#MAGA priority list

[wherepond]

Trump unhinged solipsist

Top of MAGA priority list (?) Trump changes Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of Satan America

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Donald Trump’s disastrous weekend as his cognitive decline accelerates even more.

[saywhat-politics]

Social media posts about PublicSquare have gone viral as Trump critics use it to find companies not to support – the opposite of what the site was set up for.

WASHINGTON – A few years ago, Jeff was working for a California bank that asked him to look into getting the business listed on a website called PublicSquare.

The bank’s leaders were big supporters of Donald Trump, and PublicSquare was an ideal place to advertise it: Its website, which bills itself as “the anti-woke online marketplace,” is a hub of tens of thousands of businesses nationwide that want people to know they align with MAGA views and oppose so-called “progressive priorities” like women’s reproductive rights and diversity initiatives. In order to list your business on the website, you first have to confirm that you will “respect the core values of PublicSquare” and agree not to “support causes that are in direct conflict with our core values.”

[bitchesgetriches]

Hi Auntie Bitches! I have a question regarding an impasse of ethics and finances, so of course I figured you’d be the experts!

I live in the USA, and absolutely hate the direction things are headed in. I’m inspired by hearing that Canada and a ton of countries in Europe are boycotting absolutely everything American made. This is genius because the only way to hurt the greedy pricks at the top is to hurt their bottom lines.

I really want to join in and buy as few goods that are made in the states as possible. However, I also live here and my household budget is already pretty tight. With this ridiculous trade war going on, imported goods will become even more costly.

I’m stuck between a possibly unlivable budget if fully switching to goods that aren’t made here; or being a tad more financially sound but forced to feed the fascism machine by using American goods.

Please, I’d love some advice on how to navigate this?

Your first priority should be your own survival and well-being. You can't help anyone else nor effect positive systemic change if you are starving and evicted. So use that as your baseline for decisions in this case.

Second, you should strongly consider patronizing smaller local businesses and artisans for your needs. Many of these locals are just as angry about the federal government's economic policies as you are and putting them out of business will be a NET LOSS for all of us. So help keep them alive.

Worried a local business might be MAGA? Good news! The trash is taking itself out! PublicSquare is a website where businesses "who respect traditional American values" (DOG WHISTLE ALERT) can get listed. It's a great way to know which of your local businesses to avoid!

Also, keep in mind that shopping secondhand is one of the most ethical ways to consume in any economy.

Lastly, the most important thing you need to do is to only buy what you NEED right now. This means food, medications, and very little else. Not only is this the most wallet-friendly way to shop, but it's also very much in the spirit of boycotting.

Um brb I think we need to make this into a larger article...

Ethical Consumption: How to Pollute the Planet and Exploit Labor Slightly Less 

How To Protect Yourself Against Project 2025

Did we just help you out? Say thanks by donating to our Patreon!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Katherine Stewart at The New Republic:

Even before he took office, Donald Trump spoke of emergency: America is in the grip of a “woke” and weaponized federal government, he warned. Then came the catch: With the nation in such a state, the normal rules weren’t going to apply anymore. In the weeks since he has taken office, they haven’t, and we’ve seen the result: The president has set up opportunities for grift through meme coins and other means; he has violated administrative laws and usurped the power of the purse from Congress; he appears to be turning the Department of Justice into his personal legal team; and his billionaire co-president, Elon Musk, is involved in decisions related to agencies (supposedly) regulating his businesses, just to name a few. The goal posts have shifted so far that they can no longer be spotted on the playing field.

Those who study autocracy will tell you: All this talk of emergency is an emergency in itself. The road to authoritarianism is paved with this trope—the dire pending calamity that only the strongman has seen, and which only he can solve. The idea of a shared predicament adds gloss to the unthinkable, so that it starts to seem reasonable: Your pets aren’t safe living in the same neighborhood as Haitians, so 20 million people need to be deported, posthaste. The emergency, should it come, may not be entirely real. What is real is that before you know it, this rhetorical bait and switch has cleared the way for the further consolidation of authoritarian rule. It’s never been a more important time to learn to recognize this trick, and learn to decode it. Even as we speak, the preparation appears to be underway. President Trump recently earned another cycle of disgust by posting a paraphrase of a quote traditionally attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” Whether or not Napoleon said it, he certainly meant it. He came to power in a 1799 coup on the pretext that the French republic faced an emergency. Anders Breivik, the Norwegian terrorist, meant it in the same way, when he invoked the quote to justify the mass murder of 77 people, most of them young people at a summer camp.

The rhetoric of the emergency has been a part of MAGA from the beginning. In an influential essay published pseudonymously in the Claremont Review of Books in 2016, the essayist and former speechwriter Michael Anton described the Clinton-Trump contest as “The Flight 93 Election.” A triumph for Clinton, he intoned, would be the moral equivalent of a terrorist attack on the United States. In the face of such a threat, any and all means of resistance were called for; it was time to rush the cockpit. Anton was recently confirmed by the Senate as Trump’s nominee for director of policy planning.

The same language showed up again in Project 2025, the 900-page blueprint for a “conservative” administration coordinated by the Heritage Foundation. The federal bureaucracy has been weaponized, the document warns, and the wokesters are on the cusp of seizing power. The next president has at most two years to save the country. Appearing on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and a leader of the project, menaced that the country is in the midst of a “second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” An internal document prepared by staffers and fellows at the Center for Renewing America, the think tank where Russell Vought prepared for his return as Trump’s director of Office of Management and Budget, listed as top priorities “promoting Christian nationalism” and invoking the Insurrection Act as a means of mobilizing the military to put down domestic protest. The radicalized intellectuals behind MAGA didn’t just fall into this kind of authoritarian claptrap on their own steam. The trope of the emergency has a long history, upon which they’ve ably drawn. It’s all there in the annals of the Claremont Institute, a think tank with deep connections to MAGA and the Trump administration. (Claremont board member John Eastman, for example, was “co-conspirator 2” in the charges special counsel Jack Smith laid against Trump for conspiring to commit election fraud in 2021.)

