uspol
#GiftArticle link thanks to @20002ist & @kateiacy
As #ElonMusk became one of #Trump’s closest allies last year, leading raucous rallies & donating about $275M to help him win the presidency, he was also using #drugs far more intensely than previously known [tho pretty obvious to the casual observer], acc/to people familiar w/his activities.
#law #USpol #kakistocracy #FederalGovernment #DOGE
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/us/elon-musk-drugs-children-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.LE8.ddlK.-OF3BB7k5PGN&smid=url-share
the #Democrats who censured US Rep Al Green aren't stupid. they're #collaborators.
make it a habit of calling them what they are.
Crazy how people get onto news broadcasts and parse their words, saying things like what I just heard a Congress member say — that
Trump "seems to be" starting wars everywhere (which is on par for them calling the Department of Defense the Department of War).
SEEMS to be? What is that? Call a spade a spade. That is EXACTLY what the Admin is doing. If there is not outrage about this, he will continue these actions EVERYWHERE he can.
I'm not a GDP growth at all costs person--I believe we have no choice but to stop the mad obsession with making that number go up--but I do think it's important to note that GDP was growing relatively rapidly (by modern standards) through the end of 2024. This change marks a significant turnaround that looks like it might erase a quarter's worth of growth and then some. Official data release is March 27. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that an administration whose only policy thus far has been to inflict pain on people would inflict economic pain as well.
2 quarters of this is a recession and 4 quarters of this is a depression by conventional metrics.
#USPol #USEconomics #economy #GDP
#USPol
Day 5
I left voicemails at all offices of US Rep. Elise Stefanik (R, NY), requesting she starts impeachment proceedings to remove Trump, for starting an unprovoked war w/ Iran.
I'll do this everyday until the president dies or is removed.
It won't move her 😒, but it's an action I can do that helps me feel less helpless.
I post here for accountability, to compound my emotional benefit, & let my online neighbors see that I care.
These calls are starting to feel like it's helping me.
Republican #House Speaker #MikeJohnson urged fellow Republican lawmakers on Tues to avoid #public #TownHall meetings with #voters after some events turned into angry confrontations over #Trump's moves to fire #FederalWorkers & defund government programs.
#cowards #PublicDisservice #Republicans #GOP #RepresentationMatters #USpol #Musk #DOGE #FederalAgencies #SocialSecurity #Medicaid #Veterans #children #seniors #disability #PublicHealth #weather #DisasterPreparedness
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-speaker-urges-lawmakers-avoid-town-hall-meetings-2025-03-04/
Oof.
Gregory Bovino is a real scary motherfucker
Do they come more Nazi then that?
No wonder he is called #ICE SS Officer Gregory Bovino
There is no way in hell I'm watching the #SOTU tonight.
I'd rather scrape my ass with jagged blades.
I’m not a psychologist.
But Trump’s malignant narcissism seems plain.
I’m not a lawyer.
But the collapse of checks and balances and the resultant constitutional crisis seems plain.
I’m not an economist.
But the hollowing out of the public sector for the benefit of corporations and billionaires seems plain.
I am an historian.
And the convergence of these forces has never ended well.
Midnight in America.
Welcome to the March/April 2025 issue of Texas Observer magazine! Editor-in-Chief Gus Bova introduces our latest by examining the "biannual dread” invoked by the Texas legislature and what we can do about it. https://www.texasobserver.org/editors-letter-introducing-our-march-april-2025-issue/
So…ice tried to go into the Ecuadorian Consulate, an act of war, today.
