Sunday, June 01, 2025

One Bad Ugly Bill

 


There is a lot of talk about budgets these days with the R controlled house passing the BBB with no votes to spare. That led me to start looking at the 2025 Federal Budget as it now exists. As you probably know, that Big Beautiful bill is very ugly for a lot of folks, but they got it half right because it is big.  Some say it is the biggest transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich in the sordid history of US taxation policies. It also tries to kill the good clean energy initiatives of Biden and the rest of the World.

Just to let you know how  Artificial Intelligence can lead down an alley that gets your brain mugged, I googled "what is the largest expenditure in the US Budget" and the answer it gave me was right but wrong

AI responded: The largest single expense in the U.S. federal budget is Social Security. 

Breakdown of Federal Spending:
  • Social Security: Accounts for 22% of the total federal budget. 
  • Medicare: Represents 14% of federal spending.
  • Medicaid: Takes up 10% of the budget.
  • National Defense: Constitutes 13% of federal spending.
  • Net Interest: Interest payments on the national debt are also a significant expense at 14% of the budget.
  • Other Mandatory Spending: Programs like veterans' benefits and food stamps fall under this category, accounting for 16% of the budget.
  •  Non-Defense Discretionary Spending: This includes areas like education, transportation, and scientific research and accounts for 15% of the federal budget. 

Yes, if you look at the official budget from the White House, 22% of the budget is about 1.54 trillion which is about right.  But what is NOT included is the  1.29 Trillion in receipts for SS which means that the system spent about .30 trillion (300 billion) more than it took in. (not including medicare receipts)

And when you add the corpus and interest gained by Social Security's US treasury bond fund, the actual expense to the treasury is closer to zero. With asset reserves of about $2,908 billion ($2.9 trillion) at the end of December 2020, the system has just started to decline. Asset reserves have declined slightly to about $2,721 billion ($2.7 trillion) by the end of December 2024. To halt this decline, Congress must remove the caps on income for the wealthy and extend the retirement age of white collar workers.

But by far, the real single largest expense (excluding debt) in the US Budget is Defense.

And that is about 900 billion.  And the BBB would increase that by another 100 billion. 

 Ezra Klein says: 

Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is the cruelest and most irresponsible piece of domestic legislation to be seriously proposed in my lifetime.

When you think about this bill, you should think about risk. It would increase our risk of a fiscal crisis by adding a hefty sum to our nation’s debt, at a time when we’re alienating the countries that typically buy our debt. It would slash food stamps and strip health insurance from millions of people, increasing the risk that the safety net won’t be able to catch any of us, at a time when President Trump’s tariffs have increased the risk of a recession.

According to Morning Joe, "Think about this: From George Washington's term through the end of Barack Obama's term on Jan. 20, 2017, the United States of America did not increase the national debt by as much as Mike Johnson's budget increases the national debt over the next decade."

The BBB is one Big Bungled Bunghole.

But what the Citizens of this Country and the World need right now is for the US do some honest work on its situation.  And first of all, we are not a business nor are we a household. We are the social fabric that preserves and protects its citizens.

As of May 30th, 2025, we are about 36 Trillion dollars in debt... that's a little over 100,000 a person.  (another good reason to keep the family small) 

Interest paid on that debt this year is about a Trillion dollars.  If interest rates stay where they are right now that will grow to 1.5 Trillion in 7 years. 

If you look at our receipts the thing that sticks out is the amount of Tax that business pays (.46 Trillion) versus the amount of tax that is paid by individuals (2.64 Trillion). 

                                                                            25      26      27     28     

You can see by the current Biden White House Budget that Outlays are about 7 Trillion and Receipts are about 5 Trillion

As for Receipts, individuals pay 3 Trillion (not including Social security and Medicare) and Business pays .5 Trillion (excluding SS).  It doesn't seem like a smart time to cut taxes.  Quite the opposite.  Business should pay for the defense department, especially since they get the money anyway.  Citizens should arguably pay for half of the non defense discretionary items of another Trillion.  

