No doubt. Meanwhile, Trump’s co-president believes he is a god. He’s impregnating as many women as possible (through IVF so he doesn’t have to engage in the dirty work apparently) in order to spread his seed to create some sort of master race. That’s not hyperbolic. He really is that nuts. He has no idea what he’s doing with the US Government and neither does Trump, obviously. (He has never understood how government works.) They are simply taking a wrecking ball to all these government agencies and if somebody dies or people’s lives are ruined by doing that they say they’ll take a look at how they might fix the problem. That’s what he did with his companies and that’s what he thinks will work now. If you don’t care about people at all then this actually makes sense. They are just guinea pigs in your experiment and if they die you learn from what you did wrong. All the years of trial and error, research and implementation are tossed out the window so that a group of teenage coders can “fix” the problems that didn’t exist in the first place.
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What can we say about the shape of things to come in world politics, the probability of different possibilities, and the reflexivity of our anticipations? Building on post-Keynesian economic theory and classical theories of imperialism, my new book discusses a new era of insecurity, confrontations, armaments, and wars.
The post Globalizations: The Shape of Things to Come appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).
Yesterday Trump made another ceremonial visit to Real America while President Musk ran the country: Donald Trump swept into Daytona, Florida for the Daytona 500 on Sunday while the arrival of a rainstorm — combined with the president’s own pre-race stunt — threatened to delay the race for hours. Sunday afternoon storms forced race officials to stop NASCAR’s biggest event on the 11th lap. Initial reports indicated that the race could be held up until around 7 p.m. EST. But the rain couldn’t stop the president from hogging the spotlight, which a crowd of cheering Trump fans in the audience didn’t appear to mind. The president took a lap around the track in “the Beast,” the president’s armored vehicle, followed by his motorcade ahead of the race’s start, while the Foo Fighters’ “There Goes My Hero” blared comically loud throughout the track. If it was meant as an ironic gesture, it was lost on the crowd who cheered the flyover of Air Force One and the arrival of Trump’s motorcade.
In Australia at the federal level of government, we have some of the shortest election cycles in the world: often barely three years. This mitigates against even medium-term planning. A new government takes a year to learn the ropes of office, another year to govern before preparing for re-election in the third. And even if Continue reading »
Senate Democrats have the power to block federal contracts to Tesla and SpaceX. It’s the path to pushing Musk out of politics.
The post This Is the Way to Stop Elon Musk appeared first on The Intercept.
Axios conducted a focus group that I’m seeing touted all over the media as if it’s the Oracle of Delphi. I’ll let you be the judge if anyone should take this seriously: Every Arizona swing voter in our latest Engagious/Sago focus groups said they approve of President Trump’s actions since taking office — and most also support Elon Musk’s efforts to slash government. Public opinion can constrain presidents when Congress does not. But these 11 voters — all of whom backed Joe Biden in 2020 but switched to Trump last November — said they’re good with Trump aggressively testing disruptive, expansionist expressions of presidential power that are piling up in court challenges. It’s needed to “get America back on track,” one participant said. One notable area of disagreement with Trump: The idea of the U.S. displacing Palestinians and taking over and redeveloping Gaza. These swing voters want Trump to stick with Americans’ needs inside the U.S. Some would like to see him do more, sooner, to rein in consumer costs.
. Danke, guter Gott, dass es Politiker wie Heidi gibt!
Using democracy to kill democracy The only thing American about supporters of Donald Trump’s rolling coup is their birth certificates. Elon Musk, Peter Thiel (and others) excluded, of course. * Resistance isn’t futile, The Ink reminds readers this morning. Trump 2.0’s revival last week of NIxon’s Saturday Night Massacre, and its rejection of the rule of law nowadays is “just what happens on a Thursday.” The Ink begins: JD Vance claimed last week that mere judges had no place restraining the president’s “legitimate power.” Bad enough. But over the weekend, his boss went further. A lot further. New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie called it “the single most un-American and anti-constitutional statement ever uttered by an American president.” And it’s hard to think of one that outdoes it. But the refusal of acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Danielle R. Sassoon, last week to carry out AG Pam Bondi’s demand to dismiss corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams demonstrated that the rule of law is not dead yet.
