#Common trump L

[azzy-the-christian-furry]

https://x.com/trumpdailyposts/status/1827007862830452738?s=46.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what he means by this. There isn’t a single time “reproductive rights” has meant anything other than “ability to murder a baby.”

There is no pro life/right wing party in America. This election is a Democrat vs a Democrat.

[salad-juice-enjoyer]

Issuing correction on a previous post of mine, regarding former US president Donald Trump. you do not, under any circumstances, "gotta hand it to him". (reference)

[reasonsforhope]

A federal judge appointed by Donald Trump ruled late Friday night that Tennessee’s Adult Entertainment Act (AEA), which would restrict drag performances in the state and threaten performers who violate the law with felony criminal penalties, is unconstitutional.

“The Tennessee General Assembly can certainly use its mandate to pass laws that their communities demand,” U.S. District Judge Thomas Parker wrote. “But that mandate as to speech is limited by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which commands that laws infringing on the Freedom of Speech must be narrow and well-defined. The AEA is neither.”

Parker, appointed to the bench in 2017, found after a two-day trial that the law — criminalizing “adult cabaret entertainment” performances anywhere “where the adult cabaret entertainment could be viewed by a person who is not an adult” — is unconstitutional on several grounds.

Parker did not shy away from the underlying issues, either.

“The word ‘drag’ never appears in the text of the AEA,” Parker wrote. “But the Court cannot escape that ‘drag’ was the one common thread in all three specific examples of conduct that was considered ‘harmful to minors,’ in the legislative transcript.”

After detailing that legislative history, as shown in four transcripts reviewed by the court, Parker found that “the legislative transcript strongly suggests that the AEA was passed for an impermissible purpose.”

That “impermissible purpose,” Parker found, was “chilling constitutionally-protected speech.”

-via Law Dork, 6/3/23

[fiamat12]

I can’t get on board with any version of JD whether it’s real or a beard. He’s 24. Twice the age gap of L and A. It’s not positive publicity for N to be dating someone that young - it’s something Cher or Madonna do but only in their 60s😂

People have their own barometer of what's acceptable & that's perfectly fine! While I personally don't think I'd have enough in common in my late 30s w/an early 20s man, age gaps don't bother me as much as power imbalances do.

JD has been part of N's friend & colleague group for a few years now, so he's a trusted entity for her. He's also a working actor in his own right, having been on 2 high profile TV shows. He's not some schlump hanging on to N for clout.

L, on the other hand, couldn't say the same w/ A - although I do believe he always intended to keep it casual as he waited for another chance w/N. But L's down badness for N is another story...

With that said, I do think N & JD are just friends and whatever meaning people want to assign to some fun festival pics & a possible trip together, N is letting be assigned. Imo, her goal is to take the heat off of L - esp. after the pic. his groomer posted reignited ire toward him.

If I'm wrong, and she & JD are legit dating, don't worry. You'll only have to bear it until S4 starts filming. Her soulmate will always trump her Hot Girl Fall affair... 😏

[jechristine]

Hey, I'm not American but I follow some american account on Twitter and I've seen bunch of accounts saying that they decided to not vote for the elections because Yep Trump is horrible, BuTThe democrats are still running the Pro Isr*l policy and they just can't fuck with that. It is a very valid reason to be upset about, and their heart is in the right place but I don't get how not voting will help in any way. It's not like not voting is going to stop it. Or make any situation better.

But Uve seen a couple of comments like that online, I wonder if it's a "common" way of thinking. Every citizen can choose to vote or not, but it's a logic that I will never get. Unless we throw the whole current politic system through the window, which is realistically IMPOSSIBLE, what else can be done.

In my country I don't think it's that popular, people from the left vote massively even though we know our representative aren't even real leftist but more people from centrists than anything, it's just the less worse of the two

Hey Anon—

These people test my patience.

In this case I think it’s mostly young people who are focused on moral purity. It’s almost religious, that focus. It’s more social than political, for sure. Politics as a statement of identity.

And it’s mostly people who have an underdeveloped understanding of basic civics: what big-tent political parties are, how real organizing and activism and real boycotts work, how laws get made—stuff like that.

[kp777]

By Jessica Corbett

Common Dreams

July 16, 2024

"Let's see which politicians are for unions and which ones are all talk," said the Texas Democrat.

As former U.S. President Donald Trump's new running mate and a union leader's speech spark discussions about the Republican Party and organized labor, one Democratic congressman on Tuesday suggested a test to see who is actually pro-worker.

Rep. Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat with a history of advocating for workers, called for holding a vote on the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act when his colleagues in Congress return to Capitol Hill next week.

"If Republicans wanna talk like they're pro-worker, then let's have a vote on the PRO Act next week," Casar said on social media. "Let's see which politicians are for unions and which ones are all talk. Dems are ready to vote, how about you guys?"

Introduced by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the PRO Act "expands various labor protections related to employees' rights to organize and collectively bargain in the workplace." The vast majority of its co-sponsors are Democrats.

"Dems are ready to vote, how about you guys?"

Casar specifically called out House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who on Tuesday wrote for Compact Magazine about International Brotherhood of Teamsters general president Sean O'Brien's Monday night speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC), acknowledging that it "came as something of a shock."

Hawley called the speech "a watershed moment" and said that "Republicans have a chance to turn the corner on labor." He also took the opportunity to highlight some of his own positions, such as more sick days for rail workers. The senator left out that he has backed "right-to-work" laws that ban union security clauses in collective bargaining agreements and opposed the PRO Act.

O'Brien—who responded by saying that Hawley "is 100% on point"—had, as The Washington Post's Lauren Kaori Gurley put it, "showered praise" on the senator during his speech. The Teamsters leader also stressed the need for pro-worker reforms.

"Labor law must be reformed," O'Brien said. "Americans vote for a union but can never get a union contract. Companies fire workers who try to join unions and hide behind toothless laws that are meant to protect working people but are manipulated to benefit corporations. This is economic terrorism at its best. An individual cannot withstand such an assault. A fired worker cannot afford corporate delays and these greedy employers know it. There are no consequences for the company, only the worker."

He declared that "we need corporate welfare reform. Under our current system, massive companies like Amazon, Uber, Lyft, and Walmart take zero responsibilities for the workers they employ. These companies offer no real health insurance, no retirement benefits, no paid leave, relying on underfunded public assistance. And who foots the bill? The individual taxpayer. The biggest recipients of welfare in this country are corporations, and this is real corruption. We must put workers first."

O'Brien was invited to speak at the RNC by Trump, who on Monday secured enough delegates to become the Republican nominee and announced U.S. Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate—creating a ticket that Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, called "a corporate CEO's dream and a worker's nightmare."

Teamsters spokesperson Kara Deniz told the Post that the union leader requested to speak at the Democratic National Convention next month but has not yet received an invitation.