That would mean Business pays for the military and half of the non-military items or about 1.5 Trillion and individuals pay for all the rest  of the domestic spending which is about 4.5 Trillion RIGHT NOW.  That cuts the deficit  to less than a Trillion a year. (interest will remain the same)

Cutting Taxes for the wealthy and big business in these times is the wet dream of the oligarchy and a ridiculous zombie relic of a GOP past.

Yes, business will raise their prices to pay the tax, just like they would if they paid a tariff.

But tariffs will affect those who live pay-check to pay-check harder.

And speaking of relics of the past, it is now time to ponder the nature of international finance. With the issuance of more and more Bit Coin and other block chain constructions combined with the current political acceptance for uninsured FIAT money, dark clouds are on the horizon. 

Ironically and in time, these currencies will erode the government backed Fiat currencies.

And the normal swing between equities and bonds 

will be pulled over by the gravity of the imbalance.

And markets will heave. 

And a new balance sheet will arise. 

 

 

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Saturday, May 03, 2025

Mayday Mayday Mayday

 


As we enter the first days of May, many will celebrate a version of May Day.  

May Day's history is multifaceted,  It originated in Europe as a celebration of spring, with traditions like Maypoles and May Queens, often connected to fertility and renewal. In the 19th century, it also became a day to honor workers and advocate for better conditions, particularly the eight-hour workday, with its most prominent event being the Haymarket Affair in Chicago in 1886.

At Haymarket Square,  a demonstration for an eight-hour workday led to violence and casualties, further cementing May Day's association with labor struggles.  

On the cultural side, May Day is a festival of ancient origins marking the beginning of summer, usually celebrated on 1 May, around halfway between the Northern Hemisphere's spring equinox and midsummer solstice.[1][2] 

Festivities may also be held the night before, known as May Eve. Traditions include gathering green branches and wildflowers ("bringing in the May"),[3] which are used to decorate buildings and made into wreaths; crowning a May Queen, sometimes with a male companion decked in greenery; setting up a Maypole, May Tree, or May Bush, around which people dance and sing; as well as parades and processions involving these.

Bonfires are also a major part of the festival in some regions.

But this is not the May Day of this post.

No, the May Day of this post is the May Day of the Seas and of the Sky.  It is derived from the French phrase "m'aider," which translates to "help me". It's a standard procedure word used to signal a critical situation needing immediate attention. And is should be repeated three times so that all who hear will know that someone or thing is in distress and in danger of losing its existence.

And so we here on the political ship named the "US America" call MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY not because of the angry political seas or the winds of unabated lies which are substantial, but because our skipper is lost on his private mission to destroy the  great white whale.  The one that once took his leg leaving him a wooden post to walk the decks at night with a foreboding thump as told by Ishmael.

He was injured and nearly killed by that voyage  and now his only mission is to seek revenge.  And no one or thing will stop him. And that must change.

Those of us on board only need a few officers to change their allegiances so our course and our dark destiny can be altered. We need to lock the skipper in his quarters as we turn the ship around to once again  become the light of the nations instead of the darkness of a thousand leagues. 

And so we call mayday mayday mayday to the other ships of the sea to come save us.

And to do that, we need our former  trade allies to stop trading.  Don't buy American,  Don't fly American (or to).  Boycott everything that is American...our movies, our music, our food, our phones, our computers and our institutions of learning. Show the crew of the US America that the continued serving of this Captain Ahab is a recipe for a  calamity not unlike Mellville's  tale of the Pequod.

Already, we have seen that other ships can make the difference.  In Canada just last week, the conservative leader not only lost the election after leading in the polls just 2 months ago, he lost his seat.  The same happened in Australia as the conservative leader lost his seat.  

Canadian shoppers are turning US products upside down in retail outlets so it’s easier for fellow shoppers to spot and avoid them. Canadian consumers can also download the Maple Scan app that checks barcodes to see if their grocery purchases are actually Canadian or have parent companies from the USA. 

And the Europeans see our Ahab clearly:

"Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege. 

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, 

God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. "(more)

The “liberation day” tariffs were higher than most observers expected. But many US corporations will now be worrying about how consumers in the US and around the world might respond. Drump could see a mass mobilisation of consumer power in ways that will give the president something to think about.

