimately, in a four-year period, Trump would go through four chiefs of staff, four national security advisors, four press secretaries and five counselors to the president.
Beyond the rapid turnover, those who worked with Trump in his first term recounted his anarchic governing style. He refused to read briefing books before meeting with government leaders and simply “winged” important negotiations. He read only one-page summaries, and even then, only if they were filled with maps, photos and graphs. He ignored advice from his counselors in favor of information (or misinformation) from Fox News and extreme social media posts. He made policy on his own via tweets rather than through consultations with others.
Aides, who sought anonymity for obvious reasons, recounted that Trump was spending several hours every day watching television, typically Fox News, and impulsively walking out of meetings he was bored with. As a result, his governing style whipsawed between a lack of interest and sudden intense activity. Simply put, he did not pay attention until, suddenly, he understood a policy he did not like was being made without him. For example, in 2018, he intervened at the last minute as a government shutdown loomed to insist that the continuing resolution include money for a Mexican border wall. One aide reported that Trump was an “instinctive and reactive” leader.
His aides revealed that his attention span was extraordinarily short. They confessed that when he made some outrageous demand, they would distract him with something else, expecting he would forget about the order he just gave. One journalist found that Trump was live-tweeting Fox News, setting his agenda based on what Fox News was reporting.
Political scientist David Drezner analyzed statements by Trump aides and supporters comparing him to a toddler who throws temper tantrums when he does not get his way, has a short attention span, and has no interest in learning if it is not presented in an extremely simple manner. Drezner says his aides would treat Trump like a toddler by using reverse psychology on him (telling him he cannot do something that they actually wanted him to do), keeping him busy so he would not have time to tweet, and feeding him simple information.
Van Gogh-Snowy Landscape with Arles in Background
This time, it will be much, much worse. Trump has already threatened to take over Panama, Greenland, and Canada. And, of course, he has threatened repeatedly to attack Mexico.
The Danish government has announced a huge boost in defence spending for Greenland, hours after US President-elect Donald Trump repeated his desire to purchase the Arctic territory.
Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said the package was a “double digit billion amount” in krone, or at least $1.5bn (£1.2bn).
He described the timing of the announcement as an “irony of fate”. On Monday Trump said ownership and control of the huge island was an “absolute necessity” for the US.
Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, is home to a large US space facility and is strategically important for the US, lying on the shortest route from North America to Europe. It has major mineral reserves.
Poulsen said the package would allow for the purchase of two new inspection ships, two new long-range drones and two extra dog sled teams.
It would also include funding for increased staffing at Arctic Command in the capital Nuuk and an upgrade for one of Greenland’s three main civilian airports to handle F-35 supersonic fighter aircraft.
“We have not invested enough in the Arctic for many years, now we are planning a stronger presence,” he said.
The defence minister did not give an exact figure for the package, but Danish media estimated it would be around 12-15bn krone.
The announcement came a day after Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social: “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”
A major international crisis is “much more likely” in Donald Trump’s second term given the president-elect’s “inability to focus” on foreign policy, a former US ambassador to the United Nations has warned.
John Bolton, who at 17 months was Trump’s longest-serving national security adviser, delivered a scathing critique of his lack of knowledge, interest in facts or coherent strategy. He described Trump’s decision-making as driven by personal relationships and “neuron flashes” rather than a deep understanding of national interests.
Bolton also dismissed Trump’s claims during this year’s election campaign that only he could prevent a third world war while bringing a swift end to the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine.
“It’s typical Trump: it’s all braggadocio,” Bolton told the Guardian. “The world is more dangerous than when he was president before. The only real crisis we had was Covid, which is a long-term crisis and not against a particular foreign power but against a pandemic.
“But the risk of an international crisis of the 19th-century variety is much more likely in a second Trump term. Given Trump’s inability to focus on coherent decision making, I’m very worried about how that might look.” [….]
Bolton was Trump’s national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019.
Bolton recalled: “What I believed was that, like every American president before him, the weight of the responsibilities, certainly in national security, the gravity of the issues that he was confronting, the consequences of his decisions, would discipline his thinking in a way that would produce serious outcomes.
“It turned out I was wrong. By the time I got there a lot of patterns of behaviour had already been set that were never changed and it could well be, even if I had been there earlier, I couldn’t have affected it. But it was clear pretty soon after I got there that intellectual discipline wasn’t in the Trump vocabulary.”
“When you hear the acts of each, you won’t believe that he did this. Makes no sense. Relatives and friends are further devastated. They can’t believe this is happening!”
Trump vowed to take action as soon as he takes office.
“As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters,” he said in a follow up post. “We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!”
The Trump Store has a gift for every patriot on your Christmas list.