Unlike the Teamsters, several major labor groups endorsed Biden for reelection over a year ago. The Democrat describes himself as "the most pro-union President leading the most pro-union administration in American history"—and he has mostly avoided angering organized labor, other than working with Congress to block a national rail strike in December 2022.

Biden became the first sitting president in history to walk a picket line when he rallied with United Auto Workers members in September. The UAW endorsed him in January, when the group's president, Shawn Fain, sharply criticized Trump and warned that "rarely as a union do you get so clear of a choice between two candidates."

O'Brien struck a much different tone on Monday, praising the ex-president and "characterizing both parties as ambivalent about unions with room to improve," as Post reporter Jeff Stein pointed out on social media. In addition to Sanders, Stein highlighted, "there are 48 Senate sponsors of the PRO Act. They all caucus with the Democratic Party. Zero are Republicans."

Only Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.)—who ditched the Democratic Party shortly after the 2022 election—have joined with the chamber's Republicans to oppose the PRO Act. In the GOP-controlled House, the bill is backed by every Democrat but just three Republicans: Reps. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Ore.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), and Christopher Smith (N.J.).

"On June 21, 2023, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders passed the PRO Act 11-10," Warren Gunnels, the panel's majority staff director, noted Tuesday. "Every Democrat on the committee voted yes. Every Republican on the committee voted no."

Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) said, "To the Republicans at the RNC who want to appear to support American labor, here's an idea: Come join us to pass the PRO Act."

[tma-entity-song-poll]

Battle of the Fear Bands!

B4R5: The Extinction

It's the End of the World as we Know It:

“It's in the title. The song is all about "the terrible change", so to speak, watching everyone and everything you know fall away. It's chaotic and fast, evoking the feeling of being trapped in a disaster. It may be cliché, but IMO, this is the definitive Extinction song.”

We Will All Go Together When We Go:

“Its literally about how we will all die if a nuclear bomb got dropped on us but cheerfully:)”

Lyrics below the line!

It's the End of the World as we Know It:

… That's great, it starts with an earthquake Birds and snakes, and aeroplanes And Lenny Bruce is not afraid

… Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn World serves its own needs Don't mis-serve your own needs Speed it up a notch, speed, grunt, no, strength The ladder starts to clatter With a fear of height, down, height Wire in a fire, represent the seven games And a government for hire and a combat site Left her, wasn't coming in a hurry With the Furies breathing down your neck

… Team by team, reporters baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped Look at that low plane, fine, then Uh oh, overflow, population, common group But it'll do, save yourself, serve yourself World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed Tell me with the Rapture and the reverent in the right, right You vitriolic, patriotic, slam fight, bright light Feeling pretty psyched

… It's the end of the world as we know it It's the end of the world as we know it It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine

… Six o'clock, T.V. hour, don't get caught in foreign tower Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn Lock him in uniform, book burning, bloodletting Every motive escalate, automotive incinerate Light a candle, light a motive, step down, step down Watch your heel crush, crush, uh oh This means no fear, cavalier, renegade and steering clear A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline

… It's the end of the world as we know it (I had some time alone) It's the end of the world as we know it (I had some time alone) It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine (time I had some time alone) I feel fine (I feel fine)

… It's the end of the world as we know it (time I had some time alone) It's the end of the world as we know it (time I had some time alone) It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine (time I had some time alone)

… The other night I drifted nice continental drift divide Mountains sit in a line, Leonard Bernstein Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs Birthday party, cheesecake, jellybean, boom You symbiotic, patriotic, slam but neck, right, right

… It's the end of the world as we know it (time I had some time alone) It's the end of the world as we know it (time I had some time alone) It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine (time I had some time alone)

… It's the end of the world as we know it It's the end of the world as we know it It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine (time I had some time alone)

… It's the end of the world as we know it (time I had some time alone) It's the end of the world as we know it (time I had some time alone) It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine (time I had some time alone)

… It's the end of the world as we know it (time I had some time alone) It's the end of the world as we know it (time I had some time alone) It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine (time I had some time alone)

We Will All Go Together When We Go:

When you attend a funeral It is sad to think that sooner or l- -ater those you love will do the same for you And you may have thought it tragic (Not to mention other adjec- -tives) to think of all the weeping they will do But don't you worry

No more ashes, no more sackcloth And an armband made of black cloth Will some day nevermore adorn a sleeve For if the bomb that drops on you Gets your friends and neighbors too There'll be nobody left behind to grieve

And we will all go together when we go What a comforting fact that is to know Universal bereavement - An inspiring achievement! Yes, we all will go together when we go

We will all go together when we go All suffused with an incandescent glow No one will have the endurance To collect on his insurance Lloyd's of London will be loaded when they go

Oh, we will all fry together when we fry We'll be French-fried potatoes by-and-by There will be no more misery When the world is our rotisserie Yes, we all will fry together when we fry

Down by the old maelstrom There'll be a storm before the calm

And we will all bake together when we bake There'll be nobody present at the wake With complete participation In that grand incineration Nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak

Oh, we will all char together when we char And let there be no moaning of the bar Just sing out a Te Deum When you see that ICBM And the party will be come-as-you-are

Oh, we will all burn together when we burn There'll be no need to stand and wait your turn When it's time for the fallout And Saint Peter calls us all out We'll just drop our agendas and adjourn You will all go directly to your respective Valhallas Go directly, do not pass 'GO', do not collect two hundred dollars

And we will all go together when we go Every Hottentot and every Eskimo When the air becomes uraneous We will all go simultaneous Yes, we all will go together When we all go together Yes, we all will go together when we go

[yournightowl]

Your NightOwl #040

i saw a Rider in action for the first time this week \(★ω★)/

It was a field trip. For "Career Exploration" (￢_￢;)we were brought to this towering skyscraper and given a tour of the megacorporation that ran through it like veins of profit-driven silica. i don't want to say which meg it was here but trust me

It's one you're familiar with (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)

The whole tour was very obviously on-rails; Our guide wasn't an Add, but they were just as rigid as one. You know the type- all smiles and super friendly (◕‿◕) but instantly deadly-serious if anyone so much as expected to go the bathroom unaccompanied. i feel for them- it must be difficult, trying to indoctrinate as many talented youths as possible into applying while simultaneously preventing anyone from gaining even the smallest trade secret with a rigor that bordered on the militant- or even the religious.

They didn't literally confiscate our phones, but i think that's only because they disabled our cameras instead (`皿´＃)

Now i don't know how much of corporate espionage is trumped-up work-for-work's sake; a vicious cycle of companies cold-warring each other into spending 15% of their budget each year on glaring at each other harder. But just like a real war, it's spurred innovation, and i got to see that firsthand.

