#russ vought

[kp777]

Feb. 20, 2023

From the article:

The right-wing official who served as budget director for the Trump administration is reportedly playing a significant advisory role for House Republicans as they seek to leverage a fast-approaching debt ceiling crisis to enact spending cuts that would disproportionately impact low-income households.

According toThe Washington Post, former Office of Management and Budget chief Russ Vought "has emerged as one of the central voices shaping the looming showdown over federal spending and the national debt."

Read more.

#republicans #russ vought #debt ceiling #national debt

[amprosite]

McCarthy and Biden extended the debt ceiling until January 2025. The arrangement will add $4–5 trillion to the national debt before the next ceiling. Read more.

#russ vought

[contemplatingoutlander]

Trump’s anti-Ukraine view dates to the 1930s. America rejected it then. Will we now?

(Illustration: Brian Stauffer for The Washington Post)

This opinion column by Robert Kagan reminds us that history appears to be repeating itself. Trump's America First movement is an echo of the 1930s/1940s isolationist, neo-fascist America First movement that tried to keep the U.S. out of WWII. This is a gift🎁link, so you can read the entire article, even if you don't subscribe to The Washington Post. Below are some excerpts:

Many Americans seem shocked that Republicans would oppose helping Ukraine at this critical juncture in history....Clearly, people have not been taking Donald Trump’s resurrection of America First seriously. It’s time they did. The original America First Committee was founded in September 1940. Consider the global circumstances at the time. Two years earlier, Hitler had annexed Austria and invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia. One year earlier, he had invaded and conquered Poland. In the first months of 1940, he invaded and occupied Norway, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. In early June 1940, British troops evacuated from Dunkirk, and France was overrun by the Nazi blitzkrieg. In September, the very month of the committee’s formation, German troops were in Paris and Edward R. Murrow was reporting from London under bombardment by the Luftwaffe. That was the moment the America First movement launched itself into the battle to block aid to Britain. [...] This “realism” meshed well with anti-interventionism. Americans had to respect “the right of an able and virile nation [i.e. Nazi Germany] to expand,” aviator Charles Lindbergh argued. [...] Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has called for the immediate reduction of U.S. force levels in Europe and the abrogation of America’s common-defense Article 5 commitments. He wants the United States to declare publicly that in the event of a “direct conflict” between Russia and a NATO ally, America will “withhold forces.” The Europeans need to know they can no longer “count on us like they used to.”  [...] Can Republicans really be returning to a 1930s worldview in our 21st-century world? The answer is yes. Trump’s Republican Party wants to take the United States back to the triad of interwar conservatism: high tariffs, anti-immigrant xenophobia, isolationism. According to Russ Vought, who is often touted as Trump’s likely chief of staff in a second term, it is precisely this “older definition of conservatism,” the conservatism of the interwar years, that they hope to impose on the nation when Trump regains power. [...] Like those of their 1930s forbears, today’s Republicans’ views of foreign policy are heavily shaped by what they consider the more important domestic battle against liberalism. Foreign policy issues are primarily weapons to be wielded against domestic enemies. [...] The GOP devotion to America First is merely the flip side of Trump’s “poison the blood” campaign. It is about the ascendancy of White Christian America and the various un-American ethnic and racial groups allegedly conspiring against it. [emphasis added]  

Use the gift link above to read the entire article. It is worth reading.

____________ Illustration: The above illustration by Brian Stauffer originally drew me to this article. It does a great job of succinctly illustrating the Trump GOP's rightward march towards isolationism (and Putin-style dictatorship). [edited]

#america first #wwii era #republicans #trump #ukraine #history repeating itself #american history #robert kagan #the washington post

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[Political cartoons 2020]  :: Los Angeles Sentinel :: David Brown

* * * * *

Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.