It’s a little late for this year’s celebrations, but you can get a very early jump on next year and count down with the $38 Trump Advent calendar. Or trim the tree with a $95 Mar-a-Lago bauble or a $16 MAGA hat ornament, sold in nine colors. (A glass version of the hat ornament is $92.) Stuff stockings with an $86 “GIANT Trump Chocolate Gold Bar” and a $22 pair of candy cane socks printed with “Trump.” Prepare a holiday feast with a $14 Trump Christmas tree pot holder and $28 Trump apron featuring Santa waving an American flag.
The profits from these holiday trinkets do not benefit a political committee or a charitable cause, but the Trump Organization, the Trump family’s privately owned conglomerate of real estate, hotel and lifestyle businesses. As the company encouraged customers to celebrate the holidays with Trump gifts for all ages, President-elect Donald Trump personally profited off of his upcoming term in a manner that is unprecedented in modern history — even during his unconventional first stint in the White House.
The Trump Organization thought of everyone celebrating Trump’s nonconsecutive terms this yuletide season, rolling out a line of merchandise printed with “45-47,” including $195 quarter-zip sweatshirts, $85 cigar ashtrays and $38 baseball caps. Fido can’t go without his gear, of course: The store also sells gifts for dogs, including orange leashes and camo collars emblazoned with Trump’s name. And don’t forget the kids! How about a $38 teddy bear wearing a red, white or blue Trump sweater, $8 MAGA hat stickers or an array of Trump sweets, including $16 gummy bears?
All of these gifts can be wrapped in $28 golden Trump wrapping paper or stuck into Trump ornament gift bags ($14 a pair), and accompanied by a note on $35 stationery featuring bottles of Trump wine.
“Make the holidays that much greater this year with essentials from the Trump Home and Holiday collection,” the website says, over a photo of an Elf on the Shelf toy and a lime-green MAGA hat.
Trump has long delighted in finding new ways to market his name, creating a merchandise empire that includes digital trading cards, pricey sneakers, expensive watches and signed Bibles. But his expansion of offerings in the run-up to the inauguration has further concerned ethics experts and watchdogs, who say his behavior is the opposite of what they expect from a president-in-waiting during the transition.
“How much is he going to use the presidency just to sell Trump products?” said Jordan Libowitz, vice president for communications for the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Claude Monet, The Magpie
Washington.
That’s what I want to know. Are he and Melania going to continue hawking their tasteless junk from the White House?
The hard lesson of 2024 is that liberals spent too much time fretting that Donald Trump would subvert democracy if he lost and not enough that Trump would win a free and fair election. We can argue about the reason why voters elected Trump—inflation, transgender hysteria, Joe Biden staying too long in the race—but we can’t pretend that those who cast their vote for Trump didn’t know they were choosing oligarchy.
Thanks to the 14-year run of The Apprentice, even the politically ignorant were well aware that Donald Trump (net worth $6.2 billion, per Forbes) was a wealthy real estate tycoon. If anything, the voting public judged Trump wealthier than he really is; as John D. Miller, a marketer for the NBC series, pointed out in October, “We created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty.” Given that narrative’s predominance, nobody can be surprised that the president-elect’s sidekick ended up being the richest person in the world, or that he’s appointed a dozen billionaires to top posts.
How could this happen? None of liberals’ usual explanations is available. We can’t blame Trump’s victory on the distortions of the Electoral College (as we could in 2016) because Trump won the popular vote. And we can’t blame Trump’s victory on the distortions of money, because even when you figure in outside money, including more than a quarter-billion to Trump from Elon Musk, it was the loser, Kamala Harris, who raised the most cash. Yes, Trump indicated before the election that if he lost he wouldn’t accept the result, just as he still refuses to concede the 2020 election. But in the end, democracy didn’t come under threat. Democracy turned out to be the problem.
This has happened before. The worst presidential choice prior to 2024 was James Buchanan in 1856. Like Trump, Buchanan won both the popular vote and the Electoral College. These two presidents are the lowest-ranked in an annual poll of American political scientists, and Buchanan ranks last in a 2021 survey of American political historians (though for some mysterious reason that one ranks Trump only fourth-worst). Buchanan is reviled for fumbling Confederates’ threats to secede, which of course led to the Civil War. I would argue that the public also chose very badly in reelecting Richard Nixon in 1972 and George W. Bush in 2004—and that in choosing Ronald Reagan in 1980, the party cleared a path that eventually led to Trump.
But 2024 may be the first election in American history in which a majority of United States voters specifically chose oligarchy. This is terra incognita, but it turns out to be a problem to which our second president, John Adams, gave considerable thought.