Because the only time the tour got even slightly spontaneous was when we bumped into this vp-looking type in the hallways. He happened to be an alma mater from our school, so he stopped to say a few words about how much fun it is working here, and how much he likes his job, and how important it is to start developing your resume early

But then as he was about to start in on his work history, a funny thing happened-

His watch beeped at him.

Very loudly. (•ิ_•ิ)?

It was his Rider- a relatively new piece of tech, originally designed by the state to apply some breaks on the bureaucrat -> corporate consultant -> guy-on-payroll-just-for-insider-trading revolving door of corruption. Everyone's free to work for the state, and they're free to quit at any time- but if they go into the private sector next, a Rider's gonna follow them.

As I understand it, they can only tail you for a max of two years, but during that time, if you ever divulge state secrets or offer insider advice to your new employers, whether its in conversation, text or email, your Rider's gonna ping you.

First times a warning, second times a fine, and third times a felony (o_O) !

i'm sure there's ways around them, but even then, they're serving their purpose- slowing down the rate of return on corruption. And they can't be that easy to trick, because the megs have decided that they're a good idea; __φ(．．) Stipulating the use of Riders on exit contracts in case their employees get jobs at rival companies has become a common tactic.

Their programming must be pretty sophisticated, to be able to monitor any and all forms of communication for such a long time, screening it all for even the smallest hint of a breach in contract. Makes me wonder why their execution is so blunt- a big loud beep and a harsh red light. Would be relatively simple to have it set up with a smart-ui that could inform you more politely when the State's got their glare on you.

Then again, they probably don't want the reminder to be polite. They'd rather it be frightening.

Considering how pale that guy's face got when his Rider went off, I'd say they hit their mark (º □ º l|l)

over your shoulder,

your nightowl

[the-feminist-philosopher]

“They have put political correctness above common sense, above your safety, and above all else. I refuse to be politically correct.” -Donald J. Trump

There is an obvious contradiction involved in complaining- at length and to an audience- that you are being silenced. But this idea – that there is a set of powerful, unnamed actors, who are trying to control everything you do, right down to the words you use - is very trendy in right-wing circles. And it often leads them down a path of antisemitism.

"Bemoaning an overly PC culture is not as much a protection of your own rights as it is a political cudgel to wield against the opposition... there’s a certain thread of victimhood in modern conservatism."

Those who say there is “too much prejudice” are three times more likely than those who say there is “too much political correctness” to say discrimination, racism and sexism aren’t taken seriously enough.

Those who said that there is “too much political correctness” are disproportionately white, male, Republican and supportive of Trump...

People are more willing to police certain types of speech if that derogatory language is aimed at groups they consider to be part of their tribe.

"[L]iberals are more concerned with being politically right than being factually correct... the left has destroyed the idea of absolute truth and legitimate ends. … I think it's really dangerous what the left has done. They've created this effort to distort reality through vocabulary and they thought their agenda was enhanced by it." -Victor Davis Hanson

Conservatives have always stood opposed to protections for minorities and when people propose protecting said minorities, conservatives accuse the opposition of restricting their free speech.

Back in 2009, they stood in opposition to expanding the definition of "hate crime" to include crimes based on gender and sexual orientation. Why? Because they believed they would be harassed and punished for supposed "thought crimes" against the "gays." They were most concerned about the potential that "pastors expressing [their] beliefs about homosexuality could be prosecuted if their sermons were connected to later acts of violence against gays."

That's correct, they stood in opposition to expanding the hate crimes law to make it a federal crime to assault people for their sexual orientation because they wanted to be able to engage in stochastic terrorism with impunity. And they called the bill "thought crimes" legislation.

Take heart. They failed.

[azzy-the-christian-furry]

Increasingly common Trump L.

Trump proving two things. Christless conservatism is just diet leftism, and you can’t trust any political leader that isn’t King Jesus.

Things I’ve been saying for years.

America should Balkanize.

[independentartistbuzz]

INDIE 5:0 - 5 Q'S WITH DAN LOWE

In this exclusive interview, we sit down with Dan Lowe. An eclectic singer-songwriter whose music blends rock, country, folk, jazz, blues, and R&B into a sound that is both timeless and contemporary.

Based in Nashville but with roots in Alaska, Dan’s journey has been shaped by early influences like The Beatles and the British Invasion, as well as his deep love for all forms of music.

His latest single, "Flame," has struck a chord with listeners, resonating as strongly today as it did when it was first released during the 2020 election cycle.

We explore Dan's creative process as he shares how he merges diverse musical influences, his thoughts on the evolving relevance of "Flame," and the personal experiences that inspired his latest album, "No Running From The Storm (Songs Of Life, Love, And Loss)".

Your music blends a wide range of genres, from rock and country to jazz and blues.

How do you approach the process of merging these different influences into a cohesive sound, especially when performing solo on an acoustic guitar?

Well, it helps that I'm kind of a 'groove' guy - so the rhythmic element in my playing is pretty strong (much stronger than any finger-picking that I do), so getting the 'beat' aspect of whatever song it is across is pretty key to my approach.

A lot of that gets driven by the fact that I'm trying to communicate something emotionally so that the listeners actually 'feel' it, and so another element is that the music - even in an instrumental section or song - exists to help communicate the emotion that's being conveyed in (or by) the song itself.

Because I love all types of music, I may push some jazz-inspired chords - for example - into a country or blues song if that's what I believe will help make that happen.

Can you share more about how the early exposure to bands like The Beatles shaped your approach to songwriting and performance?

What bands like The Beatles taught me - everyone, really - was (or is) that tracks as diverse as "Elanor Rigby" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" belong on the same album, and that we - as listeners - need to hear all of it, and so as a songwriter and performer I need to do my best to present it all - which is what I try to do.

Your single "Flame" has remained relevant from the 2020 election cycle through to the 2024 elections. What do you think gives this song its enduring power, and how has its meaning evolved for you over time?

I think that on the topical/political side, "Flame" has been fueled by Trump's refusal to go away, and not only that - but to continue to stoke the fires of division that he - and others like him - have spread throughout the country... the world, even.

Lyrically - because it uses the metaphor of ancient Rome - it remains fairly timeless. I'd like to think that in ten or twenty years: A) It won't be so applicable politically or socially, and B) It can - and will - still serve as a reminder of what we've been - and, hopefully, come - through.

You've mentioned that your love for all kinds of music has kept your sound both timeless and contemporary.

How do you balance honoring traditional musical roots with bringing something fresh and new to your compositions?

In the same way that I like to mix elements from different musical genres, I like to mix elements of those genres from different eras. To me, "Flame" is actually a pretty good example of that: You can't get much more basic than a simple acoustic guitar track - which is how it starts out - playing what is essentially a relatively common chord progression (used in several genres), but the chords are voiced differently and in a way that you might not have heard up until a few years ago; these are nuances that most listeners - even musicians - may not catch in a way that they can identify, but intrinsically their ears pick up on it; then, let's add some electric guitar that sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday or maybe fourty-some years ago... oh, and let's add some cellos (because they're used so often in conjunction with electric guitars!), and don't forget the percussion track which employs instruments that have been around forever but let's construct it using loop-based tools, etc.... anyway, you get the idea.