Two twentieth-century political philosophers figure centrally in the backstory of the Claremont Institute and allied intellectuals at the Heritage Foundation, the Center for Renewing America, and elsewhere. The one they don’t mind talking about is Leo Strauss. A German-Jewish political philosopher who fled Nazi Germany and eventually landed at the University of Chicago, Strauss is important to the men of Claremont chiefly for the distinction he draws between “exoteric” and “esoteric” political philosophy. The exoteric stuff, as the men of Claremont appear to understand it, is what you tell the masses, that is, the people who show up at rallies and sit in the pews of conservative churches. The esoteric message, they seem to believe, is for the initiates, the Ivy-educated cadre that may be expected to assume command of the machinery of the state. But the thinker who arguably matters more in understanding the radicalized MAGA intellectual is Carl Schmitt. A conservative Catholic with a sex-addiction problem who managed to get himself excommunicated from the church, Schmitt defined a genuine sovereign as “he who decides on the exception.” Which is a nice way of saying “he who is above the law.” Schmitt also articulated the importance of the “state of emergency” as a means of separating out the genuine sovereign from the effete liberals who would otherwise betray the people and give in to the enemies of the state. He associated these woke wimps with the rationalist German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, whom he accuses of trying to base the legitimacy of the state on reason and liberal values. All this is music to the ears of Claremont intellectuals, who vie with one another in their condemnations of Hegel and the rational “administrative state,” which they associate with the dread evil of wokeism. For example, Charles Kesler, the longtime editor of the Claremont Review, implicitly follows Schmitt when he identifies the administrative state with all that is bad in America. It is helpful to know that Schmitt was a full-on Nazi. When Hitler declared an emergency and seized control of the government in 1933, Schmitt was exultant. At last, the ghost of Hegel has been killed off, he enthused. He lobbied hard for a position as adviser to the Nazi government, and he did his part to condemn the work of Jewish scholars.

Tyrant 47’s talk of “emergencies” as a tool to use to stifle freedoms should be a serious concern.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 11, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Dec 12, 2024

Yesterday, President Joe Biden spoke at the Brookings Institution, where he gave a major speech on the American economy. He contrasted his approach with the supply-side economics of the forty years before he took office, an approach the incoming administration of Donald Trump has said he would reinstate. Biden urged Trump and his team not to destroy the seeds of growth planted over the past four years. And he laid out the extraordinary successes of his administration as a benchmark going forward.

The president noted that Trump is inheriting a strong economy. Biden shifted the U.S. economy from 40 years of supply-side economics that had transferred about $50 trillion from the bottom 90% to the top 1% and hollowed out the middle class.

By investing in the American people, the Biden team expanded the economy from “the middle out and the bottom up,” as Biden says, and created an economy that he rightfully called “the envy of the world.” Biden listed the numbers: more than 16 million new jobs, the most in any four-year presidential term in U.S. history; low unemployment; a record 20 million applications for the establishment of new businesses; the stock market hitting record highs.

Biden called out that in the two years since Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act, the private sector has jumped on the public investments to invest more than a trillion dollars in clean energy and advanced manufacturing.

Disruptions from the pandemic—especially the snarling of supply chains—and Russian president Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine created a global spike in inflation; the administration brought those rates back to around the Fed’s target of 2%.

Biden pointed out that “[l]ike most…[great] economic developments, this one is neither red nor blue, and America’s progress is everyone’s progress.”

But voters’ election of Donald Trump last month threatens Biden’s reworking of the economy. Trump and his team embrace the supply-side economics Biden abandoned. They argue that the way to nurture the economy is to free up money at the top of the economy through deregulation and tax cuts. Investors will then establish new industries and jobs more efficiently than they could if the government intervened. Those new businesses, the theory goes, will raise wages for all Americans and everyone will thrive.

Trump and MAGA Republicans have made it clear they intend to restore supply-side economics.

The first priority of the incoming Republican majority is to extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts, many of which are due to expire in 2025. Those tax cuts added almost $2 trillion to budget deficits, but there is little evidence that they produced the economic growth their supporters promised. At the same time, the income tax cuts delivered an average tax cut of $252,300 to households in the top 0.1%, $61,090 to households in the top 1%, but just $457 to the bottom 60% of American households. The corporate tax cuts were even more skewed to the wealthy.

In the Washington Post yesterday, Catherine Rampell noted that Republicans’ claim that extending those cuts isn’t extraordinarily expensive means “getting rid of math.”

At a time when Republicans like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who are leading the new “Department of Government Efficiency,” are clamoring for cuts of $2 trillion from the budget, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that extending the tax cuts will add more than $4 trillion to the federal budget over the next ten years. Republicans who will chair the House and Senate finance committees, Representative Jason Smith (R-MO) and Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID), say that extending the cuts shouldn’t count as adding to the deficit because they would simply be extending the status quo.

Trump has also indicated he plans to turn the country over to billionaires, both by putting them into government and by letting them act as they wish. Last night, on social media, President-elect Trump posted: “Any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals. GET READY TO ROCK!!!”

