"The Anti-American Party now is the Republican Party."
George Conway, conservative constitutional lawyer (practitioner and scholar), Never Trumper and former husband of Kellyanne Conway.
28 December 2024
MAGA spinning itself apart
Seems MAGA is almost literally spinning itself apart before they even swear in the Menace. Heather Cox Richardson:
Civil war has broken out within the MAGA Republicans. On the one side are the traditional MAGAs, who tend to be white, anti-immigrant, and less educated than the rest of the U.S. They believe that the modern government's protection of equal rights for women and minorities has ruined America, and they tend to want to isolate the U.S. from the rest of the world. They make up Trump's voting base. On the other side are the new MAGAs who appear to have taken control of the incoming Trump administration. Led by Elon Musk, who bankrolled Trump's campaign, the new MAGA wing is made up of billionaires, especially tech entrepreneurs, many of whom are themselves immigrants. During the campaign, these two wings made common cause because they both want to destroy the current U.S. government, especially as President Joe Biden had been using it to strengthen American democracy. Traditional MAGA wants to get rid of the government that protects equality and replace it with one that enforces white male supremacy and Christianity. New MAGA—which some have started to call DOGE, after the Department of Government Efficiency run by Musk and pharmaceutical entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy—wants to get rid of the government that regulates business, especially technology, and protects American interests against competition from countries like China. Their shared commitment to the destruction of the current government is about the only overlap between these two factions. With the campaign over, traditional MAGA and DOGE are ripping apart. Trump sparked the fight when he announced on Sunday, December 22, that he would appoint Musk associate Sriram Krishnan, who was born in India, as a senior policy advisor on artificial intelligence. On Monday, MAGA activist Laura Loomer criticized Trump's choice of Krishnan. Loomer was in Trump's inner circle until three months ago, when her anti-immigrant tirades made Trump campaign staff worry she would cost Trump votes and forced her out of his public schedule. Loomer noted that Krishnan wants to remove the cap on green cards for workers from certain countries. Krishnan has also called for making it easier for skilled foreign workers to come to the U.S. on H-1B temporary visas. These programs are important to the technology sector, but critics say they enable companies to hire foreign workers at lower pay than U.S. workers, that H-1B workers are trapped in their jobs, and that wage theft is rampant in the H-1B program. Loomer said those jobs "should be given to American STEM students." Then she got to the heart of the matter, complaining that MAGA is getting left out of the new administration. She noted that "none of the tech executives who are meeting with Trump and getting appointed in his cabinet supported him in 2020 or during the 2024 primary." She continued: "I feel like many of them are trying to get into Trump's admin[istration] to enrich themselves and get contracts at [the] D[epartment] O[f] D[efense]. This is not America First Policy." When another tech entrepreneur and Trump appointee David Sacks defended Krishnan, Loomer made a series of racist posts, claiming among other things that: "Our country was built by white Europeans, actually. Not third-world invaders from India." She said, "It's not racist against Indians to want the original MAGA policies I voted for. I voted for a reduction in H-1B visas. Not an extension." On Wednesday, December 25—Christmas, a major holiday for MAGA supporters—Musk took a stand against Loomer and the MAGAs. He posted on X that the U.S. needs twice the number of engineers it has, and welcomed foreign engineers. "The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low," he tweeted. "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." Loomer responded: "Is DOGE real? Or is it a vanity project?" Others complained about the "Tech Bros" "hubris [and] arrogance with their flippant, condescending, and elitist responses to legitimate criticisms of the H1B1 program." Still others pointed out that there were big layoffs in tech this year and asked why they weren't getting rehired if there was such a desperate need for workers. Musk posted: "Investing in Americans is actually hard. Really hard. It costs money and time and effort to make a person productive. It's a short term net loss. It's much easier to bring in skilled workers who might not do quite a good a job [sic], but will work for a fraction of the cost and be happy just to be here." Loomer responded: "The elephant in the room is that [Musk], who is not MAGA and never has been, is a total f*cking drag on the Trump transition. He's a stage 5 clinger who over stayed his welcome at Mar a Lago in an effort to become