All Things Trump: the story continues...

[Tero]

Tim Snyder on TV, professor, quotes Russians calling Trump a vegetarian.Trump is a poser. Does not know how to use military power.

[Tero]

Should you be president if you own social media? You can shut down any parts that you want for "national security:"

Andys Theory
@ofeverything
Public
18 hours ago
Technology - Social Media
Given the ownership of two social media companies by the Traitor Agent Orange and Elon, it looks like they have a conflict of interest on this issue, but the Trump Crime Family will just view this as a win. I’d hate to be a China exporter when this hits the fan.

Court Upholds Law Forcing a Ban or Sale of TikTok
The law will ban the video app in the United States by Jan. 19 if its owner, ByteDance, does not sell it to a non-Chinese company

TikTok is one step closer to disappearing in the United States after a panel of federal judges on Friday upheld a new law that could lead to the banning of the popular Chinese-owned video app by mid-January.

The three judges, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, denied TikTok’s petition to overturn the law. The decision could be a death blow for the app in one of its biggest markets. More than 170 million Americans use TikTok to entertain and inform themselves, turning it into a cultural phenomenon. The looming loss of the app in the United States had spurred concern from free speech advocates and from the creators whose income depends on TikTok.

https://www.tribel.com

[Tero]

Musk and Ramaswamy find source of reckless spending: Congress
https://karireport.blogspot.com/2024/12 ... ce-of.html

[Tero]

Elsewhere:
The electoral college votes will be counted on January 6, 2025, at 1 PM Eastern, as required by Federal law (specifically, Title 3, Section 15, United States Code).
Any ideas as to what the response will be?

First question: given that the states are read in order, and Alabama went for Trump, how many Representatives will object to Alabama’s votes on the grounds that Trump is ineligible to be President under the 14th Amendment’s “engaged in insurrection” clause - and will any Senators join them?

[Tero]

Elon bought Trump. He only got an 18 month gig to downsize for it. And maybe a desk at white house.
https://www.threads.net/@nastynatasha__ ... MEGDJn1JAQ

[Sean Hayden]

The corruption is too great. I don’t see how the government survives this.

[Sean Hayden]

I’m sure it’s been as bad or worse in the past, but I’d like to know if as many Americans knew about it then, or if the crooks had nearly half the population on their side?

[Tero]

Nixon did not get away with it. Reagan did. Trump did. Well, if he gets sworn in.

[Sean Hayden]

Oh wow, really? I was going much further back. Those don’t register for me as anything like as bad as Trump and the current GOP. You felt is was just as bad?

[Tero]

I don't remember Johsnon much, except for his voice. So those are presidents in my lifetime on TV. Nixon to Biden. I would not have reacted much to Kennedy. I was in grade school. In Finland. About 1968 is where my political memory goes. By 1971 quite a bit more clear.

[Sean Hayden]

Sure, mine starts with watching Germans take down the wall. But I’ve read some history, and I have a sense of how Republicans have changed over the years. I don’t think it was this bad.

[Brian Peacock]

I think we're all feeling that about every party and politician everywhere at the mo. I spoke to a friend yesterday who's been an active member of their local Labour party since they were a student in the 80s. They were taken aside this week and quietly advised to stop asking awkward questions because there's been talk of having them suspended from the party for their 'antisemitic' views about the Israel-Palestine situation. They said they think the party that's traditionally supported the oppressed is in the process of being captured by the oppressors. I don't disagree, but I didn't have the heart to tell them that that process has been going on for 20 years and was completed about 5 years ago.

[Tero]

A lengthy series of X posts attacking Social Security as a "nightmare" caught the attention of the platform's mega-billionaire owner, Elon Musk, who could soon take aim at the beloved New Deal program as co-chair of an advisory commission tasked with identifying federal spending to slash.

"Interesting thread," Musk, the world's richest man, wrote late Monday in response to the posts by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who once said he hopes to pull Social Security "up by the roots and get rid of it," along with Medicare and Medicaid.

In his new thread, Lee characterized Social Security—which lifts more Americans above the poverty line than any other federal program—as a "tax plan" insidiously disguised as a retirement plan and condemned the Social Security Act of 1935 as one of many "deceptive sales techniques the U.S. government has used on the American people."

....replied Tuesday that Lee's posts amount to "a misrepresentation of Social Security's history and how the program works."

"There is nothing deceptive about Social Security. The social insurance program has been working just fine for nearly 90 years and has never missed a payment," said Richtman. "The kind of propaganda Sen. Lee posted undermines public support for Social Security, making it easier to cut or privatize the program. It is perhaps no coincidence that Sen. Lee's second-biggest campaign contributor by industry is the securities and investment sector."

https://www.rawstory.com/musk-social-security/

[Tero]

I think we're all feeling that about every party and politician everywhere at the mo. I spoke to a friend yesterday who's been an active member of their local Labour party since they were a student in the 80s.
...but I didn't have the heart to tell them that that process has been going on for 20 years and was completed about 5 years ago.

