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xtruss · 1 year ago

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Latin America’s New Hard Right: Bukele, Milei, Kast And Bolsonaro! Crime, Abortion and Socialism, Not Immigration, Are The Issues That Rile Them

— April 1st 2024| Santiago, Chile 🇨🇱

A montage of right-wing Latin American leaders on a red and blue background with Donald Trump throwing maga hats at them. Illustration: Klawe Rzeczy

“Mr president!” Javier Milei could barely contain himself when he met Donald Trump at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) near Washington in February. The pair embraced and exchanged slogans, with Mr Trump intoning “Make Argentina Great Again” several times and Argentina’s new President yipping “Viva la Libertad, Carajo” (“Long Live Freedom, Dammit”) in response.

Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s Popular Autocratic President, had already addressed the conference. “They say globalism comes to die at CPAC,” he told enraptured Republicans. “I’m here to tell you that in El Salvador, it’s already dead.” Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s Hard-Right Former President, was a star guest in 2023. He, like Mr Trump, claimed without evidence that his bid for a second term was thwarted by fraud. His supporters also attempted an insurrection.

These scenes suggest a seamless international alliance between Mr Trump and the leaders of Latin America’s hard right. Its members also include José Antonio Kast of Chile, who has spoken at cpac in the past too. This new right basks in Mr Trump’s influence. It has turned away from a more consensual form of conservative politics in favour of an aggressive pursuit of culture war.

Its ascent began with the surprise victory of Mr Bolsonaro in Brazil in 2018, followed by that of Mr Bukele in 2019. In Chile Mr Kast, the founder of a new hard-right Republican Party, got 44% of the vote in a presidential run-off in 2021 and his party won an election for a constitutional council in 2023. Mr Milei won his own surprise victory in November. Would-be leaders of the radical right jostle in the Politics of Peru and Colombia.

Unlike its older European and North American equivalents, the Latin American hard right does not have roots in the fertile soil of public anxiety about uncontrolled immigration (although this has become an issue recently because of the arrival of millions of Venezuelans fleeing their country’s rotten dictatorship).

The new group shares three hallmarks. The first is fierce opposition to abortion, and gay and women’s rights. “What unites them is an affirmation of traditional social hierarchies,” as Lindsay Mayka and Amy Erica Smith, two academics, put it. The second hallmark is a tough line on crime and citizens’ security. And the third is uncompromising opposition to social democracy, let alone communism, which leads some to want a smaller state.

There were common factors in their ascents, too. They were helped by a sense of crisis—about corruption and economic stagnation in Brazil and Argentina, gang violence in El Salvador and the sometimes violent “social explosion” in Chile.

Cousins In Arms

But each leader has adopted a different mix of these ideological elements. The hard right in Latin America are “cousins, not brothers”, says Cristóbal Rovira of the Catholic University of Chile. “They are similar but not identical.”

Mr Bolsonaro’s constituencies were evangelicals, to whom he appealed with his defence of the traditional family, and the authoritarian right in the form of the army, the police and farmers worried about land invasions and rural crime. But he was lukewarm about the free market and fiscal rigour. Mr Bukele made security the cornerstone of his first presidential term, overcoming criminal gangs by locking up more than 74,000 of El Salvador’s 6.4 Million Citizens. His economic policy is less clear and, despite his claim at CPAC, is not self-evidently “anti-globalist”.

Mr Milei was elected for his pledge to pull Argentina out of prolonged stagflation and to cut down what he brands as a corrupt political “caste”. A self-described “anarcho-capitalist”, he is a fan of the Austrian school of free-market economics. Unlike Mr Trump, he is neither an economic nationalist nor protectionist on trade. He has only recently adopted his peers’ stance on moral issues. His government supports a bill to overturn Argentina’s abortion law, and says it will eliminate gender-conscious language from public administration. Mr Bukele followed suit.

Mr Kast attempted to put conservative morality in the constitutional draft his party championed, which was one reason why it was rejected in a plebiscite. He wants tough policies on security and against immigration. “We should close the borders and build a trench,” he says. He wants to “shrink the state and lower the tax burden”. Whereas Mr Bolsonaro is a climate-change sceptic and anti-vaxxer, Mr Kast is not.

Democracy For Thee, Not For Me

Right-wing populists also have differing attitudes to democracy. With his attempt to subvert the election result, for which he is under police investigation, Mr Bolsonaro showed that he was not a democrat. Mr Bukele is contemptuous of checks and balances. His success at slashing the murder rate made him hugely popular, allowing him to brush aside constitutional term limits and win a second term in February.