And yes, the shelves may grow thin and our Christmas tree may be a little bare.  But, there must be a global effort to rid the world of this meddlesome tyrant.

We stopped the reign of King George 250 years ago, and we must stop this wanna-be dictator now.

But this time, 

it will take the whole democratic  globe.

An Earthfamily.

 


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Saturday, April 05, 2025

Superpower


 

Several years ago, a few of us went to the opening of the Tesla plant in Austin, Texas.  Since we had VIP passes, we watched the spectacle from the raised VIP section in front of the main stage.  The whole event was called the Cyber Rodeo.  From rock concerts to renewable energy conferences,  I have a long history of producing events. But this event was way beyond almost anything (except for the Paris Olympic opening) with its drone light show floating outside in the sky while the sounds,  laser light, and music filled the inside to the brim.

Soon Elon Musk would drive up on stage in his stainless steel cybertruck to the cheers of thousands. Since it was Texas, he sported a big black western hat.  My partner commented that he had to take it off to get out or in this new version of a pick-up truck.

Later,  Elon joined us in a special roped off section of the VIP loft and we had a chance to visit with him.  We talked for a while about energy and my work in the renewable energy sector,  but I later talked with his brother's partner who was instrumental in getting the huge facility built.  Amazingly, the whole project went from an idea to reality in not years but months.  

It was then that he told me that Elon Musk's superpower is the ability to execute.

That stuck with me.

We are all well versed in superpowers thanks to Stan Lee and the other comic book makers of our childhoods.  And of all the superpowers, being able to get shit done was not in the pantheon. 

Superheroes have changed how modern pop culture thinks about superpowers after countless stories of gods, titans, and heroes shaping the world.  Comics, TV, and movies have explored and deconstructed extraordinary abilities but fans still love fantasizing about wielding incredible superpowers like flight or telepathy.

Of course, the best superpowers in comics and movies are the ones that help superheroes win battles and save lives. Superheroes are a kind of modern mythology, and their great powers define characters like Spider-Man and The Flash as much as their decisions and personalities.

Generally superheroes with superpowers fight evil, but some times they are evil themselves.  And in our world, sometimes they transform from fighting for good to simply scheming for themselves. It was only a year or so after I met Musk that I realized that he had  turned into a Batman villain

Gone are the days of him talking about Climate Change and the importance of electrifying the transportation sector.  Gone are the days when he considered his satellite network to be a public utility for all to share. And now as he deconstructs the most powerful and effective government force on the planet so that it can be privatized and placed in the hands of a non-benign plutocracy, he is using his superpower to ultimately enslave millions under another form of human order.

For him and his fellow billionaires, the time of democracy has passed, and we need to get more comfortable with CEO dictators. It is after all, almost 250 years old.

And to make it happen, he had to join forces with another creature who has a superpower that is also unknown to the Marvel world,  although it is a marvel.  And of all the superpowers, it stands out because it transforms the minds of those who fall under its spell. 

That superpower is the power to lie.

Many of us can lie rather well, but no one but the orange felon can lie with impunity over and over and over again.  The fact that any newspaper, reporter, or media personality would repeat anything he says as being truthful is downright mystical.  But there are reasons.

Dan McAdams, a psychology professor at Northwestern University, wrote this about Drump’s approach: “Truth is effectively whatever it takes to win the moment, moment by moment, battle by battle — as the episodic man, shorn of any long-term story to make sense of his life, struggles to win the moment.

“Among the many reasons that Drump’s supporters excuse his lying is that they, like Drump himself, do not really hold him to the standards that human persons are held to. And that is because many of his supporters, like Drump himself, do not consider him to be a person — he is more like a primal force or superhero, more than a person, but less than a person, too.”

Another factor is the sheer depth of the anger among many Drump supporters. Anger, it seems, encourages deception.

Jeremy Yip of Georgetown and Maurice Schweitzer of the University of Pennsylvania demonstrated through a series of experiments that, they said: “Anger promotes the use of self-serving deception

When individuals feel angry, they continued, “They are more likely to deceive others. We find that angry individuals are less concerned about the welfare of others, and consequently more likely to exhibit self-interested unethical behavior.