Democrats spent much of the presidential campaign warning that a second Donald Trump presidency would move methodically and remorselessly toward sinister goals: persecuting immigrants, enriching billionaires, ending democracy, imposing theocracy. This time, they said, he and his people would already know how to use the powers of his office. His party would put up less, maybe no, resistance. He now has the backing of the world’s richest man. The fact that Trump won a plurality of the popular vote and enjoys his best polling ever has deepened progressive despair.
Last week’s fight over the continuing resolution to keep the federal government funded should calm some of these fears. It won’t change progressive minds about Republicans’ ambitions. But it should suggest that many of the limits on Republican effectiveness that were in place during Trump’s first term remain — and new ones have arisen….
Trump’s decision to insist that the legislation include a lifting of the debt ceiling also suggests that he still has little interest in figuring out how to build a legislative coalition. He was effectively demanding that Republicans lift the debt ceiling on a party-line vote. He should have known that they would never accede. Now, seeing his demand so widely ignored has moved him a little closer to lame-duck status. Congressional Republicans may be learning that if enough of them balk at a Trump order — 38 of them voted down the funding bill he endorsed — he cannot credibly threaten all of them.
The president-elect also kneecapped Johnson by telegraphing his disappointment with the way the speaker handled the continuing resolution. This was unfair, since Trump hadn’t articulated his key priorities, such as raising the debt limit, or done anything else to make them achievable. It was also counterproductive. By blaming Johnson for the embarrassing zigzags of the spending bill, Trump avoids taking any responsibility himself. But he has increased the chances that House Republicans will be consumed by a fight over their leadership rather than enacting his administration’s agenda.
By now, though, Republicans are used to the drawbacks of working withTrump. Their new difficulty is Musk. During Trump’s first term, Republicans in Congress and the executive branch had to anticipate what would draw the president’s wrath. Now they will have to wonder, as well, what will bring them negative attention from Musk. They can’t count on either man to telegraph his views well ahead of time or privately; they will just have to keep a social media tab open. The two men also have varying views and priorities, with Musk more concerned about controlling federal spending than Trump has ever shown himself to be. (Even Musk, though, did not stir himself against the bipartisan bill to spend nearly $200 billion more on Social Security — which passed Congress at the same time as the government-funding deal.)
Republicans can’t be sure, either, how long Trump and Musk will stay allied. Musk isn’t like Steve Bannon, whom Trump could put into political exile and then summon back. He has fame, a fan base, a means of communication and resources of his own. This would be Trump’s messiest divorce yet.
I expect Trump to tire of Musk stealing the spotlight, but Ponnuru is probably right that Musk will be difficult for Trump to eliminate.
I hope you all have a nice, relaxing day whether you celebrate the holidays or not.
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You’ve heard of Elf on a Shelf… spotted at Mars-a-Lago. @johnbuss.bsky.social
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Nothing like starting up the traditional Crassmass Season with the release of the Matt Gaetz Ethics Report. That ought to Deck your Halls! Here’s the CNN Headline. “House Ethics report finds evidence Matt Gaetz paid thousands for sex and drugs, including paying a 17-year-old for sex in 2017.” Nothing like being a Perv with a Special Purpose. It also looks pretty pathetic.
The House Ethics Committee found evidence that former Rep. Matt Gaetz paid tens of thousands of dollars to women for sex or drugs on at least 20 occasions, including paying a 17-year-old girl for sex in 2017, according to the panel’s report on the Florida Republican released Monday.
The committee concluded in its bombshell document that Gaetz violated Florida state laws, including the state’s statutory rape law, as the GOP-led panel chose to take the rare step of releasing a report about a former member who resigned from Congress.
“The Committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress,” panel investigators wrote.
The panel investigated transactions Gaetz personally made, often using PayPal or Venmo, to more than a dozen women during his time in Congress, according to the report. Investigators also focused on a 2018 trip to the Bahamas – which they said “violated the House gift rule” – during which he “engaged in sexual activity” with multiple women, including one who described the trip itself as “the payment” for sex on the trip. On the same trip, he also took ecstasy, one woman on the trip told the committee.
Earlier this month, the House Ethics Committee secretly voted to release its report after initially voting against doing so. The vote to put out the report – which was opposed by panel Chairman Michael Guest, a Mississippi Republican – was the culmination of a years-long probe into allegations surrounding Gaetz. He was President-elect Donald Trump’s first pick to be attorney general but dropped out amid opposition from GOP senators and after CNN reported key details of this same ethics report.
And it’s a political jolt that could have reverberations for years to come, as the Capitol Hill panel takes aim at a long-time Trump loyalist and now conservative anchor at One America Network.