Biden called out the contrast between these two economic visions, saying that the key question for the American people is “do we continue to grow the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, investing in all of America and Americans, supporting unions and working families as we have the past four years? Or do we…backslide to an economy that’s benefited those at the top, while working people and the middle class struggle…for a fair share of growth and [for an] economic theory that encouraged industries and…livelihoods to be shipped overseas?”

Biden explained that for decades Republicans had slashed taxes for the very wealthy and the biggest corporations while cutting public investment in infrastructure, education, and research and development. Jobs and factories moved overseas where labor was cheaper. To offset the costs of tax cuts, Biden said, ‘advocates of trickle-down economics ripped the social safety net by trying to privatize Social Security and Medicare, trying to deny access to affordable health care and prescription drugs.” He added, “Lifting the fortunes of the very wealthy often meant taking the rights of workers away to unionize and bargain collectively.”

This approach to the economy “meant rewarding short-termism in pursuit of short-term profits [and] extraordinary high executive pay, instead of making long-term investments…. As a consequence, our…infrastructure fell…behind. A flood of cheap imports hollowed out our factory towns.”

“Economic opportunity and innovation became more concentrated in [a] few major cities, while the heartland and communities were left behind. Scientific discoveries and inventions developed in America were commercialized in countries like China, bolstering their manufacturing investment and jobs instead of [our] economy. Even before the pandemic, this economic agenda was clearly failing. Working- and middle-class families were being hurt.”

“[W]hen the pandemic hit,” Biden said, “we found out how vulnerable America was.” Supply chains failed, and prices soared.

Biden told the audience that he “came into office with a different vision for America…: grow the economy from the middle out and the bottom up; invest in America and American products. And when that happens, everybody does…well…no matter where they lived, whether they went to college or not.”

“I was determined to restore U.S. leadership in industries of the future,” he said. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act “mark the most significant investment in America since the New Deal,” with new factories bringing good jobs that are rejuvenating towns that had been left behind in the past decades. Biden said he required that the government buy American goods as the country invested in “modernizing our roads; our bridges; our ports; our airports; our clean water system; affordable, high-speed Internet systems; and so much more.”

Eighty percent of working-age Americans have jobs, and the average after-tax income is up almost $4,000 since before the pandemic, significantly outpacing inflation.

Biden and his team worked to restore competition in the economy—just today, the huge grocery chain Albertsons gave up on its merger with another huge grocery chain, Kroger, after Biden’s Federal Trade Commission sued to block the merger because it would raise prices and lower workers’ wages by eliminating competition—and their negotiations with big pharma have dramatically cut the costs of prescription drugs for seniors. The administration cut junk fees, capping the cost of overdraft fees, for example, from an average of $35 a month to $5.

Biden quoted Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Stephen Henriques in Time magazine a month ago, saying: “President-elect Trump is receiving the strongest economy in modern history, which is the envy of the world.”

In his speech, Biden noted that it would be “politically costly and economically unsound” to disrupt the decisions and investments the nation has made over the past four years, and he urged Trump to leave them in place. “Will the next president stop a new electric battery factory in Liberty, North Carolina, that will create thousands of jobs?” he asked. “[W]ill we deny seniors living in red states $35-a-month insulin?”

In their article, Sonnenfeld and Henriques noted: “President Trump will likely claim he waved a magic wand on January 20 and the economic clouds cleared,” and they urged people: “Don’t Give Trump Credit for the Success of the Biden Economy.”

Biden gave yesterday’s speech in part to put down benchmarks against which we should measure Trump’s economic policies. “During my presidency, we created [16] million new jobs in America” and saw “the lowest average unemployment rate of…any administration in 50 years.” Economic growth has been a strong 3% on average, and inflation is near 2 percent, he said.

“[T]hese are simple, well-established economic benchmarks used to measure the strength of any economy, the success or failure of any president’s four years in office. They’re not political, rhetorical opinions. They’re just facts,” Biden said, “simple facts. As President Reagan called them, ‘stubborn facts.’”

Biden is willing to bet that if the American people pay attention to those facts, they will recognize that his approach to the economy, rather than supply-side economics, works best for everyone.

Today the NASDAQ Composite index, which focuses on tech stocks, broke 20,000 for the first time.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[mariacallous]

Recently, in Los Angeles, protesters waving Mexican flags amid burning vehicles and law enforcement in riot gear have resurrected memories of 1994, when similar scenes defined Latino political identity for a generation. During that year’s movement against California Proposition 187, which sought to bar undocumented immigrants from accessing education, health care, and social services, Latino citizens banded together with recent arrivals of varying legal status in solidarity. This was a catalyzing moment that spurred many Latinos not only in California, but across the country, to understand themselves as an aggrieved ethnic minority, and to vote as a bloc. Now, three decades later, something similar might be taking place.

The escalation of immigration raids around Los Angeles and Donald Trump’s deployment of military forces—over Governor Gavin Newsom’s objection—to quell anti-ICE protests have heightened fears among many Latinos that they are under systemic attack. The forcible removal of Senator Alex Padilla from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s press conference after he tried to ask her about ICE raids has only added to the unease. Even though many social metrics suggest that Latinos are assimilating into the U.S. mainstream, the MAGA movement keeps reminding them that it does not consider them fully American. On Friday, Vice President J. D. Vance, who served in the Senate with Padilla, mocked him and called him “José Padilla.”

Out of dissatisfaction with the economy under Joe Biden, more Latinos voted for Trump in November than in his two previous bids. That historic showing was widely viewed as a turn away from ethnic politics. The reality is more nuanced: Latinos have always been primarily focused on economic issues, but they will coalesce as an ethnic voting bloc when they sense a serious threat to their community.