Mr Milei’s “disdain for democratic institutions is clear”, says Carlos Malamud, An Argentine Historian, citing Mr Milei’s break with convention by giving his inauguration speech to a crowd of supporters, rather than to Congress. But, Mr Malamud adds, Mr Milei may yet learn that he needs to include the parliament in government.

“I’m a democrat,” insists Mr Kast, and his opponents agree. “On security and shrinking the state, we share views with Bolsonaro,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean that we are the same as Milei or Bolsonaro or Bukele.” As Mr Kast notes, policy choices are shaped in each country by very different circumstances.

So are the prospects of the various leaders. Mr Bukele is by far the most successful, with would-be imitators across the region and no obvious obstacles to his remaining in power indefinitely. In contrast, Mr Bolsonaro’s active political career may well be over. The electoral court has barred him as a candidate until 2030 (when he will be 75) for disparaging the voting system at a meeting with foreign ambassadors. He may be jailed for his apparent attempt to organise a military coup against his electoral defeat; he denies this and claims he is a victim of political persecution.

Mr Milei’s future is up for grabs. Succeed in taming inflation, and he could emerge strengthened from a midterm election in 2025. But if he refuses to compromise with Congress and provincial governors, he may be in trouble before then. In Chile, Mr Kast seemed to overplay his hand with the constitutional draft. The election in 2025 could see the centre-right take power. One influential figure of that persuasion argues that Mr Kast is unable to represent the diversity of modern Chile.

Ultimately, the group is bound by an international network built around common political discourse and cultural references. Mr Kast chairs the Political Network for Values, an outfit previously led by an ally of Viktor Orban, Hungary’s Populist Leader. Vox, Spain’s hard-right party, organises the Foro de Madrid, a network of like-minded politicians mainly from what it calls the “Iberosphere” in Latin America.

These gatherings offer a chance to share experiences and sometimes a bit more. Mr Bukele has advisers from Venezuela’s exiled opposition. Mr Trump’s activists have shown up at Latin American elections. Recently, Mr Bolsonaro took refuge in the Hungarian embassy in Brasília for two nights when he feared arrest.

But there are no signs of central direction or co-ordination. The right in Latin America has long claimed that the Foro de São Paulo, a get-together of Latin American left-wingers, is a highly organised conspiracy. All the evidence is that it is a loose friendship network. That seems to be true of its right-wing peer, too. ■

— This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline "The Anti-communist International"

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cashezsvenningsenrkdjx · 2 months ago

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A Little Intuition/Is Argentina's "Chainsaw Revolution" applicable to the United States? \Li Lingxiu

At a political rally held in the suburbs of Washington on Thursday, Argentine President Milley presented Musk, the leader of the Department of U.S. Government Efficiency (DOGE), with a "signature" chainsaw, symbolizing the inheritance of the "chainsaw revolution". But can the United States afford the economic price Argentina has paid for it?

Since the establishment of DOGE, several federal government departments have been purged. Musk and his leadership team first gained access to the Treasury Department's computer system, and then DOGE staff entered the International Development Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Ministry of Education and other departments to conduct investigations. At the aforementioned Conservative Political Action Conference, Musk also predicted that the Federal Reserve will be the next target.

The White House has provided a "buyout plan" to 2 million federal government employees, which will provide about 8 months of salary compensation to all employees who voluntarily resign. As of February 18, a total of about 20,000 federal employees (including probationary employees) have been laid off or forced to stop work and take leave.

Such a swift and vigorous layoff storm easily reminds people of the "chainsaw revolution" promoted by Mile in Argentina. As early as the last round of elections in the country, the image of Mile holding a chainsaw high has become a classic image of campaign propaganda. At the beginning of his term, he signed a presidential decree to reduce government departments from 18 to 9 and fired more than 30,000 government employees. The Argentine government also successfully cut public spending by 30% through measures such as cutting energy and transportation subsidies, achieving a fiscal surplus for the first time in 14 years.

But compared with the political environment of the two countries, there are actually great differences. The Argentine president has absolute power over the government's organizational structure and departmental settings, and the abolition of government departments belongs to the category of administrative affairs management and adjustment. But for the US president, if there is no clear authorization from Congress through relevant laws, government departments cannot be adjusted or abolished (except for agencies established by presidential decrees).

Expenditure reduction plan difficult to achieve

Musk's previous slogan was to cut federal spending by $1 trillion. But in the officially released White House documents, Trump did not propose KPIs in this regard. As of February 17, DOGE has saved an estimated $55 billion through contract and lease renegotiations, cancellation of grants, asset sales, layoffs, regulatory savings and fraud detection, completing only 4% of Musk's goal.