Trump's side piece and be the point man for all of his accomplices in big Tech to slither in to Mar a Lago." [sic] Musk called Loomer a troll, and she responded that "Telling the truth isn't trolling… You bought your way into MAGA 5 minutes ago…. We all know you only donated your money so you could influence immigration policy and protect your buddy Xi JinPing." Thursday everything broke open. Ramaswamy, who was born in Ohio to parents who immigrated to America from India, posted on X an indictment of American culture that seemed a direct assault on MAGA Republicans, who have been vocal about their disdain for education. Ramaswamy posted that tech companies hire foreign-born and first-generation engineers rather than native-born Americans because "American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long…. A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers." He called for "[m]ore math tutoring, fewer sleepovers. More weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons. More books, less TV. More creating, less 'chillin.' More extracurriculars, less 'hanging out at the mall.'" "If you grow up aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve," he warned. "'Normalcy' doesn't cut it in a hyper-competitive global market for technical talent. And if we pretend like it does, we'll have our a**es handed to us by China." He called for America to embrace "a new golden era," but warned it was possible "only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness. That's the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence." With that, the fat was in the fire. MAGA dragged Ramaswamy, with even former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley retorting: "There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture. All you have to do is look at the border and see how many want what we have. We should be investing and prioritizing in Americans, not foreign workers." Haley ran for president against Trump but ultimately endorsed him. She is herself the child of Indian immigrants. Loomer also hit back against Musk, posting: "Is DOGE a way to 'cut spending' or REDIRECT the spending toward the pet projects of tech bro billionaires? It's looking like the latter, T[o] B[e] H[onest]." She continued: "'Hey, let's convince the peasants that we are saving them money as we enrich ourselves!'" Another right-wing poster wondered: "How did DOGE go from 'let's cut wasteful government spending' to 'here's why we need to import more immigrants' almost overnight?" When Musk appeared to limit Loomer's ability to use X, she posted: "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." Other right-wing accounts accused Musk of censoring them, too, and racist anti-immigrant sentiments flowed freely. On Friday, when cartoonist and right-wing commenter Scott Adams posted that MAGA was "taking a page from Democrats on how to lose elections while feeling good about themselves," Musk agreed and added: "And those contemptible fools must be removed from the Republican Party, root and stem." Loomer commented that Musk "is now referring to MAGA as 'contemptible fools.'... The Trump base is being replaced by Big Tech executives. So sad to see this." She tagged Trump and added "I feel so sad for MAGA." Meanwhile, other MAGA supporters on X piled on Musk, complaining that he had not paid them, as promised, for their participation in his "free speech" petition during the campaign. By today, key Trump ally Steve Bannon, a central figure in MAGA, had taken to another right-wing social media platform to warn his supporters that Musk is showing his "true colors" and to demand that the H-1B visa program be "zeroed-out." Another right-wing influencer, Jack Posobiec, tweeted: "Today was the day we found out who is getting rich by screwing over the American worker." Trump did not weigh in on the fight but, in what appeared to be intended to be a private communication to Musk, wrote on his social media site: "Where are you? When are you coming to the 'Center of the Universe,' Mar-a-Lago. Bill Gates asked to come, tonight. We miss you and x! New Year's Eve is going to be AMAZING!!! DJT." (According to Aaron Pellish and Alayna Treene of CNN, "x" here likely refers to Musk's son X Æ A-Xii.) Why does this all matter? Because while Trump's people keep insisting he won in a landslide and has a mandate that he will put in place on day one, his fragile coalition is splintering even before he takes office. Trump won less than 50% of the vote. Despite their slim victory, the Republican Party was already in a civil war between MAGA and establishment Republicans who are fed up with the MAGAs who threaten to burn down the government and almost a century of international diplomacy: just a week ago, Senate Republicans were publicly complaining about the dysfunctional "sh*t show" and "fiasco" in the House. Now, with Trump not even in office yet, the two factions of Trump's MAGA base—which, indeed, have opposing interests—are at war. — Notes: https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage-theft-in-the-h-1b-program/ https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/H-1B-FY15.pdf https://www.newsweek.com/trump-musk-ramaswamy-immigration-h1b-visa-workers-2006669 https://www.newsweek.com/h1b-immigration-visas-india-elon-musk-vivek-trump-2006308 https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/24/tech-layoffs-2024-list/ https://newrepublic.com/post/189681/vivek-ramaswamy-american-workers-suck-maga-reaction Jeff Tiedrich, "hey MAGA— President Musk wants an immigrant to take your job," December 27, 2024, everyone is entitled to my opinion. https://www.axios.com/2024/12/27/elon-musk-contemptible-fools-maga-doge https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/27/politics/donald-trump-bill-gates-elon-musk/index.html https://www.rawstory.com/elon-musk-2670690070/ https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5049966-senate-republicans-house-government-funding/ https://www.newsweek.com/steve-bannon-elon-musk-h1b-visa-2006627 https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/12/27/h-1b-visas-elon-musk-trump-immigration/ X: trump_repost/status/1870949048750104795 LauraLoomer/status/1872068786767228992 LauraLoomer/status/1872319643936870548 VivekGRamaswamy/status/1872312139945234507 NikkiHaley/status/1872344248915554712 GavinWax/status/1872124852695679189 politiwars/status/1872284365771931867 davidshuster/status/1872457573817065589 DavidShuster/status/1872770778472825089 TheTNHoller/status/1872488549037281583 rpsagainsttrump/status/1872443407349817531 micah_erfan/status/1872497996392522219 elonmusk/status/1872744295884841262 LauraLoomer/status/1872753504085000262 acnewsitics/status/1872680874350907455 |
26 December 2024
David Rothkopf's summation
We are all sick and tired, almost literally, of mulling over and hearing others blather on about what the new year will bring in crazy politics world. But this piece is well worth reading anyway: https://davidrothkopf.substack.com/p/ill-say-it-again-the-numbers-dont
You may have to subscribe to the free version of the substack, but Rothkopf is always worth paying a bit of attention to.
Happy New Year, and may it be not as bad as many of us fear.
25 December 2024
Merry Christmas
Whatever your belief or practice, wishing you peace, love and joy on this traditional day of rejoicing.
David & Brad
11 December 2024
Wray is a coward, as you'd probably expect
This is perhaps a bit weedsy for some. But shee-it. What a coward Wray is. Unfortunately unsurprising. But by acquiescing to Trump's nose thumbing at the intention of Congress in establishing a straddled term for the FBI director, and voluntarily resigning instead of forcing the issue, he has, after Trump did the same thing to Comey, ensured that this particular "norm" and "guardrail," among so many others, is now gone forever. I truly hate these people. I try not to, but I do. They are deliberately, corruptly, and anti-democratically destroying my country. On purpose.
What really disturbs me is that there is so very little protest, or even mention, of these terrible developments, which keep coming, one after another, even before the Menace takes office.
Amazon sells crap (not all crap, but it's a thing)
I freely admit to hypocrisy when it comes to Amazon. I used to decry Walmart as a destroyer of small retail business, but of course Amazon is far, far worse, having launched a largely successful assault on nearly all brick and mortar retail, with devastating effects across the land. Yet the convenience and fantastically honed service is addictive, and I shop at Amazon more than I care to admit. Which brings me to my comment. Not entirely original, of course, but worth repeating. Amazon engages in, or at least tolerates from its "merchants" and suppliers, a curious phenomenon in the realm of caveat emptor. I call it "quality counterfeiting." Frequently, if you buy a part, piece of hardware, or just some small utilitarian item (such as a sink stopper, which is what prompted this), and you buy one of the cheaper listings, what you get is an object that looks like the desired item, but which, in fact, is of such poor quality that in many cases they will fail in a short time or just not work as intended at all. They know most people will not bother to return something that only cost $5 to begin with, but it's really very insidious. Even things like fasteners and electric switches are sold that simply don't work, or break soon after purchase, and are essentially worthless. A savvy buyer learns to recognize this, and avoid the cheapest items, or items with few or no reviews (although once they acquire a bunch of bad reviews, they just pull it and release it as a slightly differently described but actually the same item; indeed the same item is often sold at different prices by ostensibly different producers, when in fact they are identical and equally worthless). So, indeed, caveat emptor. I've started buying things like this in... mirabile dictu ...hardware stores, where the price is higher but the damn thing actually works and lasts longer than a month.