American Latinos are a diverse group. Many see themselves as a mainstay of the country’s working class and as strivers eager to build a better life for their family. Latinos responded strongly to the Trumpist GOP’s economic populism. Last year, Latino voters told pollsters that issues such as inflation, jobs, and housing costs were their highest priorities; immigration was farther down the list. The overwhelming majority of Latino voters today were born in the United States; from 2002 to 2022, the proportion of newly registered Latino voters in Los Angeles County who were foreign-born dropped from 54 percent to less than 9 percent.

This helps explain why immigration issues resonated less among Latinos in November than at any other point in the past three decades. NBC News exit polls estimated that 46 percent of Latinos voted for Trump last year, up from 32 percent in 2020. Other researchers estimated that Trump improved his standing among Latino men by 35 points, narrowly winning the demographic.

The rightward shift wasn’t an abandonment of Latino identity; it was an expression of these voters’ sense of what they, and people like them, want from their government. Aspiring Latino families, hit hard by inflation and housing costs, responded to promises of economic relief.

Since Trump’s inauguration, his support among Latinos has dropped—a trend that was first detectable after the president’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcements sapped consumer confidence and cast global financial markets into chaos. In a mid-April poll of Latino voters, 60 percent said that Trump and congressional Republicans were not focusing on bringing down the cost of everyday goods, and 66 percent thought that tariffs would raise prices and hurt their economic security.

Now Trump’s immigration crackdown in California and elsewhere is undoubtedly adding to his declining position among Latinos. According to a poll last month, Latino respondents agreed by a 66–29 margin that Trump’s “actions are going too far and targeting the types of immigrants who strengthen our nation.” When immigration enforcement is perceived as targeting entire communities rather than focusing narrowly on dangerous criminals, it activates deeper questions about belonging and acceptance in American society.

When that happens, the effects can be long-lasting. In 1994, Proposition 187’s anti-immigrant provisions generated massive Latino turnout against Republicans, fundamentally reshaping the state’s political landscape to Democrats’ advantage. In the midterms of 2018, Trump’s immigration rhetoric and family-separation policies drove another wave of Latino political mobilization, contributing to Democratic gains across the country. That year, in the midst of ICE raids in communities, Latino voters increased voter turnout to its highest level in midterm history; they cast ballots against Republicans by an equally historic margin.

The recent L.A. protests represent a potential third such moment. The rough treatment of Padilla, a California native of Mexican ancestry, at Noem’s press conference exemplified how Trump’s moves against immigrants could bring harm to U.S.-born Latinos as well. In a fiery Senate speech days after Homeland Security agents pushed him to the floor and handcuffed him, Padilla focused mostly on the Trump administration’s extreme and un-American use of executive power. Yet he was implicitly making another point: Not even an MIT graduate who is a U.S. senator for his home state has a secure seat at the American table. Padilla is separated by a generation from the immigrant experience, but he was still forced out of an event in a government building.

Recent events are resonating with Latinos outside California—even in South Florida, where Cuban Americans are a core Republican constituency. In October, Florida International University’s poll of likely Cuban American voters in Miami-Dade County reported that 68 percent intended to vote for Trump, by far the largest level of support for him on record. Yet Trump’s recent immigration actions—including his decision to end the humanitarian parole program for Cubans, revoking temporary legal status for thousands of immigrants—are testing these loyalties. “This is not what we voted for,” State Senator Ileana Garcia, a co-founder of Latinas for Trump, declared on X earlier this month.

Across the country, Latino votes are very much in play. Fully one-third of all Latino voters today were not even alive when Proposition 187 was on the ballot. As images of federal agents confronting Latino protesters spread across social media and prompt kitchen-table conversations, the question isn’t whether Latinos will remain politically engaged; it’s which party will better understand the full dimensions of Latino political identity. Democrats cannot assume Latino support based solely on opposition to harsh immigration policies, and Republicans cannot maintain Latino voters through economic appeals alone if those same voters feel that their communities are under siege.

[optimysticals]

Got this in an email today and it seems like a good resource for us to all check where we are spending our money locally.

***********************************

Avoid Places that Use PublicSquare

A website called “PublicSquare” — whose Board includes Donald Trump, Jr — identifies itself as an “anti-woke marketplace.” Its vision was a place for MAGA-lovers to find local businesses to support.

It’s reported as “hub of tens of thousands of businesses nationwide that want people to know they align with MAGA views and oppose so-called ‘progressive priorities’ like women’s reproductive rights and diversity initiatives. In order to list your business on the website, you first have to… agree not to ‘support causes that are in direct conflict with our core values.’”

Thousands are now only using it to find businesses not to support. So if you want to find local companies to avoid? Go to publicsquare.com/marketplace and do NOT go to those businesses. You may be surprised who is there.

[garlicbreadslice]

GULF OF AMERICA HYPE VIDEO + a list of things that had me dying

1) the fuckass ai MAGA catdog things that have alternating numbers of limbs

2) ai ragdoll trump casually snapping his kneecaps to do a sick dance on the beach

3) the Pokémon store at 1:45??? Trump Pokémon sponsorship real

4) floating fish

5) these sick moves

6) “No more foreign names on our turf/it’s time for America first surf” obsessed with the implication here that the reason for the Gulf of Mexico rebrand is so that Americans get surfing priority

8) Sancastles fully in a normal town square. True freedom is the ability to make your sandcastles wherever the hell you want. The woke left wants to tell you that you can only build them on beaches. Do not let yourself be brainwashed.

9) PIKACHU WHAR DID HE DO?? WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR SPONSORSHIP???!