Data shows that the total expenditure of the US federal government in fiscal year 2024 is $6.8 trillion, and the largest sources come from three aspects: Social Security ($1.46 trillion), Medicare ($0.87 trillion), and Medicaid ($0.91 trillion), accounting for a total of 49%. However, cutting the above expenditures will shake the interests of voters, and Trump also made it clear during his campaign last year that he would not cut spending on these three projects. In this way, DOGE's spending reduction target seems to be a task that can never be completed.

More importantly, the cost of Argentina's "chainsaw revolution" is painful. In the first six months after Milley took office, the country's poverty rate jumped from about 40% to 53%. Although it fell back by the end of last year, the unemployment rate climbed from 12% in 2023 to 15%.

House prices in Washington, DC plummet

There are also some bad trends in the United States at the moment. Data shows that the number of initial unemployment claims in Washington, DC has risen significantly in the past two weeks. Real estate prices in the region have also begun to fall. The median price of a house in Washington, DC in January 2025 is $553,000, a sharp drop of 9.7% year-on-year.

Argentina is still the largest borrower from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with outstanding loans of $43.4 billion, accounting for nearly 30% of total credit, exceeding the total of all sub-Saharan African countries. (See accompanying picture)

If Musk insists on carrying out the "chainsaw revolution" to the end. Then, poverty will replace inflation and become the hottest topic in American society in the future.

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theonion · 4 months ago

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Advertising the event as a chance to interact personally with a conservative icon, organizers confirmed Thursday that the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference would feature a new exhibit where visitors could purchase and toss pieces of raw chicken to Rudy Giuliani. “This year, for $5 a pop, attendees will be treated to an up-close encounter with the former mayor of New York and given a thrilling opportunity to feed him a handful of his favorite food—raw chicken,” CPAC spokesperson Nancy Garner said as she stood outside a 9-by-12-foot enclosure that contained a warming lamp, a sunning rock, a water feature, artificial plants, and the disgraced onetime U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Full Story

#the onion #news #politics #CPAC #Rudy Giuliani

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contemplatingoutlander · 10 months ago

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This is an amazing compilation of 1056 awful things that Trump has said or done from Feb.10, 2011 to Jan. 20, 2021. (Although it does not include the hundreds of other awful things from the past 3.5 years, the list is long enough--the PDF version is 360 pages!)

The catalog starts with Trump's questioning Obama's educational credentials on Feb. 10, 2011:

During a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump said, “Our current president came out of nowhere. Came out of nowhere. In fact, I’ll go a step further: The people that went to school with him, they never saw him, they don’t know who he is. It’s crazy.” This is false. Numerous accounts from Obama’s college classmates refute Trump’s claim, including Obama’s Columbia roommate, Phil Doerner. [color emphasis added]

And the catalog ends with Trump's behavior on Jan. 20, 2021:

On his final day in office, Trump did not invite Joe and Jill Biden to the White House, rejecting a longstanding tradition among presidents and their successors. Rather than attend the inauguration of his successor — making him the first president in modern history to skip the ceremony — Trump headed to Joint Base Andrews. There, a small crowd gathered to see him off. Not among them was Trump’s vice president. “We were not a regular administration,” Trump said in unscripted remarks. “Have a good life, we will see you soon.” As the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” played in the background, Trump then boarded Air Force One and returned to his resort in Florida. [color emphasis added]

After seeing the entire list, it is simply mind boggling that a huge segment of the American population STILL wants this guy to lead our nation--and STILL wants to give him access to nuclear codes.

Never underestimate the denial and willful ignorance of large segments of the American public.

#trump #gop #us election 2024 #catalog of trump's worst cruelties - collusions - corruptions and crimes #mcsweeney's internet tendency

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youthchronical · 4 months ago

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The Populist vs. the Billionaire: Bannon, Musk and the Battle Within MAGA

After word leaked out about a clash at the White House where members of President Trump’s cabinet challenged the authority of Elon Musk to reshape their departments, one of the president’s top allies, Stephen K. Bannon, quickly piled on. Mr. Bannon, who has characterized Mr. Musk as an interloper, a “parasitic illegal immigrant” and a “truly evil person,” suggested the world’s richest man was…

#Bannon #Conservatism (US Politics)#Conservative Political Action Conference #Donald J #Elon #Musk #Republican Party #Stephen K #Trump #United States Politics and Government

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 months ago

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Steve Brodner

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 21, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Feb 22, 2025

In an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) yesterday, billionaire Elon Musk seemed to be having difficulty speaking. Musk brandished a chainsaw like that Argentina's president Javier Milei used to symbolize the drastic cuts he intended to make to his country’s government, then posted that image to X, labeling it “The DogeFather,” although the administration has recently told a court that Musk is neither an employee nor the leader of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Politico called Musk’s behavior “eccentric.”