-Franklin D. Roosevelt

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 23, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

Both President Joe Biden and House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) have stated publicly that the U.S. will not default. They are negotiating over the budget. For my part, I’ve started to wonder if the whole debt ceiling crisis isn’t about Republicans’ determination to cut taxes for the wealthy at all costs. When Ronald Reagan called for tax cuts in 1980, he argued that tax cuts would concentrate money in private hands, enabling investors flush with cash to build the economy. That growth would keep tax revenues stable even with the lower rates. That was the argument, but it never came to pass. In fact, a 2022 study by political economists David Hope and Julian Limberg shows that “tax cuts for the rich…do not have any significant effect on economic growth or unemployment,” but they do “lead to higher income inequality in both the short- and medium-term.” Indeed, Estelle Sommeiller and Mark Price of the Economic Policy Institute, an independent, nonprofit think tank, noted in 2018 that 1% of all families in the U.S. take home 21% of all the income in the U.S., making 26.3 times more than the bottom 99%, whose average income is slightly more than $50,000 a year. On average in the U.S., someone would need an annual income of slightly more than $420,000 to be a member of that top 1%. In 2020, annual wages for the top 1% grew by 7.3% while those in the bottom 90% grew just 1.7%. A 2020 study by Carter C. Price and Kathryn A. Edwards of the RAND Corporation showed that the changing economic distribution systems of the past forty years have moved a staggering $50 trillion upward, out of the hands of the bottom 90% of Americans. (The national debt is currently about $31.5 trillion.) Nonetheless, today’s Republicans continue to insist that cutting taxes promotes growth. Today, Representative Bob Good (R-VA) talked over journalist Katy Tur to defend his support for extending the Trump tax cuts, which are due to expire in 2025 and which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates will add $3.5 trillion to the debt. Good insisted that tax cuts are “incentivizing the right things.” Leaving the White House today, McCarthy told reporters that he would not entertain rolling back the 2017 Trump tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. “[T]he problem is not revenue,” he insisted. “The problem is spending.” But the Trump tax cuts and Trump's increased spending even before the pandemic ultimately added $7.8 trillion to the national debt, about $23,500 for every person in the country. The increase in the annual deficit under Trump was the third-biggest increase of any administration, relative to the size of the economy. He was beaten out only by George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln. Bush, of course, led the U.S. into two foreign conflicts that were financed almost entirely through debt (in the past, the U.S. paid for war through taxes and war bonds), after Congress cut taxes by about 8% for the wealthiest Americans. Lincoln fought the Civil War. “It’s not that Americans are taxed too little, it’s that Washington spends too much,” Russ Vought, Trump’s acting budget director, wrote in 2019. He was defending Trump’s 5% budget cuts to nondefense discretionary spending. President Biden’s 2024 budget proposes to reduce the federal deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade by raising taxes on those who make more than $400,000 a year. His budget would effectively repeal the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy, restoring the top tax rate to 39.6% rather than the 37% the 2017 cuts established. It would also raise corporate taxes from 21%, to which the 2017 tax cuts dropped them, to 28%, lower than the high of 35% before the Trump tax cuts. Biden’s budget also calls for taxing capital gains at about the same rate as income for those making more than $1 million, and it calls for a new tax on unrealized capital gains. It also seeks to close loopholes that enable high earners to avoid taxes. Funding for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that was passed in the Inflation Reduction Act will enable the IRS to go after tax cheats who make more than $400,000 a year, netting an estimated $204 billion through 2031. But the Republicans say they will not agree to any tax hikes of any sort, and the right-wing extremists in the Freedom Caucus have said they would not agree to anything but the bill McCarthy muscled through the House by promising it would never become law. That bill, called Limit, Save, Grow, would cut discretionary government programs by at least 18%—more if Social Security, Medicare, and veterans’ benefits aren’t included. “My conservative colleagues for the most part support Limit, Save, Grow, and they don’t feel like we should negotiate with our hostage,” said right-wing Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL). As Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post pointed out last week, the bill also forces Congress to approve every “major” regulation proposed by a government agency, with the recognition that Congress is unlikely to agree to any such regulation, thus unraveling the federal government. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), who before the 2022 election called for sunsetting all laws every five years, forcing Congress to repass all discretionary spending, today fell back on the idea that Democrats calling for addressing the deficit through taxation are socialists. Poking fun at the recent travel advisories by LGBTQ, immigrant, and Black rights organizations warning against visiting Florida, he issued a “formal travel advisory” for “socialists” “in direct response to the Biden Administration attempts to erase capitalism and the system that has brought prosperity to Florida and the entire United States.” And yet it was the Republican Party that originally established the pattern of turning to increasing revenue to enable the government to meet its financial obligations, a pattern members of both parties relied on until 1981. Faced in 1861 with funding the Civil War, members of the Republican Party invented the U.S. income tax and graduated it to make sure that “the burdens will be more equalized on all classes of the community, more especially on those who are able to bear them,” as Senator William Pitt Fessenden (R-ME) put it. Justin Smith Morrill (R-VT) agreed. “The weight [of] taxation must be distributed equally,” he said, “Not upon each man an equal amount, but a tax proportionate to his ability to pay.” The government had a right to “demand” 99 percent of a man’s property for an urgent necessity, Morrill said. When the public required it, “the property of the people…belongs to the Government.” Far from objecting to taxes, Americans asked their congressmen to raise them, out of concern about the growing national debt. In 1864, Senator John P. Hale (R-NH) said: “The condition of the country is singular…I venture to say it is an anomaly in the history of the world. What do the people of the United States ask of this Congress? To take off taxes? No, sir, they ask you to put them on. The universal cry of this people is to be taxed.” Those taxes helped to pay for the war and, after it, to repay the debt. And in 1866, when Confederate-sympathizing Democrats tried to undermine support for the government by changing the terms of that debt to make it less valuable, Republicans wrote into the Constitution that “the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#political cartoon #Los Angeles Sentinel #David Brown #The Debt Ceiling Showdown #MAGA agenda to destroy the world economy #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #debt #budget #taxes #revenue #history #the Confederacy #taxation #trickle down #Ronald Reagan