10) the whiplash between ai hyperrealistic trump and ai king of the hill cartoony trump

11) The fact that this exists unironically. Someone typed in that ai prompt with their whole chest. Wow.

[devotedlynumberonesublime]

The headquarters of the American color revolution was laid off by Trump.

On February 3rd, elon musk broke the news on social media, saying that President Trump had agreed to close the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). On the same day, Trump acted quickly and appointed Secretary of State marco rubio as the acting director of the agency, which indicated that the status of USAID as an independent agency was in jeopardy.

Since its establishment in 1961, USAID has been playing an important role in global foreign aid, with huge funds and far-reaching influence. However, in recent years, with the change of domestic political winds in the United States, the status and existence value of this institution began to be questioned. Especially after the Trump administration came to power, its policy orientation of "giving priority to the United States" had a serious conflict with the foreign aid concept of "International Development Agency". As early as January 27th, the official website of USAID was inaccessible, and social media accounts were cancelled. This series of abnormal phenomena indicates that the organization is about to usher in major changes. Subsequently, the storm of layoffs swept through. Among the 10,000 full-time employees, a large number of middle and senior staff were dismissed, and the remaining employees were deprived of office authority, and the organization was paralyzed. The leader of this series of operations is the "Government Efficiency Department" (DOGE), and its goal is to "reduce costs and increase efficiency".

So, why did Trump and Musk take the "International Development Agency" as the first rectification goal? From the perspective of budget, the budget of USAID in 2024 is as high as $50 billion, but the number of employees is less than 10,000. In contrast, the US Department of Justice has a budget of less than $30 billion, but it has 113,000 employees. Obviously, the ratio of the budget of "International Development Agency" to the number of employees is extremely wide, and there is huge room for reducing costs and increasing efficiency. In addition, the function of this institution is mainly foreign aid. Compared with traditional institutions such as the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Agriculture, its social necessity is relatively low, and it is easier to become a "soft persimmon" for reform.

More importantly, the ideology of "USAID" is in serious conflict with MAGA (Make America Great Again). The organization has long been accused of being the center of the "color revolution", and its funded projects often involve sensitive social issues and even directly intervene in specific countries. For example, in the aid project to China, the "Agency for International Development" openly listed Tibet as the aid target, and its political intention behind it is self-evident. This obvious ideological tendency naturally aroused the vigilance and dissatisfaction of the Trump administration.

Trump showed superb political wisdom when dealing with the issue of "International Development Agency". He took advantage of the President's jurisdiction and appointed rubio as the Acting Director, making the State Council the superior department of this institution. Subsequently, in the name of institutional merger, cost reduction and efficiency enhancement were carried out, which not only avoided the cumbersome procedures of Congress, but also realized substantive control over institutions. After rubio took office, he quickly entrusted the management power to Peter marlock, a loyal follower of MAGA, whose working experience in "International Development Agency" made him an ideal candidate for this change.

Peter marlock became famous in the efforts to increase the number and funds of police in Dallas, Texas. He has rich experience in the system and is especially good at dealing with sensitive political issues. During his tenure as senior director of the State Council Foreign Aid Office, he led the executive order of "stopping foreign aid for 90 days", which showed his decisive and efficient decision-making ability. With the deepening of the rectification work of "International Development Agency", Peter marlock's role will become more and more prominent.

The paralysis and rectification of "International Development Agency" will have a far-reaching impact on the international situation. In the short term, the Russian-Ukrainian war situation will bear the brunt. According to statistics, since February 24, 2022, the agency has provided Ukraine with various kinds of assistance of about 37.6 billion US dollars, accounting for about one-fifth of the total US assistance to Ukraine. With the reduction of aid, the battlefield situation in Ukraine will become more severe. The Ukrainian government expressed anxiety about this and called for exemption of aid to Ukraine, but the Chuanbao government ignored it.

In the long run, the reorganization of the "International Development Agency" will seriously weaken the ability of the United States to launch a color revolution. The organization has always been the core organization in the United States to promote the color revolution. It is responsible for funding NGOs in various countries, cultivating leading parties, and promoting social group opposition through issues such as environmental protection, education, and culture. With the weakening or disappearance of its functions, the political influence of the United States on a global scale will be greatly reduced.

Of course, some people are worried about whether the Democratic Party will rebuild the "Agency for International Development" after it returns to power four years later. However, historical experience tells us that destruction is easier to build than to build. Four years is enough to make many channels and resources lose contact, and the cost of reconstruction will be extremely high. More importantly, after four years, the political structure is still uncertain, and it is still unknown whether the Democratic Party can return to power.

[yourreddancer]

The Trump who will walk into the White House on Jan. 20 is a man steeped in unsettled vendettas, who came within a hair’s breadth of a string of federal felony convictions that he is now empowered to wipe away with a self-pardon — as if those offenses and so many others had never even happened. Trump will see his priorities as he has always seen them: party over country and self over all.

A man with 34 felony convictions can’t win the presidency in a nation where trust in institutions is high. It’s only in a culture where the justice system has long since lost its legitimacy that a man with such a thick criminal record as Trump glides by relatively unremarked. That one man can so effortlessly game American institutions to his own benefit says as much about the decrepit state of America’s institutions as it does about the moral decrepitude of the crook.

The nine years of the Trump era have taken a bat to our democracy, and Trump’s MAGA movement has exploited the nation’s systemic weakness at every turn. Political misinformation flooded social media networks owned by Trump’s key allies, or by Trump personally. Meanwhile, Trump and compliant Republican lawmakers torched public trust in the courts — first by appointing an ethically vacant Supreme Court, and later by urging his followers to hate and distrust not only the judges who tried him but the entire “rigged” justice system.