🤦♂️🤬
1. Economists from the physiocrats (18th century) onward promised society freedom from material deprivation and hard physical labor in exchange for submitting to an economic arrangement of society
2. In a country like the US, material deprivation and hard physical labor have been significantly reduced since then:
- Though too many clearly still suffer too much, a large proportion of people live free from fear of starvation or lack of shelter
- The US has deindustralized, meaning hard physical labor is not the reality for a lot of people. For a lot of people labor is emotional or symbolic (“knowledge work”)
- In other words, for lots of people the economic promise has been fulfilled
- It is not coincidental that “Gas Town”’s announcement post mentioned Towers of Hanoi, an undergraduate CS student homework problem that for most students requires thinking hard. It’s designed to encourage a kind of “eureka” moment where recursion as a computer programming technique becomes more clear. GT claims to fulfill the promise of not having to think hard like this anymore: the LLMs will do that thinking for you
- It is not coincidental that Gas Town is described as being very expensive. Economic power in the form of asset accumulation is what earns you freedom in this way of conceiving things. If you want the freedom from having to think hard, you’d better accumulate assets
- Since the promise is greater collective freedom, endeavoring to accumulate assets is, in this view, a collective good
- This differs from effective altruism and other “do good by doing well” conceptions. Rather, the very mechanism of economics produces collective wealth, so the story goes, which means the more active one is as an economic agent, the more collective good one produces (“wealth” and “good” being conflated)
- Accumulation of assets is the scorecard, so to speak, of such enhanced economic activity, and the individual reward can then be freedom from having to think hard
- Lotka’s maximum power principle (supposedly) dictates that those entities that transform the most power into useful organization are most fit from an evolutionary standpoint
- Ernst Juenger’s notion of “total mobilization” brings this principle to politics/political economy/geopolitics: those nations that “totally” mobilize their national resources are the ones that will dominate geopolitically
- See, for instance, the RAND Corporation’s Commission on the National Defense Strategy: “The Commission finds that the U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat. It needs to do a better job of incorporating new technology at scale; field more and higher-capability platforms, software, and munitions; and deploy innovative operational concepts to employ them together better.” (emphasis mine). In summary: the US is about to be outcompeted (lacks fitness); in response, it should go big (“at scale”, “more”) in an organized way (“deploy innovative operational concepts”, “employ them together better”)
- The rhetoric around LLM-based AI includes similar language, exemplified in the GT post: burn through as much infrastructural resources as possible to produce organized outputs “at scale”, while avoiding having human beings think too hard to produce those outputs, an indication that the power was burned to produce useful organization
- LLM-based AI plays a prominent role in US federal government strategy, particularly military strategy, with language about dominance serving to justify its use
- It is not coincidental that Gas Town uses many orders of magnitude more resources to solve the Towers of Hanoi problem (“Burn All The Gas” Town). This rhetoric dovetails perfectly with the “total mobilization” concept
#uspol
Liebe US-Amerikaners! Ihr habt gewonnen!!! Der Wettbewerb „Wer kürt den Beklopptesten aller Zeiten?“ ist ein für allemal entschieden. Ihr könnt ihn jetzt absetzen. Den Pokal kann euch niemand je wieder nehmen.
A press release from Aix Marseille University today said that the program is for American scientists who “may feel threatened or hindered in their research,” and is “dedicated to welcoming scientists wishing to pursue their work in an environment conducive to innovation, excellence and academic freedom.”From: https://www.404media.co/french-university-to-fund-american-scientists-who-fear-trump-censorship/
In an interview with AFP, University management said that the invitation is in the “DNA of Marseille” values, and that it has previously invited researchers from Ukraine, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Palestine as part of a program that supports researchers and artists forced into exile.
#Science #USPol #USScience #censorship #exile
I REALLLYY like the Send the President a Postcard movement, because:
a) I love postcards
b) I like imagining all the giggles every postal worker, etc will get seeing it
c) Everyone can do it
Please tell me you'll join in and send a postcard, or 2?
I created this graphic tonight to share - it's the idea from @BrianJopek
Here's one point: masked thugs in mismatched camo are breaking laws that include abducting, assaulting, and executing people, and the regime is attempting to force us all to refer to this as "law enforcement". For all the many criticisms one might aim at US law enforcement, members typically wear blue, show their faces, and doctrinally aspire to behave transparently and professionally (please don't @ me with your critiques of law enforcement or hashtag ACAB comments; this is not meant as a defense, only a contrast. I've been beaten and teargassed by cops and witnessed far worse so I am acquainted with this aspect of US "law enforcement").
In other words the regime is attempting to change consensus reality so that Americans accept that the phrase "law enforcement" includes random, unprovoked breaking and entering by heavily armed masked men into homes or vehicles, assaults, and summary executions on the street, targeting all citizens. They want this to be a normal and accepted occurrence anywhere and at any time. Much as one might criticize previous administration's immigration policies---and one might really really criticize those---this attempt to shift consensus on "law enforcement" to include summary executions of anyone and all the rest is new (It is not new for certain groups; what I think Snyder is saying is that it'd be new for everyone to be targeted in this way, and for most people to accept that's just how it is now).