Gaetz filed a civil complaint in federal court Monday morning unsuccessfully seeking to halt the release of the report, claiming he was not notified of the panel’s plans to release the report nor was he provided copies of the materials.
President Joe Biden on Monday announced that he is commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row, converting their punishments to life imprisonment just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump, an outspoken proponent of expanding capital punishment, takes office.
The move spares the lives of people convicted in killings, including the slayings of police and military officers, people on federal land and those involved in deadly bank robberies or drug deals, as well as the killings of guards or prisoners in federal facilities.
Reaction to the president’s end-of-year act of clemency was strong, particularly among those who were victimized by Roof.
Michael Graham, whose sister Cynthia Hurd was killed by Roof, wants him to die for his crimes and was thankful Biden kept him on death row. He said Roof’s lack of remorse and simmering white nationalism in the U.S. means he is the kind of dangerous and evil person the death penalty is intended for.
“This was a crime against a race of people who were doing something all Americans do on a Wednesday night – go to Bible study,” Graham said. “It didn’t matter who was there, only that they were Black.”
So, the Soap Opera Drama “Daze of President-Eject Incontinentia Buttocks” continues to find the front page of the nation’s legacy media. This is from NBC News. “GOP congressman says it feels like Elon Musk is ‘our prime minister.’ Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, told CBS News on Sunday that he spoke to the tech billionaire multiple times during negotiations for the funding package. Does this mean we’re going to have a queen? Gonzales was on Meet the Press.
Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, on Sunday compared tech mogul Elon Musk to a “prime minister,” praising Musk for speaking out against an early version of a stopgap funding bill last week.
“It’s kind of interesting,” Gonzales said during an interview on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” “We have a president, we have a vice president, we have a speaker. It feels like as if Elon Musk is our prime minister.”
Gonzales added that he spoke with Musk “a couple of times” during a chaotic week for House Republicans as GOP leadership scrambled to pull together a package to fund the government that would garner support from a majority of the House GOP caucus.
Gonzales voted against the final version of a continuing resolution that passed the House late Friday night and was later signed Saturday by President Joe Biden. The package funds the government at current levels through March 14 and includes a one-year farm bill and $100 billion in disaster aid.
Gonzales continued to praise Musk’s influence on the funding process, even as moderator Margaret Brennan pointed out that Musk has not been elected to any formal position in the U.S. government.
“Well, unelected, but, I mean, he has a voice, and I think a lot of —large part of that voice is a reflection of the voice of the people,” Gonzales said.
I have no idea how many people think Elon Musk reflects their lives, feelings, or voices. He’s a billionaire Buffon from a rich South African family of Apartheid enthusiasts. CNN reports that All he ever hears is Musk did that! Musk! Musk! Musk! And he’s getting close to not taking it anymore! “Trump bristles at Musk’s rocketing profile as Democrats play on the president-elect’s vanity.”
“No, he’s not taking the presidency,” Trump told conservative activists at a Turning Point USA event in Phoenix. The president-elect insisted he liked having smart people around and accused his opponents of launching “a new kick” after he suggested they tried to delegitimize his first term over “Russia, Russia, Russia.” Trump added: “No, he’s not going to be president, that I can tell you. And I’m safe, you know why? He can’t be — he wasn’t born in this country.”
Trump’s comments suggested at the very least that the constant coverage of Musk’s role has caught his eye and that he resents the idea that his new best friend is the power behind the throne. They will also stoke fresh speculation over how long the president-elect, who doesn’t normally like to share any spotlight, will tolerate Musk’s soaring profile — even if both men have huge incentives to continue a friendship that has seen the tech pioneer almost constantly at Trump’s side at Mar-a-Lago since the election.
The article continues with the new legacy media talking-point that “He’s seen as a hero to many Americans.” I guess I run in the wrong circles. Again, the consensus in my circle of friends and family is that he’s a buffoon and wouldn’t be anywhere if he hadn’t inherited money. The man only has a BA in Engineering. You can’t even get paid to build a model rocket with those credentials. He obviously just buys his brains in the labor market like the rest of them.
A 20-year-old woman in Collin County, Texas arrives at the emergency room to address severe bleeding. A health care provider tells the man she’s with that the woman had been nine weeks pregnant.
“The biological father of the unborn child, upon learning this information, concluded that the biological mother of the unborn child had intentionally withheld information from him regarding her pregnancy, and he further suspected that the biological mother had in fact done something to contribute to the miscarriage or abortion of the unborn child,” a lawsuit, filed earlier this month by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), reads. “The biological father, upon returning to the residence in Collin County, discovered the two above-referenced medications from Carpenter.”