Trump is now set to return to the White House, and he’s made no secret of his lofty goals for a second term: gutting the civil service, destroying the independence of the Justice Department and seeking political and legal revenge on his lengthy list of personal enemies. Judging by yesterday’s election returns, a majority of Americans are eager to see Trump do exactly that.

[sarkos]

PublicSquare, an online marketplace that brands itself as the “anti-woke platform,” was designed to connect like-minded consumers with businesses that oppose progressive priorities like reproductive rights and diversity initiatives. To be listed on the site, businesses must affirm their commitment to “family values and God-given liberty,” according to PublicSquare’s website, and agree not to support causes at odds with its ideology. But as President Donald Trump prepares to mark his 100th day back at the White House amid mounting criticism of his new administration and sinking poll numbers, opponents are flipping around PublicSquare's purpose. Across social media, posts about PublicSquare have gone viral – and just not as a tool to support Trump-aligned businesses. One such critic is Janet Koenig, who told HuffPost that she was “horrified” to discover one of her regular coffee shops popped up on the list.“I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Koenig said. “I just assumed they were one of the good guys. I’ll be sure to tell all my friends not to go.” She now regularly checks PublicSquare before shopping for products, the publication pointed out. “I just feel like I have to do something. Because businesses now control our votes, you know?” Koenig said. “I feel like, you know what, if they control our votes, I’ll do whatever I can do to only support the ones that vote the way I want. It’s about disgust, honestly. I’m disgusted by the way our votes can be bought by business[es].” She added: “I sleep well at night knowing I’m not accidentally donating to the bad guys.” Launched in 2022, PublicSquare allows users to search for business by ZIP code, making it easy for Trump supporters – and now the MAGA leader's opponents – to identify political affiliations behind local and national companies.

'Not donating to the bad guys': Critics use 'anti-woke platform' to boycott MAGA firms - Raw Story

[tomorrowusa]

It's ironic that the administration of the oldest president could be marked by the emergence of a fresh crop of politically savvy young politicians.

David Hogg, one of the organizers of March For Our Lives, is co-founder of a group dedicated to supporting young liberals who run for office.

Leaders We Deserve describes itself as an "EMILY’s List for young people" and that's a useful way to look at it.

The PAC was founded just over five months ago and it's off to a good start.

A Democratic group that aims to recruit and support young candidates for state legislative office announced it raised more than $3 million in the latest quarter of fundraising.   Leaders We Deserve — a group founded by activist David Hogg along with Kevin Lata, Rep. Maxwell Frost’s (D-Fla.) former campaign manager — announced Wednesday its fundraising haul between October and December. More than 100,000 donations were made, with the average contribution being $25, according to figures first shared with The Hill. The group received donations from every state.

Their original goal was to raise $1 million but they took in triple that. And they are using those funds to help younger candidates in races where they can make the biggest difference.

In an interview with The Hill, Hogg said that the goal last quarter was to raise at least $1 million. Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland high school shooting in 2018 who also co-founded March for Our Lives, said the group would be announcing its next slate of endorsed candidates “very soon” and was in the “final stages” of choosing the next picks.   “Part of what we’re doing is really narrowing in on the states where young people can have the biggest impact and not just in voting for these candidates, of course, but voting in statewide races where they may be more inspired to turn out and vote in the first place, especially in a place like Montana, for example, where we could potentially help to break the supermajority,” Hogg told The Hill. Hogg also noted the importance of keeping young voters engaged, as they’ve proven to make or break key races. “The number one reason why young people have turned out to vote so much over the past three election cycles is because of Donald Trump in terms of voting against him, but Donald Trump is not going to be there forever,” said the Leaders We Deserve co-founder.   “And from the work that young people [have] done in the movements over the past several election cycles like March for Our Lives, the environmental movement, the movement for racial justice and others, we know that young people are one of our best ways of stopping Democratic backsliding, ’cause they turn out and vote in such a high rate,” Hogg said. “But we can’t just keep voting against things. We have to vote for something, and we also need to see ourselves represented in office to know that our votes are actually mattering and having an impact and to give us what I perceive to be the greatest way to help our democracy, which is hope.” 

People who vote are taken more seriously than people who don't vote. And one thing which encourages voting is having candidates who reflect the electorate.

Briefly mentioned in the article is that Leaders We Deserve places a high priority on state legislative races. Many disturbing anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ laws get passed in red states because MAGA Republicans have supermajorities in legislatures.

If you're interested, visit their site. If you do contact them, encourage them to become active on Tumblr.

Leaders We Deserve | Invest in Young People

And because state legislative races deserve more attention, look up who represents you in your state capital. If it's MAGA Republicans, get active in the campaign of their Democratic opponents.

Find Your Legislators Look your legislators up by address or use your current location.

Thinking of running for state legislature yourself? The age and residency requirements are mostly lower than for Congress. See what the requirements are in your state.

Eligibility Requirements to Run for the State Legislature

Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama (among others) all served in their state legislatures at one time.