Many of his supporters have become so angry and alienated that they act like part of a cult. They regard this as a time of war, one to be fought day-by-day by a superhero who uses lies as an acceptable weapon

The Truth is, Fox makes their viewers angry.

And Rachel and Jon make us laugh.

And the lies flow out of the sewer untreated.

And into our lives


There are demonstrations in the streets today in all 50 states.

That is our Superpower

 

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Sunday, March 30, 2025

Pot Luck Vibewave

  


 "Respect is the Hub" asked that an old post that he wrote 9 years ago be republished as Pot Luck Vibewave.  He believes that the time to eat together is well upon us given the political landscape we all now face:

Part of our primate/hunter-gatherer heritage is to sit around and share food, preferably with some small children running around.

It's not just the calories It's the social energy, as essential to our health as sleep and exercise. These gatherings should never be confused with work where food is present, such as a lecture, meeting or group work sessions.

Feeling depressed about current events?

Plan on regular get together's with like minded family, friends and neighbors: lunches, potlucks and even Tuesday night dinners. Schedule these islands of respite, warmth, sanity and love into your life now.

Remember, some of the best ideas are famously drawn on napkins or start as joking conversation.

Suggestion: Keep these regular and informal gatherings entirely off line. They may become so very important in the future.

Let us remember the wisdom that we have learned from South Park.

"There's no internet to find out why there's no internet!"

Groups of kind people sharing may become our only reliable internet.



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Thursday, February 27, 2025

The Krasnov Files



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The vote at the UN a few days ago was a momentous and disconcerting occasion. This from CNN:

"The United States joined Russia to vote against a UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine Monday in a stunning shift from years of US policy.

The vote against the Ukrainian and European-backed resolution saw the US at odds with its longtime European allies and instead aligned with the aggressor in the war on the three-year anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine."

The vote in the General Assembly was 93 FOR, 16 NO, and 65 abstentions.  Other NOs were North Korea and Belarus.  China, India, Iran, and Iraq did not vote on the issue.

"The US again voted the same way as Russia later Monday on a US-proposed UN Security Council resolution that did not call the Kremlin the aggressor or acknowledge Ukraine’s territorial integrity. The resolution passed without the support of five European members of the Security Council" 

Note, Great Britain and France, the two European permanent members of the Security Council did not veto the resolution which is perplexing if not revealing.

The US’ shocking alignment with Russia at the United Nations came as the Trump administration has pursued discussions with Moscow about ending the war. 

But not only did the US do a 180 on Ukraine at the UN, we announced through our Fox News Weekend Host now Secretary of Defense that we now oppose Ukraine's entry into NATO.  And in the last few days it appears that Zelenskyy will respond to our immoral blackmail for their natural resources in trade for some security agreement with the US. Oddly, most of the resources we want are actually in Russian controlled Ukraine, so Zelenskyy is giving up resources he currently does not even have.

Putie Pute, the KGB operative and  Russian dictator, is  obviously toasting his gains in his gold Kremlin opulence with the success of his 38 year old  Russian asset named Krasnov

According to Newspapers in Europe and Asia, Krasnov's name was revealed by a former KGB operative named Mussayev:

In 1987, I worked in the 6th Department of the KGB of the USSR in Moscow. The most important area of ​​work of the 6th Department was the acquisition of spies and sources of information from among businessmen of capitalist countries. It was in that year that our Department recruited the 40-year-old businessman from the USA, (DJDrumph), nicknamed "Krasnov".

This from the Kiev Independent:

"Questions about U.S. President's possibly shady relationship with Russia and the country's security services have long swirled, even culminating in a special counsel investigation during his first term in office.

Though that investigation found evidence of "extensive criminal activity" by Drumph, his associates, and some of his family members, it found no evidence that he was working for, or had ever been recruited by, Russia's security services."

Yet despite this, the topic refuses to go away.

Craig Unger, an American journalist and writer who has written two books on Drumph’s connections to Russia’s security services and the Russian mafia stretching all the way back to the 1980s, says he is "absolutely certain" that the U.S. president is a Russian asset. 