The man, according to the suit, searched a house — the suit does not specify whether the woman or man or both live there — to find evidence that the woman, who had not told him about her pregnancy, had taken mifepristone and misoprostol. From there, and the suit does not detail how, Paxton’s office learned about this situation — the test case he’s been searching for to challenge blue-state abortion shield laws.
The Texan woman was prescribed the medication, the suit alleges, by New York Dr. Maggie Carpenter via telehealth. The state is now suing Carpenter for practicing medicine in Texas without a license.
Experts have been predicting these interjurisdictional clashes for years, ever since Dobbs fell. Many red states immediately enforced anti-abortion regimes, while blue states spun up shield laws to protect their resident patients and providers from those red states’ punishments. Many shield states, including New York, specifically protect abortion providers from out-of-state investigations and prosecutions.
Anti-abortion crusaders like Paxton have been itching for a test case like this one, to probe the murky legal questions around these state-on-state clashes. But he had to wait for a case to fall in his lap — in this case, like manyother abortion ones in Texas specifically, by way of a vengeful man eager to turn over his female partner.
“This case was not brought by a woman who said she was harmed, it was brought by a man who supposedly had sex with her and is trying to control what she does,” David Cohen, professor at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline law school, told TPM.
So, yeah, some guy I've never seen before who is sitting at a table across from us in a coffee shop just took it upon himself to (incorrectly) correct my daughter's pronunciation of a word. 2025 is going to be fun.
Mangione wore a white shirt under a maroon sweater and light colored pants in his arraignment before Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro.
Manhattan prosecutors last week unsealed an 11-count indictment against Mangione, charging him with a host of crimes connected to the Dec. 4 slaying.
The allegations include first-degree murder, an act of terrorism, criminal possession of a weapon and forgery for using a fake ID in the days before the murder.
Mangione pleaded not guilty to all charges during the short hearing, in which he conferred with defense lawyer Karen Agnifilo and prison consultant Craig Rothfeld, who works with defendants on confinement issues.
Mangione appeared to be fully engaged with his defense team on Monday as they signed various papers pertaining to the defendant’s current federal incarceration at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
Carro ordered Mangione to remain in custody, in lieu of $1 bail.
That $1 bail set by Carro was a perfunctory act, since Mangione is being held in federal custody without bail, and has no realistic chance of freedom until trial.
I have questions about the ‘terrorism’ charges. How does killing one guy equate to something like the Mother Emmanuel shooting? Is it just because white CEO men all over the country feel they are targeted now for being in the persecuted minority group of assholes? I don’t get it. This is from PBS.
At a news conference announcing the state charges last Tuesday, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said the application of the terrorism law reflected the severity of a “frightening, well-planned, targeted murder that was intended to cause shock and attention and intimidation.”
“In its most basic terms, this was a killing that was intended to evoke terror,” he added. “And we’ve seen that reaction.”
Karen Friedman Agnifilo, an attorney for Mangione, has accused federal and state prosecutors of advancing conflicting legal theories. In federal court last week, she called their approach “very confusing” and “highly unusual.”
So, I start my winter break tomorrow and will enjoy having nothing on my schedule except my time. It’s cold here with temperatures we usually don’t see except for a few weeks in January, so I called my sister and asked her to ship any warm sweats, flannel pjs, and long-sleeve shirts she’s broken in and doesn’t use anymore. I hope it’s not like last year when we didn’t get snow, but it felt like it could hit us any moment for a few months. I’m also preparing for my debut as a member of the Crazy Cat Ladies of Bywater in the Krewe de Fou. It’s a new krewe, and we parade on January 31st. I’ll have to get my craft on. If the resident paw owners agree, I’m considering making Plaster of Paris Cat paw imprint necklaces. I’ll paint, glitter, and bead them up!
I hope this week goes well for you if you celebrate the normal holidays or not. The days after Winter Solstice are always good for peace, staying home, and reflection. I also like the eating part of the holiday season and spending time with the people I love. But my mind will be on Twelfth Night and King Cake by January 5th. That’s when the party gets started here, and the costuming is fun! So, you take care of yourselves, whatever plans you’ve made!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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Lesley Ivory, Dandelion, Snowdrop and the Devon Christmas Market
The House and Senate passed the bill to fund the government for 3 more months, thanks to Democratic votes. After unelected President Musk sabotaged the original bipartisan bill, it was touch and go, but the House and Senate both passed a compromise spending bill at the very last minute last night. The Hill: House passes bill to avert government shutdown after whirlwind funding fight.
The House approved legislation to avert a government shutdown hours before the deadline Friday, sending the bill to the Senate for consideration after a whirlwind week on Capitol Hill.