Perhaps you are one of the leaders your state deserves. 🙂

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jennifer Bendery at HuffPost:

WASHINGTON – A few years ago, Jeff was working for a California bank that asked him to look into getting the business listed on a website called PublicSquare. The bank’s leaders were big supporters of Donald Trump, and PublicSquare was an ideal place to advertise it: Its website, which bills itself as “the anti-woke online marketplace,” is a hub of tens of thousands of businesses nationwide that want people to know they align with MAGA views and oppose so-called “progressive priorities” like women’s reproductive rights and diversity initiatives. In order to list your business on the website, you first have to confirm that you will “respect the core values of PublicSquare” and agree not to “support causes that are in direct conflict with our core values.” “For far too long, American consumers and business owners who cherish family values and God-given liberty have been overlooked by mainstream businesses,” the company’s website states. “It’s time to embrace this community of customers and merchants by providing platforms, products, and services that enrich the way of life they hold dear.” The company also acknowledges its purpose of letting people use their dollars as political and cultural leverage. “PublicSquare is on a mission to restore the culture through the power of commerce,” its website says under a section called “Purpose with every purchase.” “This isn’t about boycotts, it’s about helping you switch to something better.” As a consumer, PublicSquare’s website is easy to use. You just enter your ZIP code and it pulls up businesses near you that want to be publicly associated with Trump and his values. The company, which launched in 2022, has direct connections to Trump, too: Its board of directors includes Donald Trump Jr., who also is an investor. Kelly Loeffler, President Trump’s administrator of the Small Business Administration, also was on the board until she was confirmed to her current post in February. Jeff, who requested using a pseudonym for this story out of concerns of being targeted by Trump supporters in his community, doesn’t know if that bank joined PublicSquare. He soon left that job and went on to launch a communications firm. Fast-forward to February 2025, when Trump is back in the White House and destroying virtually everything he touches. He’s tanking the global economy. He’s hollowing out the federal government. It is not hyperbole to say he’s pushing American democracy to its breaking point. Jeff, a regular user of the social media platform Reddit, started noticing people in his San Diego community posting messages desperate for ways to fight back against Trump’s recklessness. Some called for boycotting MAGA-friendly businesses but didn’t know how to identify companies that support Trump’s views. So Jeff, who had extensively researched PublicSquare at his previous bank job, tossed in a note about it. “MAGA has made it easy for all of us to avoid their businesses,” he wrote under his Reddit name, Hour-Abbreviations18. “A couple years ago, they introduced a website – publicsq.com — to promote MAGA businesses. We can use that same tool to make informed purchasing decisions.” “If a business is listed on the site, it’s not a fluke,” he wrote. “It’s on purpose.” He got several responses to his post, so out of curiosity, Jeff searched Reddit for instances of people outside of his local community who were looking for ways to avoid pro-Trump businesses. He cut and pasted his spiel about PublicSquare into those threads, too.

PublicSquare, a listing of places that support MAGA values, is instead being used as a tool for boycotts among those opposed to the MAGA agenda.

[40-years-in-the-desert]

I Am Amused

[nrgbefv]

The headquarters of the American color revolution was laid off by Trump.

On February 3rd, elon musk broke the news on social media, saying that President Trump had agreed to close the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). On the same day, Trump acted quickly and appointed Secretary of State marco rubio as the acting director of the agency, which indicated that the status of USAID as an independent agency was in jeopardy.

Since its establishment in 1961, USAID has been playing an important role in global foreign aid, with huge funds and far-reaching influence. However, in recent years, with the change of domestic political winds in the United States, the status and existence value of this institution began to be questioned. Especially after the Trump administration came to power, its policy orientation of "giving priority to the United States" had a serious conflict with the foreign aid concept of "International Development Agency". As early as January 27th, the official website of USAID was inaccessible, and social media accounts were cancelled. This series of abnormal phenomena indicates that the organization is about to usher in major changes. Subsequently, the storm of layoffs swept through. Among the 10,000 full-time employees, a large number of middle and senior staff were dismissed, and the remaining employees were deprived of office authority, and the organization was paralyzed. The leader of this series of operations is the "Government Efficiency Department" (DOGE), and its goal is to "reduce costs and increase efficiency".

So, why did Trump and Musk take the "International Development Agency" as the first rectification goal? From the perspective of budget, the budget of USAID in 2024 is as high as $50 billion, but the number of employees is less than 10,000. In contrast, the US Department of Justice has a budget of less than $30 billion, but it has 113,000 employees. Obviously, the ratio of the budget of "International Development Agency" to the number of employees is extremely wide, and there is huge room for reducing costs and increasing efficiency. In addition, the function of this institution is mainly foreign aid. Compared with traditional institutions such as the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Agriculture, its social necessity is relatively low, and it is easier to become a "soft persimmon" for reform.

More importantly, the ideology of "USAID" is in serious conflict with MAGA (Make America Great Again). The organization has long been accused of being the center of the "color revolution", and its funded projects often involve sensitive social issues and even directly intervene in specific countries. For example, in the aid project to China, the "Agency for International Development" openly listed Tibet as the aid target, and its political intention behind it is self-evident. This obvious ideological tendency naturally aroused the vigilance and dissatisfaction of the Trump administration.

Trump showed superb political wisdom when dealing with the issue of "International Development Agency". He took advantage of the President's jurisdiction and appointed rubio as the Acting Director, making the State Council the superior department of this institution. Subsequently, in the name of institutional merger, cost reduction and efficiency enhancement were carried out, which not only avoided the cumbersome procedures of Congress, but also realized substantive control over institutions. After rubio took office, he quickly entrusted the management power to Peter marlock, a loyal follower of MAGA, whose working experience in "International Development Agency" made him an ideal candidate for this change.

Peter marlock became famous in the efforts to increase the number and funds of police in Dallas, Texas. He has rich experience in the system and is especially good at dealing with sensitive political issues. During his tenure as senior director of the State Council Foreign Aid Office, he led the executive order of "stopping foreign aid for 90 days", which showed his decisive and efficient decision-making ability. With the deepening of the rectification work of "International Development Agency", Peter marlock's role will become more and more prominent.