While attendees cheered Musk on, outside CPAC there appears to be a storm brewing. While Trump and his team have claimed they have a mandate, in fact more people voted for someone other than Trump in 2024, and his early approval ratings were only 47%, the lowest of any president going back to 1953, when Gallup began checking them. His approval has not grown as he has called himself a “king” and openly mused about running for a third term.

A Washington Post/Ipsos poll released yesterday shows that even that “honeymoon” is over. Only 45% approve of the “the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president,” while 53% disapprove. Forty-three percent of Americans say they support what Trump has done since he took office; 48% oppose his actions. The number of people who strongly support his actions sits at 27%; the number who strongly oppose them is twelve points higher, at 39%. Fifty-seven percent of Americans think Trump has gone beyond his authority as president.

Americans especially dislike his attempts to end USAID, his tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, and his firing of large numbers of government workers. Even Trump’s signature issue of deporting undocumented immigrants receives 51% approval only if respondents think those deported are “criminals.” Fifty-seven percent opposed deporting those who are not accused of crimes, 70% oppose deporting those brought to the U.S. as children, and 66% oppose deporting those who have children who are U.S. citizens. Eighty-three percent of Americans oppose Trump’s pardon of the violent offenders convicted for their behavior during the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Even those who identify as Republican-leaning oppose those pardons 70 to 27 percent.

As Aaron Blake points out in the Washington Post, a new CNN poll, also released yesterday, shows that Musk is a major factor in Trump’s declining ratings. By nearly two to one, Americans see Musk having a prominent role in the administration as a “bad thing.” The ratio was 54 to 28. The Washington Post/Ipsos poll showed that Americans disapprove of Musk “shutting down federal government programs that he decides are unnecessary” by the wide margin of 52 to 26. Sixty-three percent of Americans are worried about Musk’s team getting access to their data.

Meanwhile, Jessica Piper of Politico noted that 62% of Americans in the CNN poll said that Trump has not done enough to try to reduce prices, and today’s economic news bears out that concern: not only are egg prices at an all-time high, but also consumer sentiment dropped to a 15-month low as people worry that Trump’s tariffs will raise prices. White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said in a statement: “[T]he American people actually feel great about the direction of the country…. What’s to hate? We are undoing the widely unpopular agenda of the previous office holder, uprooting waste, fraud, and abuse, and chugging along on the great American Comeback.”

Phone calls swamping the congressional switchboards and constituents turning out for town halls with House members disprove Fields’s statement. In packed rooms with overflow spaces, constituents have shown up this week both to demand that their representatives take a stand against Musk’s slashing of the federal government and access to personal data, and to protest Trump’s claim to be a king. In an eastern Oregon district that Trump won by 68%, constituents shouted at Representative Cliff Bentz: “tax Elon,” “tax the wealthy,” “tax the rich,” and “tax the billionaires.” In a solid-red Atlanta suburb, the crowd was so angry at Representative Richard McCormick that he has apparently gone to ground, bailing on a CNN interview about the disastrous town hall at the last minute.

That Trump is feeling the pressure from voters showed this week when he appeared to offer two major distractions: a pledge to consider using money from savings found by the “Department of Government Efficiency” to provide rebates to taxpayers—although so far it hasn’t shown any savings and economists say the promise of checks is unrealistic—and a claim that he would release a list of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s clients.

Trump is also under pressure from the law.

The Associated Press sued three officials in the Trump administration today for blocking AP journalists from presidential events because the AP continues to use the traditional name “Gulf of Mexico” for the gulf that Trump is trying to rename. The AP is suing over the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Today, a federal court granted a preliminary injunction to stop Musk and the DOGE team from accessing Americans’ private information in the Treasury Department’s central payment system. Eighteen states had filed the lawsuit.

Tonight, a federal court granted a nationwide injunction against Trump’s executive orders attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion, finding that they violate the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution.

Trump is also under pressure from principled state governors.

In his State of the State Address on Wednesday, February 19, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker noted that “it’s in fashion at the federal level right now to just indiscriminately slash school funding, healthcare coverage, support for farmers, and veterans’ services. They say they’re doing it to eliminate inefficiencies. But only an idiot would think we should eliminate emergency response in a natural disaster, education and healthcare for disabled children, gang crime investigations, clean air and water programs, monitoring of nursing home abuse, nuclear reactor regulation, and cancer research.”

He recalled: “Here in Illinois, ten years ago we saw the consequences of a rampant ideological gutting of government. It genuinely harmed people. Our citizens hated it. Trust me—I won an entire election based in part on just how much they hated it.”

Pritzker went on to address the dangers of the Trump administration directly. “We don’t have kings in America,” he said, “and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one…. If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this: It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.”