Keep leopards from eating your faces He Who Would Be King on Saturday gave dubious legal advice to those who would do him harm. That’s not what he intended. He meant to declare that no law can touch him, to issue a royal corollary to his Fifth Avenue declaration. But the chaos inside his brain case instead issued a statement with a dual meaning that escaped a man once nicked by an assassin before he becoming legally bulletproof. The statement is not original. Donald Trump picked it up online like a dime on the sidewalk. One of his believers likely found it first and dropped it there weeks ago. The quote is from a movie on Napoleon, not likely by the emperor himself. But it’s serviceable enough for a naked emperor to pick up, try on, and walk around in. Today is Presidents Day, so presumably the would-be-king will not be celebrating. But those opposed to a return of the monarchy will be anti-celebrating “Not My President’s Day” today across the country: These demonstrations are being organized by the 50501 Movement, which stands for “50 protests. 50 states.
While the media mogul spent more than half a century building up back-door political influence, the social media broligarch stormed into the US Government in just two years. Peter Jukes explores how the use of power through media has evolved
Russia and America are going to have a peace summit about the Ukraine war without Ukraine or any European country. This is slightly less ridiculous than the previous peace summit which didn’t include Russia since Russia can fight on without anyone but China’s support, while if the US decides to stop supporting Ukraine, it’s cooked.
Well, sort of. Ukraine is cooked any way you look at it. It was always going to lose the war, and that hasn’t changed.
What’s amusing about the what’s being floated is that Europe is supposed to send the peacekeepers and pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine and the US is supposed to… well, maybe get some of Ukraine’s wealth, though Zelensky has quite rightly refused to sign that deal.
- by Aeon Video
- by Theodore H Schwartz
- by Thomas Moynihan
Campaigners are challenging the lawfulness of restrictions brought in by the former Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman
Analysis of media mentions on Elon Musk's X reveals that established news organisations are helping to boost Nigel Farage's party well out of proportion to its number of MPs
"The public deserves to know if there are any debt obligations, resource access clauses, or strategic commitments involved."
Today’s post focuses on the contribution of elite higher education to the rise of Trump. This may seem in bad taste because it is also clearly targeted by MAGA, and so our impulse is to circle the wagons. But if you wish to develop a defensive posture you must understand the territory. Here I presuppose […]
In the centre of the Polish capital, Warsaw, is a street called Nowy Swiat — New World Street. Built in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in a neoclassical style and reconstructed very meticulously to something like its original appearance after Warsaw’s near-total destruction by Nazi Germany in 1944, it is the very heart of bourgeois […]
Governments that adhere to the mainstream macroeconomic mantras about fiscal rules and appeasing the amorphous financial markets have a habit of undermining their own political viability. As Australia approaches a federal election (by May 2025), the incumbent Labor government, which slaughtered the Conservative opposition in the last election, is now facing outright loss to a…
Bisan Owda shares how Israel is violating the ceasefire from Gaza. Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets in London, marching for Palestine. Gideon Levy writes in response to Palestinian prisoners on their knees wearing Israeli T-shirts stating “we will not forget nor forgive”. UK Palestine Mental Health Network says there is no PTSD Continue reading »
This isn’t the most important thing in the scheme of things but it’s telling. Trump is taking over the Kennedy Center to create a new MAGA cultural center, no doubt based upon his fabulous playlist of Pavorotti and The Village People. And now he apparently wants to literally turn the White House in mar-a-Lago so he can hold court exactly as he does at his hideous gilded palaces. He truly thinks he’s a king: He has told associates that he wants to rip up the grass in the Rose Garden, one of the White House’s most iconic and meticulously maintained spots, and replace it with a hard surface to resemble a patio like the one he has at Mar-a-Lago. Designers have drafted options for how to remake the surface of the Rose Garden, which sits just outside the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room. Mr. Trump has discussed whether it should be limestone or an easily interchangeable hard surface, with the possibility of installing hardwood floors for dancing, according to four people briefed on the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. […] Mr. Trump has other plans for the West Wing.