Supermarket Merger Quashed
Here in Portland, for all practical purposes, there are only two major chain grocery stores, and neither is named Albertsons nor Kroger, but, in fact, they are, both of them: Safeway (Albertsons) and Fred Meyer (Kroger). (The current names are relicts of earlier mergers that effectively ended the original holders of those names). So, the quashing of the obviously monopolistic merger of these two major players in the nationwide supermarket biz is definitely a good thing. Even as things stand, both these chains engage in altogether too much wink and nod price fixing and other monopolistic practices. Plus there are already food deserts in our city; I can only imagine that the inevitable closing of proximal locations would just make matters worse. So, in the bleak run up to America's first overtly aspirational autocrat's taking office, there is at least a little good news. I'm assuming the reason the Federal court action was here in Portland is that our town is ground zero for why this proposed merger should not be allowed.
08 December 2024
Ending birthright citizenship? Huh?
So the would-be autocrat says "we're going to end" birthright citizenship. I don't think he knows or cares that it's in the Constitution (Amendment XIV). I want to say there's no way he could get a Constitutional Amendment through. But that's us, Americans who believe in the rule of law and playing by the rules, who can't hope to amend the Constitution, with the anti-democratic procedural hurdles in place. Can MAGA? I guess only time will tell... I suppose the alternative is that they will simply impose their will by fiat, and the era of the Constitution as supreme law will effectively be ended. Is that possible? I honestly don't know. And that's absolutely terrifying.
"Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it."
― Spinoza (Ethics)
― Spinoza (Ethics)
05 December 2024
Where the hell are we?
In case you would like a little help visualizing where our Galaxy is, in relation to its surroundings, this might help (a response from ChatGPT to my question about it, in which I suggested the "edge of the city" metaphor):
The Milky Way is located on the outskirts of the Virgo Supercluster, which is a massive cluster of galaxies that acts as a central hub in this part of the universe.
The Virgo Supercluster itself is part of an even larger structure known as the Laniakea Supercluster, which encompasses over 100,000 galaxies stretched out over 520 million light-years. Within this vast structure, the Milky Way, along with its local group of galaxies, is situated toward the outer regions of the Laniakea Supercluster.
Beyond the edge of our galaxy and its immediate galactic neighborhood lies the Local Void, a vast, relatively empty region of space. This void serves as a stark contrast to the densely packed clusters of galaxies found in the supercluster. In this sense, describing our galaxy as being on the "edge of the city" with the void beyond is a useful visualization to capture our relative position in the cosmos.
Laniakea Supercluster
04 December 2024
Hell, no, to dictatorship
When I heard yesterday that S. Korean president Yoon had declared Martial Law, I immediately thought, in my cynical/sarcastic mindset, "oh, great, now OUR incoming would-be dictator will find inspiration in that and do the same thing!"
Today I'd like to think that if he tries it, OUR Constitutional system will do the same thing as Korea's legislators: immediately move to impeach him (this time for real), and emit one giant "Hell, no, you don't!"
03 December 2024
The Milky Way from the South
I don't know if it's common knowledge that the view of our Galaxy from the Southern Hemisphere is vastly better than the view from up here in the North. If you've never been South of the Equator (as I have not), you've never really seen the Milky Way in its greatest splendor (naked eye/dark sky).
"Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it."
― Spinoza (Ethics)
― Spinoza (Ethics)
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