He recalled how ordinary Illinoisans outnumbered Nazis who marched in Chicago in 1978 by about 2,000 to 20, and noted: “Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the ‘tragic spirit of despair’ overcome us when our country needs us the most.”

Today, Maine governor Janet Mills took the fight against Trump’s overreach directly to him. At a meeting of the nation’s governors, in a rambling speech in which he was wandering through his false campaign stories about transgender athletes, Trump turned to his notes and suddenly appeared to remember his executive order banning transgender student athletes from playing on girls sports teams.

The body that governs sports in Maine, the Maine Principals’ Association, ruled that it would continue to allow transgender students to compete despite Trump's executive order because the Maine state Human Rights Law prohibits discrimination on the grounds of gender identity.

Trump asked if the governor of Maine was in the room.

“Yeah, I’m here,” replied Governor Mills.

“Are you not going to comply with it?” Trump asked.

“I’m complying with state and federal laws,” she said.

“We are the federal law,” Trump said. “You better do it because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t….”

“We’re going to follow the law,” she said.

“You’d better comply because otherwise you’re not going to get any federal funding,” he said.

Mills answered: “We’ll see you in court.”

As Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times put it: “Something happened at the White House Friday afternoon that almost never happens these days. Somebody defied President Trump. Right to his face.”

Hours later, the Trump administration launched an investigation into Maine’s Department of Education, specifically its policy on transgender athletes. Maine attorney general Aaron Frey said that any attempt to cut federal funding for the states over the issue “would be illegal and in direct violation of federal court orders…. Fortunately,” he said in a statement, “the rule of law still applies in this country, and I will do everything in my power to defend Maine’s laws and block efforts by the president to bully and threaten us.”

“[W]hat is at stake here [is] the rule of law in our country,” Mills said in a statement. “No President…can withhold Federal funding authorized and appropriated by Congress and paid for by Maine taxpayers in an attempt to coerce someone into compliance with his will. It is a violation of our Constitution and of our laws.”

“Maine may be one of the first states to undergo an investigation by his Administration, but we won’t be the last. Today, the President of the United States has targeted one particular group on one particular issue which Maine law has addressed. But you must ask yourself: who and what will he target next, and what will he do? Will it be you? Will it be because of your race or your religion? Will it be because you look different or think differently? Where does it end? In America, the President is neither a King nor a dictator, as much as this one tries to act like it—and it is the rule of law that prevents him from being so.”

“[D]o not be misled: this is not just about who can compete on the athletic field, this is about whether a President can force compliance with his will, without regard for the rule of law that governs our nation. I believe he cannot.”

Americans’ sense that Musk has too much power is likely to be heightened by tonight’s report from Andrea Shalal and Joey Roulette of Reuters that the United States is trying to force Ukraine to sign away rights to its critical minerals by threatening to cut off access to Musk’s Starlink satellite system. Ukraine turned to that system after the Russians destroyed its communications services.

And Americans’ concerns about Trump acting like a dictator are unlikely to be calmed by tonight’s news that Trump has abruptly purged the leadership of the military in apparent unconcern over the message that such a sweeping purge sends to adversaries. He has fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Charles Q. Brown, who Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested got the job only because he is Black, and Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the Chief of Naval Operations, who was the first woman to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and whom Hegseth called a “DEI hire.”

The vice chief of the Air Force, General James Slife, has also been fired, and Hegseth indicated he intends to fire the judge advocates general, or JAGs—the military lawyers who administer the military code of justice—for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Trump has indicated he intends to nominate Air Force Lieutenant General John Dan “Razin” Caine to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Oren Liebermann and Haley Britzky of CNN call this “an extraordinary move,” since Caine is retired and is not a four-star general, a legal requirement, and will need a presidential waiver to take the job. Trump has referred to Caine as right out of “central casting.”

Defense One, which covers U.S. defense and international security, called the firings a “bloodbath.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#political cartoons #Steve Brodner #authoritarian rule #CPAC #Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #the military #US Dept of Defense #j.D. Pritzker #Governor Janet Mills

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justinspoliticalcorner · 4 months ago

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David Bauder at AP:

The Associated Press sued three Trump administration officials Friday over access to presidential events, citing freedom of speech in asking a federal judge to stop the blocking of its journalists. “We’ll see them in court,” the White House press secretary said in response. The lawsuit was filed Friday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., 10 days after the White House began restricting access to the news agency. It was assigned to U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump nominee. The AP says its case is about an unconstitutional effort by the White House to control speech — in this case not changing its style from the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” as President Donald Trump did last month with an executive order.