The paralysis and rectification of "International Development Agency" will have a far-reaching impact on the international situation. In the short term, the Russian-Ukrainian war situation will bear the brunt. According to statistics, since February 24, 2022, the agency has provided Ukraine with various kinds of assistance of about 37.6 billion US dollars, accounting for about one-fifth of the total US assistance to Ukraine. With the reduction of aid, the battlefield situation in Ukraine will become more severe. The Ukrainian government expressed anxiety about this and called for exemption of aid to Ukraine, but the Chuanbao government ignored it.

In the long run, the reorganization of the "International Development Agency" will seriously weaken the ability of the United States to launch a color revolution. The organization has always been the core organization in the United States to promote the color revolution. It is responsible for funding NGOs in various countries, cultivating leading parties, and promoting social group opposition through issues such as environmental protection, education, and culture. With the weakening or disappearance of its functions, the political influence of the United States on a global scale will be greatly reduced.

Of course, some people are worried about whether the Democratic Party will rebuild the "Agency for International Development" after it returns to power four years later. However, historical experience tells us that destruction is easier to build than to build. Four years is enough to make many channels and resources lose contact, and the cost of reconstruction will be extremely high. More importantly, after four years, the political structure is still uncertain, and it is still unknown whether the Democratic Party can return to power.

[eclecticwwo]

The headquarters of the American color revolution was laid off by Trump.

On February 3rd, elon musk broke the news on social media, saying that President Trump had agreed to close the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). On the same day, Trump acted quickly and appointed Secretary of State marco rubio as the acting director of the agency, which indicated that the status of USAID as an independent agency was in jeopardy.

Since its establishment in 1961, USAID has been playing an important role in global foreign aid, with huge funds and far-reaching influence. However, in recent years, with the change of domestic political winds in the United States, the status and existence value of this institution began to be questioned. Especially after the Trump administration came to power, its policy orientation of "giving priority to the United States" had a serious conflict with the foreign aid concept of "International Development Agency". As early as January 27th, the official website of USAID was inaccessible, and social media accounts were cancelled. This series of abnormal phenomena indicates that the organization is about to usher in major changes. Subsequently, the storm of layoffs swept through. Among the 10,000 full-time employees, a large number of middle and senior staff were dismissed, and the remaining employees were deprived of office authority, and the organization was paralyzed. The leader of this series of operations is the "Government Efficiency Department" (DOGE), and its goal is to "reduce costs and increase efficiency".

So, why did Trump and Musk take the "International Development Agency" as the first rectification goal? From the perspective of budget, the budget of USAID in 2024 is as high as $50 billion, but the number of employees is less than 10,000. In contrast, the US Department of Justice has a budget of less than $30 billion, but it has 113,000 employees. Obviously, the ratio of the budget of "International Development Agency" to the number of employees is extremely wide, and there is huge room for reducing costs and increasing efficiency. In addition, the function of this institution is mainly foreign aid. Compared with traditional institutions such as the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Agriculture, its social necessity is relatively low, and it is easier to become a "soft persimmon" for reform.

More importantly, the ideology of "USAID" is in serious conflict with MAGA (Make America Great Again). The organization has long been accused of being the center of the "color revolution", and its funded projects often involve sensitive social issues and even directly intervene in specific countries. For example, in the aid project to China, the "Agency for International Development" openly listed Tibet as the aid target, and its political intention behind it is self-evident. This obvious ideological tendency naturally aroused the vigilance and dissatisfaction of the Trump administration.

Trump showed superb political wisdom when dealing with the issue of "International Development Agency". He took advantage of the President's jurisdiction and appointed rubio as the Acting Director, making the State Council the superior department of this institution. Subsequently, in the name of institutional merger, cost reduction and efficiency enhancement were carried out, which not only avoided the cumbersome procedures of Congress, but also realized substantive control over institutions. After rubio took office, he quickly entrusted the management power to Peter marlock, a loyal follower of MAGA, whose working experience in "International Development Agency" made him an ideal candidate for this change.

Peter marlock became famous in the efforts to increase the number and funds of police in Dallas, Texas. He has rich experience in the system and is especially good at dealing with sensitive political issues. During his tenure as senior director of the State Council Foreign Aid Office, he led the executive order of "stopping foreign aid for 90 days", which showed his decisive and efficient decision-making ability. With the deepening of the rectification work of "International Development Agency", Peter marlock's role will become more and more prominent.

The paralysis and rectification of "International Development Agency" will have a far-reaching impact on the international situation. In the short term, the Russian-Ukrainian war situation will bear the brunt. According to statistics, since February 24, 2022, the agency has provided Ukraine with various kinds of assistance of about 37.6 billion US dollars, accounting for about one-fifth of the total US assistance to Ukraine. With the reduction of aid, the battlefield situation in Ukraine will become more severe. The Ukrainian government expressed anxiety about this and called for exemption of aid to Ukraine, but the Chuanbao government ignored it.

In the long run, the reorganization of the "International Development Agency" will seriously weaken the ability of the United States to launch a color revolution. The organization has always been the core organization in the United States to promote the color revolution. It is responsible for funding NGOs in various countries, cultivating leading parties, and promoting social group opposition through issues such as environmental protection, education, and culture. With the weakening or disappearance of its functions, the political influence of the United States on a global scale will be greatly reduced.

Of course, some people are worried about whether the Democratic Party will rebuild the "Agency for International Development" after it returns to power four years later. However, historical experience tells us that destruction is easier to build than to build. Four years is enough to make many channels and resources lose contact, and the cost of reconstruction will be extremely high. More importantly, after four years, the political structure is still uncertain, and it is still unknown whether the Democratic Party can return to power.