I go to the bookstore every week and leaf through nonfiction books. There is a steady flow of books from both sides explaining what happened and how the old world is gone and the evil people are now a threat of are winning.

Very few academic books reach the best seller list, though there are some journalists that give a balanced view.

I tend not to buy from Amazon, but they still have the best reviews and you can find the books fairly easily. This one explains the state level Republicans and the pwoer games.

State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States and the Nation
by Alexander Hertel-Fernandez

Using a diverse array of original evidence, State Capture explains why and how conservatives developed cross-state political clout while progressives did not.

Most Americans pay little attention to the massive number of elections that occur at the state level every year. Yet cumulatively, a party's success in state-level races across the country can produce major shifts in policymaking and governance.

Drawing from an impressive evidence base, Hertel-Fernandez explains how, since the 1970s, conservative activists, wealthy donors, and big businesses constructed a right-wing "troika" of overlapping and influential lobbying groups.

But it is about more than this. It also teases out how conservative-corporate mobilization has fostered epochal shifts in the American political economy: the decline of unions, party polarization, and the skyrocketing concentration of wealth. State Capture will be essential reading for anyone interested in understanding contemporary American politics.

The year 2010 showed the significance of the capture of the states. Before, Democrats were in full control of 16 states and Republicans only 9. After the election, Republicans controlled 21 and the Democrats only 11. Afterward, we see many red states adopt the same or similar legislation, such as stand-your-ground, right-to-work, voter ID requirements, etc. Where did this similar legislation come from? The author discusses three main entities: American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), State Policy Network (SPN), and Americans for Prosperity (AFP).

Also the Dark Money book explains the trend. I have it somewhere, it was mostly on the Koch Brothers plan, now converted into Project 2025.

[Tero]

"In February 1941, Henry Luce, the influential publisher of Time and Life magazines, penned an article heralding the “American Century,” a post-war era in which the United States would apply its newfound standing as the “dominant power in the world” to spread “free economic enterprise” and “the abundant life” around the globe. Luce envisioned the United States as “the principal guarantor of the freedom of the seas” and “the dynamic leader of world trade,” and saw in this future “possibilities of such enormous human progress as to stagger the imagination.”
"The next several decades would prove Luce right, as the United States emerged from World War II as one of two global superpowers and, arguably, the world’s preeminent cultural and economic force. Luce, who was a Republican, intended his broadside to serve as a template for conservative internationalism — in effect, a powerful response to the party’s isolationist, America First wing. But this concept — of America as a friendly goliath, the “Good Samaritan of the entire world,” promoting democracy, capitalism, trade and international order — guided the thinking of most policymakers and politicians across the political spectrum for the better part of a century.

"Until now."

"Donald Trump’s second presidential victory represents a sharp break, and perhaps a permanent one, with the American Century framework. It’s a framework that rested on four key pillars:

"A rules-based economic order that afforded the U.S. free access to vast international markets.

"A guarantee of safety and security for its allies, backed up by American military might.

"An increasingly liberal immigration system that strengthened America’s economy and complemented military and trade partnerships with the rest of the non-Communist world.

"And finally, in Luce’s words, a “picture of an America” that valued — and exported to the rest of the world — “its technical and artistic skills. Engineers, scientists, doctors … developers of airlines, builders of roads, teachers, educators.”

"In the years immediately following World War II, the U.S. pursued two interconnected goals: It underwrote Western Europe’s and Asia’s post-war recovery and imposed a rules-based economic order to promote greater stability; and it promised its allies military security against Soviet aggression. Both policies required a robust internationalist outlook."
"Whether Trump can or will pursue his agenda remains to be seen. But it’s also beside the point. It’s what nearly 50 percent of voters just endorsed — steps that would both dismantle and repudiate the American Century framework.

"Maybe that’s not a bad thing. At its worst, that framework resembled what scholars refer to as “imperialism by invitation.” It could be brutal and coercive, and in recent years, its rewards eluded millions of working-class communities and their residents.

"But the American Century framework has defined the nation’s trajectory for well over 80 years. For good or bad, it undeniably made the United States a very prosperous and powerful country. It’s what bound allies into strategic, security and economic relationships with the U.S., ensured our continued access to trading partners and lent the country favored status across a broad spectrum of international organizations. We’ve become accustomed to the benefits it delivers, without understanding how quickly those benefits could disappear.

"A very reasonable question for voters who now reject that framework is: What’s next?"

Politico (paywall)
Joshua Zeitz