The other thing that's important is to allow these different elements to 'inspire' or influence the others - which is what led to Dean adding the piano to the track, for example, although sometimes that approach can lead you to leave something out too. The important thing is: Does it help the track (or song) communicate what you want to communicate?

Your album, "No Running From The Storm (Songs Of Life, Love, And Loss)," is clearly a project close to your heart. Can you tell us more about the themes explored in this album and what inspired you to create it?

Well, the title song and a couple of the others were born out of the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina, which really served as a metaphor for the theme of the album, which is how so much of life is finding our way through events that impact us to varying degrees and yet over which we have no control.

For example, "The Waiting Room" was written as a result of our youngest daughter's near-death experience in a car accident, but Dean [Baskerville] ended up living it as well as he went through the treatment - and ultimately, the loss - of his wife, Leana (to whom the album is dedicated), from cancer a short time after we'd recorded it.

So, there's loss for you - but really it's a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, and that's what I hope people get from it!

Listen to "Flame" on Spotify here:

The new album "No Running From The Storm (Songs of Life, Love, and Loss) is available on Dan Lowe's Website for Pre-order.

Stay up to date with Dan Lowe & The Skeletal Remains here:

Website / Facebook / Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube Music

[xtruss]

Trump’s Foreign-Policy Influencers!

Meet The 11 Men Whose Worldviews Are Shaping The 2024 Republican Ticket.

— 26 August 2024 | Foreign Policy Feature | By Foreign Policy Staff

Oriana Fenwick Illustration/Getty Images

If former U.S. President Donald Trump wins the White House again, what might his foreign policy look like? The Republican candidate often shoots from the hip—consider his grand declaration that he can end the Russia-Ukraine war in a single day as just one example. Trump is also quick to distance himself from policy shop documents, such as the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, when they become politically inconvenient.

But beyond the noise of the campaign trail, one way to gauge the possible foreign-policy agenda of a second Trump term is to profile the key national security thinkers in his orbit: Who are the advisors he listens to? What is the genesis of the ideas that animate the former president’s current worldview?

Consider the list below a handy guide in the days and weeks leading up to Nov. 5. But first, a few disclaimers. The men listed below (and yes, they’re all men—the picks reflect what our sources told us) are ranked not in order of importance but in alphabetical order. The names are not earmarked for any particular roles, such as national security advisor or secretary of state; we thought it best to just describe the people whose views and ideas could have a meaningful impact on Trump’s foreign-policy decisions. And lastly, the spirit of this endeavor is to add some texture to what is a common parlor game in Washington these days—nobody, of course, can actually claim to know exactly what Trump will do.

And now, here’s the list you came here for. — The Editors

Elbridge Colby (L), Fred Fleitz (R)

Elbridge Colby

Elbridge Colby, a once and possible future Trump administration defense official, is the loudest and perhaps most cogent voice in Washington advocating a complete shift away from Europe, NATO, and Russia and toward the growing challenge from China.

Colby served as a deputy assistant secretary of defense for more than a year in the Trump administration, where he helped put teeth into the belated U.S. pivot to Asia. He then joined with other Trump administration veterans to co-found the Marathon Initiative, a Washington-based think tank focused on great-power competition. If he gets another shot in a future Trump administration—and his name has been floated for another defense position or even a job with the National Security Council—he would hammer home his overarching point: China, not Russia, is America’s biggest problem.

In a series of articles, books, and speeches, Colby has for years made the case for the United States to use its limited defense resources to prevent a hostile hegemonic power from gaining ascendancy over the Asia-Pacific region. China has already economically cowed many of its smaller neighbors, and it continues to chip away at regional security in places such as the South China Sea. But Taiwan is the real test: A Chinese effort to reincorporate the island by force would mean a conflict with the United States and likely Japan—and, if successful, would open China up to domination of the entire Pacific Basin, the world’s most important economic region by far.

Colby’s ideas are a timely reprisal of one of the original blueprints of U.S. grand strategy, written by Nicholas Spykman in the middle of World War II, but turned on its head: Asia, not Europe, is now the economic and political center of gravity of the world, and its domination by Beijing would severely constrain America’s future prospects and freedom of action.

One problem for Colby is that his potential future boss, while willing to be plenty hostile to China at times, is also utterly transactional, and Trump has already signaled his willingness to barter away Taiwan’s autonomy. Realist hawks such as Colby tend to sit uncomfortably with a foreign policy that has no true north.

Another problem is that Colby’s vocal and repeated urgings to use limited U.S. resources exclusively for the big China fight that may one day come, even if that means abandoning Ukraine in the middle of a war, are grist for the Kremlin’s goons; Russian state television cheers Colby’s foreign-policy priorities.

Lawmakers may not buy an Asia-only defense strategy anyway, in a future Trump administration or a future Kamala Harris one. A congressionally mandated defense review panel argued in July that the United States should prepare to defend its vital interests in both Europe and Asia.

—Keith Johnson

Fred Fleitz

Despite being a longtime member of the U.S. national security community, Fred Fleitz is a hard-nosed proponent of the Trump-driven anti-establishment MAGA ideology that roiled Washington for four years. Fleitz is a Trump administration veteran who has emerged as one of the former president’s few top advisors on national security on the campaign trail.

Fleitz, alongside Keith Kellogg, drafted a plan for Trump to review aimed at ending the war in Ukraine if Trump wins reelection. The plan entails pushing Ukraine and Russia to come to the negotiating table and brokering a temporary cease-fire at the current battle lines, which would be sustained during the peace talks. The Trump administration would pressure Ukraine on one side by threatening to cut off U.S. aid if it didn’t negotiate, and Russia on the other by threatening to open the floodgates on U.S. military aid to Ukraine without peace talks. The proposal marks the most detailed preview yet of what a Trump White House’s Ukraine policy could look like if Fleitz and others in his orbit joined the administration.

Fleitz is vice chair of the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute, the think tank founded in 2021 to keep MAGA boots on the ground in Washington as Team Biden took power. He is a regular commentator on the right-wing news channel NewsMax and the author of Obamabomb: A Dangerous and Growing National Security Fraud and The Coming North Korea Nuclear Nightmare: What Trump Must Do to Reverse Obama’s ‘Strategic Patience.’

Fleitz has garnered controversy over his past comments and affiliations with hard-right and anti-immigrant groups that opponents refer to as fringe and Islamophobic. (He later distanced himself from some of those past affiliations.)