People are shocked today that Drumph is betraying Ukraine, he's betraying Europe, he's siding with Putin. Well, he did it as early as 1987, when he was starting to run for the presidency in 1988. And that is very well documented, it was printed in the NYT.

It's exactly the foreign policy he is acting out today that is so horrifying. This is the end of NATO, it's the end of the Western alliance. Drumph is allying with Vladimir Putin, and against Ukraine and all of Western Europe.

And with the help of his henchmen and the R's it will be the end of Democracy as we know it. 

As Jerry Garcia once said, someone has got to do something, and it's incredibly pathetic that it's us.

But if you boil this all down to the fundamentals, we just need 3 Rs in the House to vote for impeachment and 21 R's in the Senate to convict to get rid of Krasnov once and for all.  And why we are at it, we make it clear to Mr. Hillbilly Elegy that he's next if he doesn't change his ways.

And then we have to solve some real problems.  Like how are we to manage our $36 Trillion debt  that is now about a trillion dollars in annual interest. That is slightly more than we pay for the biggest most deadly war making force in the universe.  (hopefully)

And before we allow the richest nation in the universe to increase the hurt to its poor through medicaid cuts,  headstart stops, and whatever else must be chopped off by the richest of the rich in order for our ruling plutocracy to get a renewal of their tax breaks, we need to think about that. And we need to ask ourselves "why does the Nation have any debt"?

If our  National banking system is allowed to create money in our fractional reserve banking rules, why can't the government do the same? 

We can.

We just need to see that the National Debt from a different perspective.  Why should the bankers and the well healed profit off the National Debt when the nation needs to care for those at the bottom of the ladder while defending all of us from those who plunder and subjugate? Why can we not have  affordable health care and life enhancing opportunity for us all ?

Maybe we shouldn't raise the debt ceiling.

And stop paying interest on our own money

Oh you say, Inflation.

We've got that already. 

But Krasnov has got to go.


 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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In a digital storm of speculation and intrigue, social media is ablaze with allegations that Donald Trump has been a Russian asset for 40 years, secretly operating under the codename "Krasnov." The claim, which first surfaced in a Facebook post by former KGB officer Alnur Mussayev, has now been supercharged by a viral tweet thread from an X (formerly Twitter) user, @anthony7andrews.

What started as whispers of Cold War espionage has now turned into a full-blown internet conspiracy theor ..

 

In a digital storm of speculation and intrigue, social media is ablaze with allegations that Donald Trump has been a Russian asset for 40 years, secretly operating under the codename "Krasnov." The claim, which first surfaced in a Facebook post by former KGB officer Alnur Mussayev, has now been supercharged by a viral tweet thread from an X (formerly Twitter) user, @anthony7andrews.

What started as whispers of Cold War espionage has now turned into a full-blown internet conspiracy theor ..

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/donald-trumps-russian-spy-connection-social-media-explodes-with-evidence-about-krasnov-is-it-just-another-wild-conspiracy-theory/articleshow/118504492.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

In a digital storm of speculation and intrigue, social media is ablaze with allegations that Donald Trump has been a Russian asset for 40 years, secretly operating under the codename "Krasnov." The claim, which first surfaced in a Facebook post by former KGB officer Alnur Mussayev, has now been supercharged by a viral tweet thread from an X (formerly Twitter) user, @anthony7andrews.

What started as whispers of Cold War espionage has now turned into a full-blown internet conspiracy theor ..

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Friday, January 31, 2025

The Putsch Push

 


 

The previous government we have all known for the many decades is now gone.  The Putsch occurred on January 31st when the elected government run by the Rs with the help of their henchmen took over the constitutional government of the United States.  Here is the story:

The New York Times reported over the weekend that the Treasury Secretary "gave representatives of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency access to the federal payment system late on Friday, according to five people familiar with the change, handing Elon Musk and the team he is leading a powerful tool to monitor and potentially limit government spending."