The chamber voted 366-34-1 in support of the legislation, clearing the two-thirds threshold needed for passage since GOP leadership brought the bill to the floor under the fast-track suspension of the rules process. All Democrats except one — Rep. Jasmine Crockett (Texas), who voted present — joined 170 Republicans in voting yes….
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), after the vote, lauded the legislation as “‘America First’ legislation because it allows us to be set up to deliver for the American people.”
“In January, we will make a sea change in Washington. President Trump will return to D.C. and to the White House, and we will have Republican control of the Senate and the House. Things are going to be very different around here. This was a necessary step to bridge the gap, to put us into that, that moment where we can put our fingerprints on the final decisions on spending for 2025,” he said.
The package — which Johnson rolled out shortly before the vote — would fund the government at current levels through March 14, extend the farm bill for one year and appropriate billions of dollars in disaster relief and assistance for farmers.
The legislation does not, however, include language to increase the debt limit, an eleventh-hour demand from President-elect Trump that hurled a curveball into the sensitive government funding negotiations.
The Senate approved legislation to avert a federal government shutdown just after a midnight deadline, capping a chaotic week in which President-elect Donald J. Trump blew up a bipartisan spending deal, only to see his own preferred plan collapse as Republicans defied him.
President Biden is expected to sign the measure, which would extend funding into mid-March and approve disaster relief for parts of the nation still recovering from storms. The White House said early Saturday that it was not instituting a government shutdown, even though funding to run the government technically ran out at midnight.
The Senate passed legislation late Friday that would reauthorize pared-back funding for childhood cancer research after the bipartisan program briefly became a political flash point.
The Senate’s version of the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act 2.0 was originally tacked on to a 1,547-page short-term stopgap government funding bill congressional leaders unveiled Tuesday. The program was dropped from the compromise measure after billionaire Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump claimed the deal contained unnecessary spending.
Democrats specifically highlighted the cut in cancer research to suggest the GOP favored tax cuts and the bottom line over sick children.
Legislation to expand Social Security benefits to millions of Americans passed the U.S. Senate early Saturday and is now headed to the desk of President Biden, who is expected to sign the measure into law.
Senators voted 76-20 for the Social Security Fairness Act, which would eliminate two federal policies that prevent nearly 3 million people, including police officers, firefighters, postal workers, teachers and others with a public pension, from collecting their full Social Security benefits. The legislation has been decades in the making, as the Senate held its first hearings into the policies in 2003.
“The Senate finally corrects a 50-year mistake,” proclaimed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, after senators approved the legislation at 12:15 a.m. Saturday.
The bill’s passage is “a monumental victory for millions of public service workers who have been denied the full benefits they’ve rightfully earned,” said Shannon Benton, executive director for the Senior Citizens League, which advocates for retirees and which has long pushed for the expansion of Social Security benefits. “This legislation finally restores fairness to the system and ensures the hard work of teachers, first responders and countless public employees is truly recognized.”
The vote came down to the wire, as the Senate looked to wrap up its current session. Senators rejected four amendments and a budgetary point of order late Friday night that would have derailed the measure, given the small window of time left to pass it.
Explanation of the Social Security Fairness Act:
The Social Security Fairness Act would repeal two federal policies — the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO) — that reduce Social Security payments to nearly 3 million retirees.
That includes those who also collect pensions from state and federal jobs that aren’t covered by Social Security, including teachers, police officers and U.S. postal workers. The bill would also end a second provision that reduces Social Security benefits for those workers’ surviving spouses and family members. The WEP impacts about 2 million Social Security beneficiaries and the GPO nearly 800,000 retirees.
The measure, which passed the House in November, had 62 cosponsors when it was introduced in the Senate last year. Yet the bill’s bipartisan support eroded in recent days, with some Republican lawmakers voicing doubts due to its cost. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the proposed legislation would add a projected $195 billion to federal deficits over a decade.
This week’s installment of the long-running saga, “House Republicans cannot govern,” will soon be forgotten. Elon Musk’s decision to blow up a bipartisan agreement to keep the government funded through the sheer power of posting (and the latent threat posed by his immense wealth), Donald Trump suddenly calling for the abolition of the debt limit, House Republican Chip Roy telling his colleagues that they lack “an ounce of self-respect” — all these dramas will surely give way to even more ridiculous ones in the new year.
But this week’s government funding fight also revealed something that could have profound implications for the next four years of governance: Trump’s power over the congressional GOP is quite limited.
This did not appear to be the case just days ago. On Wednesday, Trump joined Elon Musk in calling on House Republicans to scrap a bipartisan spending deal that would have kept the government funded through March, increased disaster relief, and funded pediatric cancer research, among many other things. Despite the fact that the GOP needs buy-in from the Senate’s Democratic majority in order to pass any legislation — and failure to pass a spending bill by Saturday would mean a government shutdown — House Republicans heeded Trump’s call to nix the carefully negotiated compromise.