Fleitz spent more than two decades working in the U.S. government, bouncing between posts at the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, State Department, and the Republican side of the House Intelligence Committee. For significant chunks of his career, he circled the orbit of the pugnacious neoconservative hawk John Bolton, serving as his chief of staff in the George W. Bush administration when Bolton was the undersecretary of state for arms control, and then later as the National Security Council chief of staff when Bolton was Trump’s national security advisor.

Bolton has since broken very publicly with Trump, but Fleitz remains nestled in the MAGA world. While Trump has given no indication of who would staff his administration if he won, many Republican insiders say Fleitz is near the top of the list.

—Robbie Gramer

Ric Grenell (L), Keith Kellogg (R)

Ric Grenell

Within hours of presenting his diplomatic credentials to German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in 2018, Trump’s new ambassador to Berlin, Ric Grenell, took to Twitter to demand that German companies doing business with Iran should “wind down operations immediately.” The diplomatic relationship went downhill from there.

Disagreements with the German government were aired publicly, as Grenell—a political appointee—threatened to withdraw U.S. troops from Germany over the country’s lackluster defense spending and impose sanctions over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would have increased the country’s dependency on Russian energy. Wolfgang Kubicki, the vice president of the German Parliament, at one point accused Grenell of acting as if the United States was “still an occupying power.”

The pugilistic diplomat’s approach may have horrified Berlin’s mild-mannered political establishment. But if ambassadors are judged by their ability to convey their boss’s message, Grenell was an effective foot soldier. He was later appointed as the special envoy to the Balkans—where he was accused of causing the government of Kosovo to collapse—and acting director of national intelligence, becoming the first openly gay person to hold a cabinet-level position.

A graduate of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, Grenell worked as a spokesperson for a number of prominent Republicans before joining the 2000 presidential campaign of former Sen. John McCain—who would later become one of Trump’s most vehement critics.

From 2001-2008, Grenell served as the director of communications for the U.S. mission to the United Nations under four ambassadors, including John Bolton, who would go on to serve as Trump’s national security advisor.

Long before the Trump presidency, Grenell was known for his combative tweets—which, like those of his future boss, often took swipes at journalists and mocked the appearance of prominent women Democrats.

While several senior figures in the Trump administration broke with the former president during the ignominious end to his tenure, Grenell remained loyal. In the wake of the 2020 presidential election, Grenell was dispatched to Nevada to help challenge the results of the vote—despite knowing that there was no basis to the claims, according to a recent profile in the New York Times.

Since leaving government, Grenell has served as Trump’s envoy, traversing the world, meeting with far-right leaders, and undercutting the State Department—including in Guatemala. It’s that loyalty that is likely to land him a senior foreign-policy job in a future Trump administration.

A secretary of state needs to be “tough” and a “son of a bitch,” Grenell said during an appearance on the Self Centered podcast in March.

Keith Kellogg

When Michael Flynn was fired from his role as U.S. national security advisor just 22 days into Trump’s first term after lying about conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Keith Kellogg was one of the first people considered to replace him. He didn’t get the job, which went to another three-star Army officer: H.R. McMaster. Instead, Kellogg advised Vice President Mike Pence and served as the chief of staff to the National Security Council.

In those roles, Kellogg was caught up in some of the most pivotal moments of Trump’s presidency. Kellogg said he heard “nothing wrong or improper” on the July 2019 call where Trump urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden. And Kellogg privately urged Pence to certify the 2020 election “TONIGHT” while a pro-Trump mob was still being cleared from the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. But Kellogg nonetheless endorsed Trump over Pence in August 2023, criticizing Pence for concentrating on “political maneuvering” and his image. (Pence withdrew from the presidential race in October 2023 and has not endorsed Trump.)

Since then, Kellogg has sought to become a key member of Trump’s national security brain trust at the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank that is seen in Washington as a White House in waiting. Kellogg—a Vietnam War veteran who was serving as a three-star Army general in the Pentagon when al Qaeda flew a Boeing 757 into the west side of the building on Sept. 11, 2001—is at once pro-Ukraine and pro-NATO and yet willing to exact Trump’s famous brand of leverage on both. He’s tried to put teeth behind Trump’s pledge to end Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine “in a day,” mapping out a plan that would cut U.S. military aid to Ukraine if Kyiv refused to go to the bargaining table, but boost it if the Kremlin refused to negotiate.

At the July NATO summit in Washington, where European officials sought out Trump insiders, Kellogg was one former official taking meetings with U.S. allies. But the message they got might not have been the one that they wanted to hear. Kellogg has said that NATO countries that don’t meet the alliance’s defense spending target are violating the Washington Treaty (Trump threatened at a campaign rally earlier this year not to defend NATO allies that weren’t hitting the bloc’s spending mark of 2 percent of GDP ).

—Jack Detsch

Robert Lighthizer

Robert Lighthizer

Few members of the Trump administration still maintain a large degree of influence on policy. But Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s trade representative, current advisor, and perhaps future Treasury secretary, has become such an influential economic voice, especially through his back-to-the-past vision of trade, that he has helped shape the Biden administration’s newfound love of trade wars.

Lighthizer, a longtime trade lawyer who began his public service career in the Ronald Reagan administration, turned Trump’s inchoate notions on trade and the economy into a more or less coherent policy. Now, with Trump campaigning to return to the White House, Lighthizer is eager to double down on the policies he pursued the first time around.

Those famous Trump tariffs—on steel, aluminum, and many products from China—were the fruit of Lighthizer’s vision, and he was just getting started. He believes raising taxes on American consumers and businesses for things they import will make them import less; in an ideal world, it would also make American businesses manufacture and export more things as well.

His plans for the future, as laid out in books and writings since he left office, include much higher tariffs on a bigger range of countries (all of them, actually) in order to balance the ledger of American imports and exports, with a particular eye on China—one of America’s biggest trading partners and its top geopolitical rival. Ultimately, his objective is to get much closer to full “decoupling” from China than the lukewarm and partial “de-risking” now favored by the Biden team.

It’s of little concern to Lighthizer and some of Trump’s other still-influential trade advisors such as Peter Navarro (who was released from prison in July) that the avalanche of tariffs and belligerent trade policy achieved none of their stated aims. The trade deficit, the main concern for tariff hawks such as Trump and Lighthizer, grew under their watch. U.S. exports shrank, as did, in the end, manufacturing jobs (thanks to COVID-19).

Retaliatory tariffs by friends and allies curbed U.S. trade options abroad and weakened the prospects for an anti-China coalition. Consumer prices, juiced by import taxes, rose. China did not moderate any of the predatory economic behavior that prompted the trade wars in the first place, and in fact has made its own form of turbocharged, export-driven industrial policy the very centerpiece of its own economic rejuvenation.

But, as Lighthizer himself has argued, it takes time to right a ship that’s on the wrong course. Maybe this time the same old remedies will produce dramatically different results.