“The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government,” the AP said in its lawsuit, which names White House chief of staff Susan Wiles, deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich and press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “This targeted attack on the AP’s editorial independence and ability to gather and report the news strikes at the very core of the First Amendment,” the news agency said. “This court should remedy it immediately.” The Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press, speech and religion and bars the government from obstructing any of them. Leavitt said that she learned about the lawsuit Friday while driving from the White House to an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “I wanted to get the White House counsel on the phone before taking this stage to see what I can and cannot say but, look, we feel we are in the right in this position,” she said. “We’re going to ensure that truth and accuracy is present at that White House every single day.”

Trump directly cited AP’s editorial decision

In stopping the AP from attending press events at the White House and Mar-a-Lago, or flying on Air Force One in the agency’s customary spot, the Trump team directly cited the AP’s decision not to fully follow the president’s renaming. “We’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it’s the Gulf of America,” Trump said Tuesday. This week, about 40 news organizations signed onto a letter organized by the White House Correspondents Association, urging the White House to reverse its policy against the AP. They included outlets like Fox News Channel and Newsmax, where many of the on-air commentators are Trump supporters. “We can understand President Trump’s frustration because the media has often been unfair to him, but Newsmax still supports AP’s right, as a private organization, to use the language it wants to use in its reporting,” Newsmax said in a statement. “We fear a future administration may not like something Newsmax writes and seek to ban us.” While AP journalists have still been allowed on White House grounds, they have been kept out of the “pool” of journalists that cover events in smaller spaces and report back to its readers and other reporters. The AP has been part of White House pools for more than a century. The lawsuit said the AP had made “several unsuccessful efforts” to persuade the administration that its conduct was unlawful. Julie Pace, AP’s senior vice president and executive editor, traveled to Florida this week to meet with Wiles.

On Friday, the Associated Press (AP) filed a lawsuit in AP v. Budowich against three Trump Misadministration II officials (Susie Wiles, Karoline Leavitt, and Taylor Budowich) over the blocking of its journalists from newsgathering duties covering the White House over its refusal to bend to Tyrant 47’s “Gulf of America” executive order.

#Associated Press #Donald Trump #Gulf of Mexico Name Dispute #Gulf of Mexico #Freedom Of The Press #Susie Wiles #Taylor Budowich #Karoline Leavitt #War On The Press #Trump Administration II #AP v. Budowich

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saywhat-politics · 4 months ago

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Wearing his trademark black “Make America Great Again” hat, billionaire Elon Musk began his appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference by brandishing a chainsaw that was given to him by Argentine President Javier Milei.

Watch Musk’s remarks in the player above.

The chainsaw was used by Milei during his 2023 presidential campaign to symbolize his proposals to shred the bloated Argentine state. Milei came on stage Thursday and passed the power tool to Musk.

WATCH: Arizona attorney general discusses lawsuit challenging Musk’s power as unelected official

The red chainsaw swung by Musk was engraved with Milei’s slogan, “Viva la libertad, carajo,” which is Spanish for “Long live liberty, damn it.”

Musk, who has become Trump’s close adviser spearheading a massive effort to cut spending and downsize the federal government, was set to meet with Milei, who is in Washington to attend the conference.

Musk was announced as a speaker for the conference earlier on Thursday by Mercedes Schlapp, a CPAC organizer. The scheduled meeting between Musk and Milei was confirmed by a person who insisted on anonymity to discuss an event that hadn’t yet been announced publicly and said the meeting was private and had been planned for weeks.

#cpac 2025 #elon musk #chainsaw #argentina #president #javier milei

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cookie-nom-nom · 3 months ago

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A timeline of events for a small resistance:

Like two days ago: A random girl singled me out of room with 80 people and tried to get me (and only me?) to join a pro life organization. Afterwards I resolved to dress more blatantly queer.

Today 11:00: Email sent out to all college students for the Young Conservatives club hosting a chalk art demonstration at 4:30 riddled with pro life messaging and protestors. It will be outside of the hall where the scholarship conference is being held. It’s a massive event for the school, afternoon classes are cancelled so everyone can go, many prospective students will attend. Many would see the pro life messaging, massive influence on how the college is seen. I’m in class and can’t do anything.

11-12:00: I finish a massive essay.

12-1:00: Tabling for our UN climate ambassadors program, I catch wind of what’s going on and we begin scheming.

1-1:30: We build a coalition of students that are pro choice inspired to take action. Make connections with multiple faculty to gain support for counter action including supplies and advice for the rules and procedure regarding demonstrations. Draft a proposal. Gather a group of independent students to contact student affairs president, hold a meeting. We bat our eyes and smile and talk a lot about how we just want to present the diversity of campus values to prospective students, and show how our college facilitates civil intellectual dialogues about human rights. It goes smoothly. As per rules they require a chartered organization to sponsor the event, so I use my position as a Guild head (admittedly one not related to politics, and I’m furiously texting my co president under the table for permission/forgiveness). Submit the proposal, with the student affairs president trying to sound very neutral but subtly relieved that counter action was occurring. Contact the president of the campus democrat organization and slap their name on the proposal for more credibility. With permission, I email the entire student body about a concurrent event for ‘bodily autonomy positivity’.