Politico reports that Secretary Scott Bessent "privately reassured Republican lawmakers Monday that Elon Musk and his team do not have control over a sensitive government system that manages the flow of trillions of dollars in payments, according to five lawmakers in the room for a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill."

Based on that meeting, Musk and his coders were only given "read only" access.

Talking Points Memo publisher Josh Marshall on Tuesday morning dropped this bombshell: He alleges a Musk associate has made changes to the Treasury's payment systems at the code level.

"Overnight, Wired reported that contrary to published reports that DOGE operatives at the Treasury Department are limited to ‘read only’ access to department payment systems, this is not true," Marshall wrote. "A 25 year old DOGE operative named Marko Elez in fact has admin privileges on these critical systems which directly control and pay out roughly 95% of payments made by the US government including Social Security checks, tax refunds and virtually all contract payments."

“Elon just grabbed the controls of our whole payment system, demanding the power to turn it on for his friends or turn it off for anyone he doesn’t like,” said U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on Monday (video below). “One guy deciding who gets paid and who doesn’t.”

U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), the Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, "rejected the idea that Musk allies’ access to the payments system was as limited as Republicans and the administration are claiming," as Politico reported.

“Some Republicans are trying to suggest that Musk only has ‘viewing access’ to Treasury’s highly sensitive payment system as if that’s acceptable either. But why on earth should we believe that—particularly when he is saying the exact opposite loudly and repeatedly for everyone to see?” Murray declared.

Controlling the payment process is Control

And there is so much more.

USAID, the Congressionally created foreign aid agency, was illegally shut down:

WASHINGTON, Feb 3 (Reuters) - The Trump administration said it would lock U.S. Agency for International Development workers out of their headquarters in downtown Washington DC for a second day on Tuesday as it moved to shutter the agency, prompting two Democratic senators to vow to block confirmations of State Department nominees in protest.

And the Education Department is next:

The Education Department is responsible for distributing federal financial aid for education, and for collecting and disseminating data and research related to schools. The department is also tasked with enforcing non-discrimination policies in schools.

Generally, it supports federal college loan programs and Pell Grants, and also vocational training.

And there are the Firings of the FBI agents who worked up the prosecution of this criminal president.  And the Firings of the Inspector Generals without cause or notice to Congress

Firing Civil Service workers without cause is illegal

The Spoils system which is now being reintroduced by this administration is no longer the law.  Under that "spoils system," the main job requirement for most federal employees was loyalty.  Sound familiar? And its change took a Presidential assassination and an energized vice president named Teddy Roosevelt to later change the spoils policy of Andrew Jackson to the non-partisan civil service of today.

Two major unions representing U.S. government employees filed a lawsuit on Wednesday aimed at slowing the new administration's effort to reclassify up to 50,000 federal workers and make it easier to fire them.
 
The American Federation of Government Employees and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees said Trump in a Jan. 20 executive order improperly attempted to block a Biden administration rule shielding federal workers from being stripped of job protections.
 
Last week, a Federal judge ruled that the actions at OMB are unconstitutional.  Yet, the payments have not returned. And who can enforce the orders of the court when the orders are ignored?

There are those who say that the D's bring a knife to a R gunfight.  Truth is, it's worse, they  bring a Thesaurus.  More words, different words, fancier words, harsh words if they are really mad. Soon, they will bring their Constitutions.

Perhaps the words of Andrew Coyne from our Ally to the North says it better than they do:

Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.

The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.

There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. 

We are living in the time of Nero.

And the Putsch Push is On


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tuesday, December 31, 2024

We Are Not Afraid

  


 

As we go into the New Year, there is a majority that did not vote for a soon to be convicted felon, and we certainly don't look forward to the parade of Halloween appointments that he is insisting be confirmed with  no debate or for that matter, no hearing. The new Senate will likely be more of a toilet bowl than a fine confirmation filter of assessing the character and competence to do the job well.  Most have a different mission in mind.

And when you consider that much of the government is going to be run by billionaires, it becomes clear that the day of the Plutocrats has come. This from ABC news:

"President-elect Donald Trump has assembled the wealthiest presidential administration in modern history, with at least 13 billionaires set to take on government posts.