—Keith Johnson

Johnny McEntee

Johnny McEntee

In the summer of 2020, as Trump was running for reelection, an email from the White House invited Pentagon officials to sit down for interviews with a pair of staffers, where they would be evaluated for positions in a second Trump administration. After a spate of high-profile resignations in the building as the White House increasingly sought to assert itself over the Defense Department, officials saw the interviews as a test of loyalty to Trump.

The man behind the email was White House Presidential Personnel Office Director John McEntee. A onetime walk-on quarterback at the University of Connecticut, McEntee served as the president’s “body man” for the first year of the administration. He was fired by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly in 2018 for failing a background check due to a gambling investigation, only to return two years later, this time in charge of the powerful personnel office.

It’s often said in Washington that personnel is policy. Many of Trump’s early appointments came from the traditional Republican foreign-policy pool: more international, pro-trade, pro-NATO, and pro-ally than the standard MAGA crowd. Kelly, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson formed the “axis of adults” that largely controlled the levers of foreign policy for Trump’s first two years in office—even as the commander in chief finger-wagged at Washington’s perceived “deep state” for allegedly slow-walking his agenda.

But late in the game, McEntee would help get MAGA-approved people into top jobs. He helped orchestrate Trump’s reshuffling of the Pentagon brass, including the firing of then-U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper. He also tried, with others, to stack the Pentagon’s top policy boards with close Trump allies. Had Trump won, McEntee would have played a key role in trying to implement Trump’s planned “Schedule F” reforms that would have essentially turned tenure-track government jobs into at-will employees.

Since then, loyalty tests have become standard practice in Trump world. McEntee is now at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, where he’s helping to spearhead Project 2025—an initiative that calls for the next president to “confront the Deep State.” If you want in on a list of would-be Trump appointees, you have to send in your phone number and fill out a detailed questionnaire, largely predicated on loyalty to Trump.

—Jack Detsch

Christopher Miller

Christopher Miller

Christopher Miller had some early missteps after being named Trump’s acting secretary of defense in November 2020—literally. First, he tripped on his way up the steps and into the Pentagon. And then when he got up to give his first public speech at the U.S. Army’s national museum two days later, he forgot his prepared remarks under his seat.

It set the tone for perhaps the wildest two-month tour that any Pentagon chief has ever had. Trump moved Miller from the National Counterterrorism Center to take over for Esper as acting secretary of defense. Trump announced via tweet that Esper had been fired, less than 48 hours after the networks began calling the presidential election for Biden.

Miller, a former Green Beret, was given an ambitious lame-duck agenda for the Pentagon ahead of Biden’s inauguration. The Pentagon was tasked with withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Syria, and Somalia—all in the course of two months.

Miller faced widespread criticism for his failure to approve the deployment of the National Guard to contain the Jan. 6, 2021, pro-Trump insurrection at the U.S. Capitol for more than three hours after the Pentagon became aware of the breach. Miller said later that he feared creating “the greatest Constitutional crisis” since the Civil War by deploying active-duty U.S. troops. He has also said that Trump deserves blame for stoking the riots—but he hasn’t explicitly ruled out working for him again.

“I thought he was really good,” Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt in a December interview, describing Miller and his short stint at the Pentagon. “I thought he was very good.”

—Jack Detsch

Stephen Miller

Stephen Miller

Throughout Trump’s term, Stephen Miller made a name for himself as the radical architect of the president’s hard-line—and highly controversial—immigration policies. If Trump triumphs in November, he is widely expected to again lean heavily on Miller, who has already outlined sweeping new proposals to overhaul U.S. policy and crack down on immigration.

As Trump’s then-senior advisor and speechwriting chief, Miller played a pivotal role in shaping his presidential agenda. He drove forward some of the former U.S. leader’s most contentious schemes, including his family separation policy, known as zero tolerance, and the so-called Muslim ban, which barred travel and refugee resettlement from several Muslim-majority countries to the United States. Beyond pushing to slash refugee admission numbers, he reportedly also wanted to deploy troops to close off the United States’ southern border and proposed banning student visas for Chinese nationals.

Miller was known for encouraging some of Trump’s more hard-line positions, even in situations where other advisors reportedly urged the president to exercise restraint. In 2019, Miller came under fire after a batch of leaked emails published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal advocacy group, revealed that he privately touted white nationalist views. The emails, which were exchanged between Miller and conservative news site Breitbart News, date back to 2015 and 2016.

Today, Miller spends much of his time waging legal battles against “woke corporations,” despite having no formal legal training. In 2021, he founded the America First Legal Foundation, a conservative legal advocacy organization focused on challenging the Biden administration and the practices of private companies, including Kellogg and Starbucks. “America First Legal is holding corporate America accountable for illegally engaging in discriminatory employment practices that penalize Americans based on race and sex,” the company said.

If Trump defeats Harris in November, Miller has vowed an overhaul of U.S. immigration policy. “Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” he told the New York Times. “The immigration legal activists won’t know what’s happening.”

Under a potential second Trump term, Washington would dramatically expand policies aimed at cracking down on immigration, including by halting the U.S. refugee program and reinstalling some variation of the Muslim travel ban, the New York Times reported. Trump envisions conducting sweeping public workplace raids, enacting mass deportations, and constructing “vast holding facilities” to detain those awaiting deportation, Miller said. The former U.S. leader is also eager to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, he said.

“I don’t care what the hell happens in this world,” Miller told right-wing personality Charlie Kirk in a podcast interview earlier this year. “If President Trump gets reelected, the border’s going to be sealed, the military will be deployed, the National Guard will be activated, and the illegals are going home.”

—Christina Lu

Robert O’Brien

Robert O’Brien

Trump cycled through three national security advisors during the first two years of his tenure before settling on one who fit just right: Robert O’Brien. He stuck around for the remainder of Trump’s presidency.

A Los Angeles lawyer, O’Brien began his White House role as special envoy for hostage affairs. He helped to secure the release of Americans from prisons in Turkey and Yemen, as the Trump administration prioritized the plight of Americans wrongfully detained abroad.

More memorably, O’Brien led the administration’s efforts to lobby Sweden, an ally, to release the American rapper A$AP Rocky following a request from the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, according to the New York Times. Rocky had been convicted on assault charges.

As national security advisor, O’Brien had significantly less experience than his predecessors. He proved to be low-key and loyal, and served out the remainder of the Trump administration without major controversy.

In the wake of the 2020 presidential election, O’Brien became one of the first senior Trump officials to acknowledge, if grudgingly, that Biden had won the vote. “If the Biden-Harris ticket is determined to be the winner, and obviously things look that way now, we’ll have a very professional transition from the National Security Council. There’s no question about it,” he said at a virtual meeting of the Global Security Forum.

O’Brien has remained close with the former president and is likely to be tapped for a senior role should Trump return to the Oval Office.