Snyder also points out that the border plays an important role here because it is where the country, and therefore the law, ends. In other words, it's not coincidental that the regime chose to elevate ICE. Historically, authoritarian regimes have a marked tendency to expand the lawlessness and indefiniteness of border zones to include the entire territory of the country, and the current regime is no different. Immigrants and immigration aren't the only targets here. The larger aim is to indefinitely suspend the rule of law nationwide by making the entire nation into a border zone (Recall the Texas governor kidnapping immigrants and shipping them to "blue states", a classic attempt to spread resentment of immigrants throughout the country). Again, this is a narrative move, an attempt to shift consensus reality.
So, one way to resist is to simply not accept either of these attempts to change reality. Continue to refer to what's happening as unacceptable, not who we are, etc. Continue to point out that out of control border "enforcement" has led to street executions. Continue to name these actions as the criminal acts of thugs. Continue to pressure people with power, such as lawmakers, to do the same. Not out of some misguided or naive nationalism or patriotism, but in order to keep a stake firmly planted in the ground against the forces attempting to move it. This is something we can all do.
Incidentally, all eyes on Haitian and Haitian-American people in Ohio over the coming weeks. The Haiti Temporary Protected Status designation ends this coming Tuesday, February 3, 2026. Haitians in Springfield were specifically abused during the Trump campaign. The US has a long history of abusing and dehumanizing Haitians dating back at least to Thomas Jefferson, so the Trump campaign rhetoric was no outlier or anomaly. Haiti is also one of the countries specifically named in the US State Dept's announcement about indefinitely halting immigrant visa processing. It would not be surprising if the next ICE "surge" targeted Haitian immigrants in Ohio given how the groundwork's been laid.
#USPol #ICE #history #authoritarianism #tyranny #resistance #resist #narrative #immigration #Haiti
African-Americans have always knew the harsh truths about Western society this entire time, dating as far back as the slavery era. Yet white people and even non-black POC constantly silence us for speaking those truths. They are very likely to be terrified of those truths whether they realize it or not, because acknowledging them would heavily challenge their worldview and ego, their sense of 'self' or 'status' in this world.
#USPol - 4/17/26 (22nd day calling)
I left messages at all the offices of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R, NY), requesting she impeaches Trump for starting an unprovoked war in Iran & to stop arming Israel. (Yes, I know she voted against this recently.)
I post for accountability, to compound my emotional benefit, & let my online neighbors see that I care.
For informed levity, I recommend watching this YT channel of AM & PM global news short videos (the link below for this AM):
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5LnstsYanRo
The push to dismantle orgs like USAID and reduce foreign commitments in a calculated bid to redirect trillions in public funds toward privatized domestic infrastructure and supply chains.
The debate between globalism and isolationism is presented in ideological terms, but it's really about different strategies for wealth accumulation.
Globalists exploit cheap labor and resources abroad while isolationists exploit state dependence on domestic monopolies.
🧵
From #MEAction -
"ICE Makes Me Sick: Fund Healthcare, Not Violence"
https://www.meaction.net/post/ice-makes-me-sick-fund-healthcare-not-violence
"No more money to ICE. Restore funding for healthcare and independent living support for disabled people."
You can help!
Email your Congress rep using this tool:
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/ice-makes-me-sick/
Read the Take Action Guide for more actions:
co-sponsored by Long Covid Justice
#USPol #ICEout #AbolishICE #MEcfs #LongCovid #ChronicIllness #Disability #Resist
#Trump fires #USAID #IG one day after blistering report
The WH fired the independent inspector general for the US Agency for International Development on Tues evening, a day after his office issued a blistering report assessing the impact of the Trump admin’s efforts to significantly curtail the agency’s mission.
#law #aid #SoftPower #TheCrueltyIsThePoint #USpol
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/11/trump-fires-usaid-inspector-general/
BREAKING:
Jobs report shows a MAJOR SLOWDOWN in labor market since Trump announced tariffs in April.
We can now compare the first 6 months of Trump with the final 6 months of Biden, and it's no comparison.
Over a million jobs created under Biden, less than half that under Trump.
#Trump #Recession #Economy #Unemployment #Tariffs #Jobs #USPol
"We have downgraded our 2025 US GDP growth forecast from 2.4% at the start of the year to 1.7% now (both on a Q4/Q4 basis). ...The reason for the downgrade is that our trade policy assumptions have become considerably more adverse and the administration is managing expectations towards tariff-induced near-term economic weakness."
-Goldman Sachs
Wall Street is telling the #TrumpMusk regime that its approach is wrong, it must make an about face.
#Recession #Tariffs #USPol https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz61nn99eg1o