They include a wrestling magnate, a private space pioneer, a New York real estate developer, the heir to a small appliance empire, and the wealthiest man on the planet -- with several being donors and close personal friends of the incoming president.

In total, the combined net worth of the wealthiest members of his administration could surpass $460 billion, including Department of Government Efficiency co-head Elon Musk -- whose net worth of more than $400 billion exceeds the GDP of mid-sized countries.

Even discounting Musk, Trump's cabinet is still expected to be the wealthiest in history, with reported billionaires Howard Lutnick nominated as commerce secretary, Linda McMahon nominated as education secretary, and Scott Bessent nominated as treasury secretary. Together, Trump's expected cabinet is worth at least $7 billion.

Trump's ambassador picks also include several billionaires, including financier Warren Stephens, who has been tapped to serve as the ambassador to the United Kingdom, Conair executive Leandro Rizzuto Jr., tapped to serve as the ambassador to the Organization of American States, Charles Kushner, named the ambassador to France, and Tom Barrack, named the ambassador to Turkey."

So let us consider the veneer of democracy in the United States to be sanded off to the core.

The good news is that the bad news is even worse.

Yes, as we move into this new year, the "Day after Tomorrow" might be in the next few years.  This from Live Science:

Forty-four of the world's leading climate scientists have called on Nordic policymakers to address the potentially imminent and "devastating" collapse of key Atlantic Ocean currents.

In an open letter published online Monday (Oct. 21), University of Pennsylvania climatologist Michael Mann and other eminent scientists say the risks of weakening ocean circulation in the Atlantic have been greatly underestimated and warrant urgent action.

The currents in question are those forming the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a giant ocean conveyor belt that includes the Gulf Stream and transports vital heat to the Northern Hemisphere. Research shows the AMOC is slowing down and could soon reach a tipping point due to global warming, throwing Earth's climate into chaos.

An AMOC collapse would lead to major cooling and extreme weather in Nordic countries, according to the letter. This would enlarge and deepen a strange "cold blob" that has already developed over the eastern North Atlantic due to the slowdown of heat-carrying currents. Collapsing ocean currents are also likely to precipitate climate impacts across the Northern Hemisphere, threatening agriculture in Northwestern Europe, according to the letter.

Halted ocean currents could also further heighten sea levels along the American Atlantic coast and send marine ecosystems and fisheries into a state of "upheaval."

Scientists have been genuinely concerned about the increase of the drunk high level jet stream winds that have brought inordinate cold and heat to much of the planet over the last several years. 

But even as we face the certainty of our climate changing radically as a result of our carbon burning ways led by a government that will once again deny it, we face another radical change that is more unknown, more human changing, and just as likely to have profound influence on our economy and the way we manage ourselves.  It is AI and ultimately, it is the Singularity.

 

The Singularity

The concept of a technological singularity as it is known today is largely credited to Dr. Vernor Vinge, a mathematician, computer scientist, and science fiction author who is best known for his Hugo award-winning novel, A Fire Upon the Deep, and for his 1993 essay "The Technological Singularity", in which he argues that exponential growth in technology will reach a point beyond which we cannot even speculate about the consequences.

Vinge's essay contains the following frequently-quoted statement:

"Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly thereafter, the human era will be ended."

The Singularity is seen not only as the end of human civilization, but as the birth of a new one. In his essay, Vinge asks why the human era should end, and argues that humans will likely be transformed in the process of the Singularity to a higher form of intelligent existence. After the creation of a superhuman intelligence, according to Vinge, people will necessarily be a lower lifeform in comparison to it. 

If the Singularity is real then the following scenario is totally plausible:

In the near future, individuals and corporations will become super beings as the rest of us slowly but surely become "lessers". Thus, the need for cybercoops which can compete on this new playing field is not just a good idea, it will be a necessity.

We will need the very best communicators and the best, most democratic unifying agency we can find just to keep from becoming slaves. The geographic state will not be able to help us. We will need a cyber state

You are capable of competing with the big guys.

Because you have joined with others to form a new human organism.

You have joined with People of Conscience and People of Vision.

We are not afraid

 


 

 

 

 

 

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