In an essay in Foreign Affairs published in June, O’Brien sketched out the contours of a future Trump foreign policy: “A Trumpian restoration of peace through strength.” China is the primary focus, as O’Brien calls for a muscular posture in the Indo-Pacific, including the deployment of the entire Marine Corps to the region and for a U.S. aircraft carrier to be transferred from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

O’Brien also advocated for the United States to resume nuclear weapons testing, not carried out since 1992. “Washington must test new nuclear weapons for reliability and safety in the real world for the first time since 1992—not just by using computer models,” O’Brien wrote.

—Amy Mackinnon

Kash Patel (L) Mike Pompeo (R)

Kash Patel

Kash Patel had a meteoric ascent during Trump’s tenure, rising from little-known staffer on the House Intelligence Committee to chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense in the last months of the administration, despite having no military background. As an aide to Rep. Devin Nunes, who was then chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Patel was central to efforts to challenge accusations that the Trump team had inappropriate contact with Russian government officials while on the campaign trail.

Patel was reportedly the lead author of a controversial 2018 memo that alleged that law enforcement officials had acted improperly when they sought permission to surveil the communications of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. While Democrats slammed the decision to release the document, describing it as a partisan attack on the justice system, a court later found that some of the surveillance warrants against Page were unjustified.

After a stint at the National Security Council as senior director for counterterrorism, Patel moved to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in 2020 as a senior advisor to the director of national intelligence, where he became integral to the former president’s attacks on the intelligence community, pressing for declassification of documents from the investigation into Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

In the waning days of the Trump administration, the former president reportedly considered firing CIA Deputy Director Vaughn Bishop and replacing him with Patel, according to Axios. If then-CIA Director Gina Haspel resigned in protest—which she threatened to do—Patel or another Trump ally would be appointed to lead the sprawling intelligence agency, according to reports.

Patel would likely play an integral and senior role should Trump return to the Oval Office. In an appearance on Steve Bannon’s podcast in December, Patel said a second Trump administration would target and prosecute journalists. “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections—we’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out,” he said.

Patel has also authored a children’s book titled The Plot Against the King, a revisionist fairy-tale rendering of the Russia investigation in which Patel appears as a wizard who informs the kingdom that King Donald “did not work with the Russonians.”

—Amy Mackinnon

Mike Pompeo

Mike Pompeo was one of the few Trump cabinet officials to maintain a strong relationship with the brash and mercurial president throughout his term in office. Trump plucked Pompeo from relative obscurity as a Kansas congressman to be his first CIA director. As head of the premier U.S. intelligence agency, Pompeo forayed into diplomacy by secretly traveling to North Korea to lay the groundwork for direct talks between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

In 2018, as Trump sacked his first secretary of state, Tillerson, he announced Pompeo as his replacement. Pompeo joined the State Department vowing to restore “swagger” to the diplomatic corps after the Tillerson era, prompting relief among some longtime diplomats and eye rolls from others. While at the State Department, Pompeo was careful to ensure he remained a top player in Trump’s inner circle, even when it put him at odds with the embattled diplomatic corps—during Trump’s tumultuous first impeachment hearing, for example, and other scandals involving harassment, mismanagement, and watchdog investigations into Trump appointees at the State Department.

Pompeo, a California native, graduated first in his class at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, served as a U.S. Army officer, and attended law school at Harvard. He moved to Kansas in the 1990s and served as a member of Congress for the state’s 4th district from 2011 to 2017 before joining the Trump administration. After Trump was voted out of office, Pompeo did not join other top Trump administration officials in condemning the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and Trump’s demonstrably false claims of election fraud.

Pompeo briefly toyed with the idea of running for president but bowed out of the race early on when he failed to raise his national profile or as much money as other Republican challengers to Trump like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. In June, he established a new private equity firm with veteran financiers that aims to back mid-sized technology companies.

Mike Pompeo About CIA : “We Lied, We Cheated, We Stole”

Pompeo still maintains close ties with Trump and his inner circle, and many Republican insiders believe he would be a top contender for a senior administration role, such as secretary of defense, if Trump is reelected.

In Trump’s circle, Pompeo is among the most outspoken advocates of Ukraine. He visited Kyiv in early April and told Fox News that arming Ukraine was the “least costly way to move forward.” Many European officials believe that the appointment of Pompeo to a senior cabinet position would be a good thing for Ukraine and NATO, and bad news for Russia.

An ardent hawk, he was also a primary driver of Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and architect of the former president’s muscular approach to China that now largely has bipartisan backing.

—Robbie Gramer

[news247worldpressposts]

#BREAKING: #MelaniaTrump, the wife of #DonaldTrump has issued a statement.

BREAKING: Melania Trump, the wife of Donald Trump has issued a statement. ‘Our courage and common sense must ascend and bring us back together as one’ she says. https://trib.al/Zq3MLUa Video: https://x.com/i/status/1812496714789536206 Source/l X  

[a-real-zero]

My name is Billy Zero aka A REAL ZERO

I'm a near-fourty year old, single male metalhead from Southern New Hampshire. Heavy Music is my life! I'd say I'm a bit of an enthusiast to say the least. I eat, sleep, shit and breathe the many different bands and genres that make up the heavy music scene. However, I do have a solid variety of interests, otherwise.

I thoroughly enjoy sports. I'm not the most athletic person alive, but I LOVE my Boston teams, and I'm DIEHARD for them all. We truly are the #cityofchampions, and I support all my hometown teams enthusiastically!

I enjoy video games, even at my borderline mid-life age. Specifically PlayStation, because that's just the console I have been partial to my whole life thus far. It's just so much better than Xbox, and even though PC trumps all, especially graphic-wise, I'll never turn my back on the PlayStation console .

I have recently gotten back into wrestling [WWE], as well. I grew up loving it, but it really started to go downhill for quite some time, and so subsequently, my interest faded. However, now with Vince stepping down and selling the multi-billion dollar company, and them keeping Triple H [Paul L.] as the main man in charge, it is incredible how much things have turned around. It's become an enjoyable product once again, and very much so worth reinvesting my time into. And so I will...

I'm sure everyone will agree with my interest in entertainment, and by that, I mean primarily movies and TV series. I'm a bit of a movie buff these days, and I love throwing on one of the fifteen million streaming apps and binge-watching an entire series or season of a series. I mean these days, who doesn't?

For some reason, I really admire architecture. More specifically, city skylines and unique, diverse looking stadiums and arenas that are the homes to specific sports teams and franchises. I can't, for the life me, figure out why nor remember when this obsession and admiration first came to fruition, but it's been quite some time now and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere, either. Lol.