If Trump had little difficulty persuading his co-partisans to block one spending bill, however, he proved less adept at getting them to support a different one.
On Thursday, in coordination with Trump, the House GOP unveiled a new funding bill, one shorn of all Democratic priorities. Over social media, the president-elect instructed his party to “vote ‘YES’ for this Bill, TONIGHT!” Then, 38 House Republicans voted against the legislation, which was more than enough to sink it amid nearly unified Democratic opposition.
House conservatives’ defiance of Trump is partly attributable to ideological differences. The president-elect’s objections to Wednesday’s bipartisan agreement were distinct from those of his donor Elon Musk or the House GOP’s hardliners. The latter disdained the spending bill’s page count and fiscal cost. Trump, by contrast, appeared more preoccupied with the legislation’s failure to increase — or eliminate — the debt limit.
Trump wanted the debt limit raised for his first two years so he could give more tax cuts to billionaires, but Republicans refused to go along with that. Read the rest at Vox.
The latest shock posting from President Musk was a tweet supporting a neo-Nazi party in Germany. Then last night a man who is a fan of both AfD and Musk perpetrated a deadly terror attack. Dakinikat wrote about this yesterday.
At least five people were killed and more than 200 wounded after a man plowed a car into a Christmas market in the central German city of Magdeburg, German leaders said Saturday, hours after authorities identified the suspect as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who officials said had expressed anti-Islamic views.
Reiner Haseloff, the premier of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, confirmed the new toll during a visit to the scene of Friday’s incident. A child is among the dead.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who appeared alongside Haseloff, said almost 40 of the casualties “are so seriously injured that we must be very worried about them.”
Getting Together, by Pat Scott
Scholz noted that the attack took place just days before Christmas, and that normally “there is no place more peaceful or cheerful than a Christmas market.”
“What a terrible act it is, to kill and injure so many people with such brutality,” Scholz said, adding that it is important that the country “stays together” and did “not allow those who wish to sow hate” to do so.
The suspect, Abdulmohsen, who arrived in Germany in 2006, had expressed anti-Islam views and described himself as a Saudi dissident, according to a German official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an open investigation.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters Saturday the investigation was ongoing, and “we can only say with certainty that the perpetrator was obviously Islamophobic,” according to Zeit newspaper and Reuters news agency.
The jealousy bone might appeared to have bitten Elon Musk Wednesday, as he reportedly crashed the widely publicized dinner between President-elect Donald Trump and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago hosted the dinner dinner for the politician and billionaire, but the two didn’t have privacy for long before Musk appeared. According to the New York Times, the X CEO “was not initially expected to be part of the dinner but joined as it was underway.”
Reactions online to the apparent power move were swift and cutting, with late night hosts and social media commentators mocking Musk as “deranged” and “creepy,” among other unflattering conclusions. The tech mogul was dragged up and down, with many saying it seemed like he was worried about his ongoing “bromance” with the president-elect.
“This two-week bromance is going to fall apart more spectacularly than any in history,” journalist and author Seth Abramson wrote on Bluesky. “Elon Musk is so deranged and creepy — and such a clueless stalker — that he actually crashed a private dinner between Donald Trump and Musk rival Jeff Bezos. I can’t imagine how livid that made both Trump and Bezos.”
He continued his post: “What it also confirms is that Musk not only has no boundaries and believes himself Trump’s superior but has no intention of permitting any other plutocrat to squeeze more juice out of Trump than him. Showing up at that dinner uninvited is a power play intended to cow both other oligarchs and Trump.”
Musk’s choice to crash Trump and Bezos’ meal was a dinner bell to the various late night hosts out there, as well. Just about every single one of them had a joke or two to crack at Musk’s expense this week, with Seth Meyer’s warning Trump he got “‘Cable Guy’-ed” – a reference to the 1996 Jim Carrey stalker comedy.
“Oh my god, you let him do you a favor, and now you can’t get rid of him — you got ‘Cable Guy’-ed by Elon Musk,” Meyers said. “Every time you look out that little keyhole, he gonna be there.”
Jimmy Fallon pondered how these two rival billionaires could claim custody of the president-elect. The answer came from another ’90s classic: “Air Bud.”
“To settle who he loves more, Elon and Bezos are going to put Trump down in the middle of the room and see who he goes to first: ‘All right, here boy!’” Fallon joked.
A nearly two-year investigation by Democratic senators of supreme court ethics details more luxury travel by Justice Clarence Thomas and urges Congress to establish a way to enforce a new code of conduct.