1:30-4:30: After that hectic 30 minutes, I run over to the scholarship conference because I am presenting my academic endeavors for the UN Climate Ambassadors program. Literally walk in on the others venting about the Conservative event going on, show them the plan and get them on board. As the conference goes on I subtly advertise to people I know. Large number of people saying they’d already planned to sabotage it lol. Mid conference, turns out of the other Ambassadors literally Knows the guy whose name is slapped on the Conservative event, calls him. Love this girl, she plays an AMAZING ditz when she needs to, and was like ‘heyyy I heard you’re doing some kind of event what’s that about teehee’ to draw out the dude’s story. And he was weirdly evasive?? Like saying it wasn’t a protest, that it’s just about art, very much not how the email was set up idk. Very. Odd. Rather spineless.

4:30: We start, blasting music on the speaker. Conservatives show up like 20 minutes late to their own event. There’s only five of them. We have well over 6 times that with only 3 hours notice and a small campus. A single chalk line separates our areas. The pro choice messages took up over 2.5 side walk blocks (after which we were restricted from doing more space, far more concentrated). They barely fill 1 and only have 9 messages/drawings compared to our well over a hundred. Things are mostly civil and fully safe, I make sure everyone has a buddy. Aside from some chalk arguments across the line, it’s not bad. Everyone had fun stayed safe.

I really, really enjoyed giving a water jug to the conservative girl (only one on their side) who tried to get me to join the pro life organization, so I could watch her erase their measly muster of chalk messages.

(Trying to avoid posting pictures w people of course lol)

#Nom does politics #Pro choice #abortion rights #bodily autonomy #abortion #reproductive rights #I know it’s small but we did good #Protest #something to nom on

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girlactionfigure · 4 months ago

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🇮🇱 CPAC PASSES RESOLUTION SUPPORTING ISRAELI SOVEREIGNTY OVER JUDEA AND SAMARIA; ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER VOWS TO INTENSIFY COUNTER-TERROR OPERATIONS IN JUDEA AND SAMARIA

🇮🇱 The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has passed a resolution urging the United States and its allies to recognize Israel's sovereignty over Judea and Samaria (AKA West Bank), The Jerusalem Post reported on Thursday.

The resolution was presented by KT McFarland, former deputy national security advisor in President Trump’s first administration. It followed intensive discussions between senior CPAC leaders and Yesha Council head Israel Ganz. Ganz likened the declaration to the Balfour Declaration, stating that it grants political validity to biblical values and justice.

Yesha Council CEO Omer Rahamim told The Jerusalem Post that CPAC’s resolution carries considerable weight in bolstering American support for the extension of Israeli sovereignty over the region. The decision marks a significant step toward advancing recognition of Israel’s historical and political claims in Judea and Samaria.

🔹Defense Minister Israel Katz visited the Tulkarem refugee camp in Judea and Samaria this morning, addressing the recent bus bombings in Bat Yam. "We are in a war with extreme Islamic terror, and we will win—here, in Gaza, and everywhere," he declared. Katz announced increased counter-terror activities in the region, warning terrorists released in the hostage-ceasefire deal: "We have our eyes on you, and we will hunt down and eliminate everyone involved in terrorism."

🔹 MK Bezalel Smotrich stated, "The grave violation by Hamas and the ongoing abuse cannot be met with silence. Nor can the certain knowledge that they cruelly murdered little Ariel and Kfir in captivity. The only solution is the destruction of Hamas, and this must not be delayed."

He warned that every day without resuming Hamas’s destruction is seen as weakness, which could lead to another tragic event like October 7. He emphasized that the attack miraculously avoided last night with the bus explosions should serve as a wake-up call.

🎗️ Hamas has officially announced that it will be releasing hostages Tal Shoham, Omer Shem-Tov, Eliya Cohen, Omer Wenkert, Avera Mengistu, and Hisham al-Sayed on Saturday. According to previous Hamas statements, these six are the last of those to be returned alive under the first phase of exchanges.

Israeli officials notified the families on Tuesday. Al-Sayed and Mengistu have been held captive in Gaza for over a decade after entering the Strip voluntarily, while the other four were abducted on October 7, 2023.