In a nutshell, that is what I, A REAL ZERO, am all about interests-wise. Heavy Music is my main thing. I call myself a heavy music enthusiast because of how frequently I listen to or talk about it. It's my life! It's also the MAIN point of this blog, so expect to see more of that than anything else. I enjoy writing and blogging my perspective takes, opinions, and reviews on heavy music, not to mention just about anything I find interesting enough to write about. So I decided I wanted to create my own little slice of the www [pie], and have somewhere where I can comfortably share my love for heavy music and all my common interests, or hate, depending the specifics of what I'm writing about at the time.

Expect to read many heavy music album reviews, featured band showcases with ratings, heavy music news, my most anticipated upcoming drops, my top bands of any given moment, and so much more pertaining to music, aswell as just about anything pertaining to my other topics of interest.

Please remember that any and every thing you read here is all just my perspective and opinion. If we share interests, and opinions of said interests, then that's just fucking dandy, but PLEASE do NOT take offense to anything you read and don't agree with. Like I said, it's merely just my OPINION! And this is my blog so...

Thank you, and I hope you find whatever you read here useful and/or entertaining and worth your time. If not, it's too bad because, like I said, this is MY slice of pie, not yours! 😉

**My Tumblr blog is just a temporary home to hold me over while I'm currently designing my actual website. I figured why wait on the blogging, because I want to write about things sometimes and couldn't without a website being complete. So that's a work in progress...but it is coming!

[kp777]

By Jake Johnson

Common Dreams

April 8, 2024

A coalition of national progressive advocacy groups on Monday released a list of 10 policy objectives that it believes President Joe Biden should embrace to consolidate support for his high-stakes electoral rematch against presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.

The platform—released by Our Revolution, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), and the State Democratic Party Progressive Network—frontloads the threat that Trump and the fascist movement at his back pose to basic freedoms and democracy itself.

"The 2024 presidential election presents a challenge for progressives to preserve and amplify our voice while fighting the most dangerous threat to U.S. democracy in our nation's history," reads the platform's introduction. "Our best strategy to advance both goals is to become state and national Biden delegates at the state and national Democratic Party conventions, and to elect Joe Biden for a second term. Throughout this process, we must advocate for a progressive policy agenda that builds and expands upon progressive elements of President Biden’s original Build Back Better (BBB) plan."

"With our support and voice," the document adds, "progressives may persuade and enable President Biden to achieve more progressive policy objectives during his second term and prevent a fascist takeover."

The first plank of the agenda urges Biden and the Democratic Party to "develop and repetitively use more aggressive messaging against and educate the public about the dangers of fascism including exposing and condemning Project 2025, the fascist blueprint for a second Trump administration."

It also calls for more concrete policy changes such as filibuster reform, term limits for Supreme Court justices, and the passage of robust voting rights legislation in the face of l arge-scale Republican attacks on the franchise.

Other planks of the agenda include working to end the privatization of public goods such as housing and healthcare, using "all means available" to raise the long-stagnant federal minimum wage and slash poverty, raising taxes on billionaires and corporations, overturning the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, canceling student debt and establishing tuition-free public college, expanding Medicare benefits, declaring a climate emergency, and conditioning U.S. aid to Israel.

The groups said Monday that they plan to submit the policy agenda to the Democratic Party Platform Committee ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August.

"We intend this to be a unifying effort, urge the second Biden administration to fulfill the 10 policy objectives outlined in these proposals, and invite the Democratic presidential campaign to engage in dialogue with us to achieve unity and progressive electoral support around them," the progressive coalition said Monday.

[madamwoozle]

Assignment 3: Evaluation Plan to Improve Your Reference Services

"What is a good book about Donald Trump's accomplishments in office?" This question leapt off the page for me. (p. 111 in our text.)

It reminded me of teaching biases, how to detect "opinion news", digital literacy, etc. Even if I have an emotional opinion on a subject, this made me pause/admit there were certain points Trump did accomplish. Aside from memory, how would I find them online or in a book?

I like the idea of "The Reference Interview" (Chapter 9). Teachers often have students who want to do enrichment. The Teacher-Librarian could get honest feedback from small groups of students who want to try various ways of finding answers to their own burning questions. These are the grassroots where I would start my Evaluation Plan.

Usually, there are the school's own resources and the district's shared ones. Atlases and encyclopedias especially need to be up to date, as our world is changing fast.

The Reference Interview with each enrichment student would help them narrow down their question(s). They would have access to the school's physical and online resources as well as the district's. The process and their feedback would be more valuable than the end product. "The average student may have no prior knowledge of the type of resource(s) that will answer his or her question." (p. 93. in our text.)

They would be familiar with various search engines on the net. However, I think it would be important to do a pre-unit on Critical Digital Literacy. In the "Boost Immunity" resource, on the BCTLA website, it's important to learn how to do "Lateral Reading". eg: Lately, if one googles something, one may get a short, AI generated response. A link to its source will be listed after.

However, unless one does a little research on the link first, one may find the source doesn't even exist! Teachers are often so consumed by the amount of curriculum to cover that there doesn't seem to be time to teach Lateral Reading. This is where the T-L might be able to help.

Even if the online resources under the school's Learning Commons Tab are current, the classroom teacher and T-L have to collaboratively plan the management side. There seems to be little IT can do to technically limit a school's devices to this tab and its links only. It can take a lot of time for the devices to be distributed from a cart, logged onto, and enough time for the students to transition off of them. Also, for a class of intermediates working in pairs on one device for a social studies project, how will the teachers restrict some students from wandering onto YouTube, etc. Pre-planning this piece well will help prevent reluctant teachers from returning to research from textbooks.

As far as searching news stories, I used to find Ron Darvin's (UBC Asst. Professor in Education) "How to Spot Fake News" useful." He also taught us which news outlets leaned closer to the right or left.

I'm asking him which new tools he'd use for 2024.

There are other sites, such as breakyourownnews.com .

Teacherspayteachers.com also offers inexpensive units on digital literacy/critical thinking.

Regarding assessing the school Learning Commons physical reference collection, I would ask for feedback from the teachers, the other district Teacher-Librarians when they meet, the BCTLA website + YouTube channel, and even posting on Facebook, the "BC Teacher-Librarians Discussion Group".

Many elementary teachers liked six-packs of highly illustrated series like "Amazing Animals". Even Kindergarteners can get info from observing the photos, with guidance.

"The Guinness Book of...Records" was one non-fiction book that could be re-ordered each year. The number of times it was chosen by students for leisure reading warranted the cost.

For Indigenous material, I would definitely ask the District Indigenous Program Coordinators for their list(s) of recommended online and physical resources.

Of course, the Teacher-Librarian has to keep up-to-date on the changing curriculum needs. It's actually fun at the beginning of each school year to browse through one's own non-fiction collection. (At the end of each year, one can also check from the computer which resources were the most commonly checked out.)

Riedling, Ann Marlow: and Houston, Cynthia (2019) "Reference Skills for the School Librarian: Tools and Tips. Fourth Edition." Libraries Unlimited.

bctla.ca