Any movement on the issue appears unlikely as Republicans prepare to take control of the Senate in January, underscoring the hurdles in imposing restrictions on a separate branch of government even as public confidence in the court has fallen to record lows.
The 93-page report released on Saturday by the Democratic majority of the Senate judiciary committee found additional travel taken in 2021 by Thomas but not reported on his annual financial disclosure form: a private jet flight to New York’s Adirondacks in July and a jet and yacht trip to New York City sponsored by billionaire Harlan Crow in October, one of more than two dozen times detailed in the report that Thomas took luxury travel and gifts from wealthy benefactors.
The court adopted its first code of ethics in 2023, but it leaves compliance to each of the nine justices.
“The highest court in the land can’t have the lowest ethical standards,” the committee’s chair, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, said in a statement. He has long called for an enforceable code of ethics.
Republicans have said the investigation is a way to undermine the conservative majority court, and all the Republicans on the committee protested against the subpoenas authorized for Crow and others as part of the investigation. No Republicans signed on to the final report, and no formal report from them was expected.
Thomas has said that he was not required to disclose the trips that he and his wife, Ginni, took with Crow because the big donor is a close friend of the family and disclosure of that type of travel was not previously required. The new ethics code does explicitly require it, and Thomas has since gone back and reported some travel. Crow has maintained that he has never spoken with his friend about pending matters before the court….
The investigation found that Thomas has accepted gifts and travel from wealthy benefactors worth more than $4.75m by some estimates since his 1991 confirmation and failed to disclose much of it. “The number, value and extravagance of the gifts accepted by Justice Thomas have no comparison in modern American history,” according to the report.
Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose two additional trips from a billionaire patron than have previously come to light, Senate Democrats revealed on Saturday after conducting a 20-month investigation into ethics practices at the Supreme Court.
The findings were part of a 93-page report released by Democratic staff members of the Judiciary Committee along with about 800 pages of documents. It said the two trips, both of which had been previously unknown to the public, took place in 2021 and were provided by Harlan Crow, a real estate magnate in Texas and a frequent patron of Justice Thomas’s.
One trip took place that July by private jet from Nebraska to Saranac, N.Y., where Justice Thomas stayed at Mr. Crow’s upstate retreat for five days. The other came in October, when Mr. Crow hosted Justice Thomas overnight in New York on his yacht after flying him from the District of Columbia to New Jersey for the dedication of a statue.
The disclosures were one of the few new revelations in a report that otherwise largely summarized information about largess accepted by justices — and failures to disclose it — that had already become public. Justice Thomas had not disclosed the trips, even after refiling some of his past financial forms, and the committee learned about them through a subpoena to Mr. Crow, the report said.
Read more details about the investigation at the NYT link.
That’s all I have for you today; I’ll be back here on Wednesday, December 25, Christmas Day. Best wishes to all of you.
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
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.
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. 
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 just makes me go all Kipling with the thoughts of 
Where has she been that this is actually news to her? I’m going to finish with this analysis from 
Nothing says Family Values Republican like a police report for out-of-wedlock perviness! 
So, the Soap Opera Drama “Daze of President-Eject Incontinentia Buttocks” continues to find the front page of the nation’s legacy media. 
I have no idea how many people think Elon Musk reflects their lives, feelings, or voices. He’s a billionaire Buffon from a rich South African family of Apartheid enthusiasts. CNN reports that All he ever hears is Musk did that! Musk! Musk! Musk! And he’s getting close to not taking it anymore!
The article continues with the new legacy media talking-point that “He’s seen as a hero to many Americans.” I guess I run in the wrong circles. Again, the consensus in my circle of friends and family is that he’s a buffoon and wouldn’t be anywhere if he hadn’t inherited money. The man only has a BA in Engineering. You can’t even get paid to build a model rocket with those credentials. He obviously just buys his brains in the labor market like the rest of them.
Has anyone done a study on these cis men who think they rule women’s lives and minds yet? Another privileged white guy is testing the theory about who exactly can get away with murder. This is from NBC News.
I have questions about the ‘terrorism’ charges. How does killing one guy equate to something like the Mother Emmanuel shooting? Is it just because white CEO men all over the country feel they are targeted now for being in the persecuted minority group of assholes? I don’t get it. 
“The Senate finally corrects a 50-year mistake,” proclaimed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, after senators approved the legislation at 12:15 a.m. Saturday.
This did not appear to be the case just days ago. On Wednesday, Trump joined Elon Musk in 
Republicans have said the investigation is a way to undermine the conservative majority court, and all the Republicans on the committee protested against the subpoenas authorized for Crow and others as part of the investigation. No Republicans signed on to the final report, and no formal report from them was expected.
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