🔸 Hamas has proposed exchanging all remaining Israeli hostages for a large-scale release of Palestinian prisoners as part of efforts to extend the ceasefire. The group is open to discussing Gaza’s governance through Palestinian consensus but refuses to disarm or withdraw. The first phase of the ceasefire, which began on January 19, 2025, is set to end on March 1, 2025.

#Israel #October 7 #Hamas Massacre #Israel/HamasWar #Gaza #Palestinians #Realtime Israel #Hezbollah #Lebanon #🎗️

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rjzimmerman · 4 months ago

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Want to learn the names and politics of people who are scarier or more despicable than trump and his mafia? If so, read this.

Excerpt from this story from DeSmog Blog:

The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship is the global far-right Woodstock, with political and thought leaders mingling with the business elite, conservative nobodies — and me.

It’s easy to dismiss Jordan Peterson, the Canadian bad boy ex-academic, as a sideshow. But when he’s standing six feet away, scowling before an audience of thousands of powerful conservatives from around the world, it clicks: Peterson’s influence has gotten too big to ignore, and his message is a danger to all of us.

“It’s time to stop our obsession with carbon altogether,” he said as he repeated the climate denial trope that more carbon in the atmosphere will cause beneficial plant growth and not climate disaster (this is false). “No more carbon apocalypse mongering and terrorizing.”

For years, I’d dismissed Peterson as a scholar who, after torpedoing his own academic career, became a YouTube personality infamous for spewing conservative political messages and basic self-help dressed up as philosophy and psychology.

I was wrong. He is now the frontman for powerful people on the right attempting to take over the world. And I was at their self-described replacement for the World Economic Forum: the second annual conference of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC).

Surrounding me were close to 3,000 people, mostly men in suits, who had paid £1,500 (about CAD $2,750) to attend. Elite conservative politicians from Canada, the U.K. and Europe, the U.S., including Mike Johnson, Chris Wright, Kemi Badenoch, and Candice Bergen gave speeches. Some congregated at VIP tables in the centre of the conference hall along with representatives from fossil fuel, tech, and arms-dealing corporations. In the bleachers behind them, thousands of conservatives from around the world applauded Peterson’s attacks on climate efforts, the sexual revolution, and progressive politics.

An army of young people wearing white softshell coats kept the peace. I took to calling these footsoldiers the “White Coats.” They had strict instructions to reveal nothing; I only learned it was a job at all, and not a volunteer gig, after overhearing two of them chat about the generous pay.

The White Coats weren’t the only young people there. Hundreds of the attendees were about my age, in their late 20s and early 30s. I was curious what drew them to a conference where the speakers celebrated ultra conservative policies that will make the planet burn and are antithetical to the values I and my friends hold, like accepting all people regardless of race or gender, guaranteeing everyone bodily autonomy, and trusting science.

This was not the place to be too loud about my values. But I wasn’t here to preach; I was here for work, along with Geoff Dembicki of DeSmog and my Canada’s National Observer colleague Sandra Bartlett, to witness the coalition of powerful people Peterson has brought together in a war against modern progressive liberalism. At a time of escalating climate disaster, this group is crafting a battle plan to destroy essential climate action in the name of ideology.

This article is the first dispatch from ARC, and there’s a lot more to come on the surprising linkages we found between some of the most powerful, climate-action averse people on the planet. This conference, it turns out, is a place where they feel truly free to be themselves, and that’s what we were here to see: How do they talk, and who do they talk to, when there’s nobody else around to listen in?

ARC was co-founded by Peterson and Philippa Stroud, a conservative peer to the British House of Lords and pro-Brexit tactician known for her climate denial, to “unite conservative voices and propose policies based on traditional Western values.” It positions itself as an intellectual hub for the resurgent right.

In the conference’s opening address, Stroud — tall and slender and enveloped by long white hair — explained the group’s mission as an orchestra played the final dramatic notes of Aaron Copeland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man.”

“The West,” she said, is facing a “civilisational moment,” and the survival of countries and regions like Canada, Europe and the U.S. is on the line. Immigration is eroding the identity of western countries. Sexual freedom and “hedonism” have made Western youth nihilistic. Diversity, equity and inclusion, and the programs and policies that support them, are harming the West’s Christian cultural foundations. Climate change isn’t a crisis.

She quoted the Lord of the Rings — “It was Frodo who said to Gandalf: ‘I wish it need not have happened in my time.’ ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf. ‘And so do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the times that we are given.’”

There’s a potent irony to this, given that Tolkien was obsessed with the way power corrupts, yet speaker after speaker at the event celebrated Trump and Musk’s authoritarian takeover of the U.S. while calling on conservatives in other countries to emulate them.

#conservatives #right wing #climate change deniers #trump #Alliance for Responsible Citizenship

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