[reasoningdaily]

WASHINGTON (AP) — With more than a year to go before the 2024 election, a constellation of conservative organizations is preparing for a possible second White House term for Donald Trump, recruiting thousands of Americans to come to Washington on a mission to dismantle the federal government and replace it with a vision closer to his own.

Led by the long-established Heritage Foundation think tank and fueled by former Trump administration officials, the far-reaching effort is essentially a government-in-waiting for the former president’s return — or any candidate who aligns with their ideals and can defeat President Joe Biden in 2024.

With a nearly 1,000-page “Project 2025” handbook and an “army” of Americans, the idea is to have the civic infrastructure in place on Day One to commandeer, reshape and do away with what Republicans deride as the “deep state” bureaucracy, in part by firing as many as 50,000 federal workers.

“We need to flood the zone with conservatives,” said Paul Dans, director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project and a former Trump administration official who speaks with historical flourish about the undertaking.

“This is a clarion call to come to Washington,” he said. “People need to lay down their tools, and step aside from their professional life and say, ‘This is my lifetime moment to serve.’”

The unprecedented effort is being orchestrated with dozens of right-flank organizations, many new to Washington, and represents a changed approach from conservatives, who traditionally have sought to limit the federal government by cutting federal taxes and slashing federal spending.

FILE - Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC 2023, March 4, 2023, at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

The goal is to avoid the pitfalls of Trump’s first years in office, when the Republican president’s team was ill-prepared, his Cabinet nominees had trouble winning Senate confirmation and policies were met with resistance — by lawmakers, government workers and even Trump’s own appointees who refused to bend or break protocol, or in some cases violate laws, to achieve his goals.

While many of the Project 2025 proposals are inspired by Trump, they are being echoed by GOP rivals Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy and are gaining prominence among other Republicans.

And if Trump wins a second term, the work from the Heritage coalition ensures the president will have the personnel to carry forward his unfinished White House business.

“The president Day One will be a wrecking ball for the administrative state,” said Russ Vought, a former Trump administration official involved in the effort who is now president at the conservative Center for Renewing America.

Much of the new president’s agenda would be accomplished by reinstating what’s called Schedule F — a Trump-era executive order that would reclassify tens of thousands of the 2 million federal employees as essentially at-will workers who could more easily be fired.

Biden had rescinded the executive order upon taking office in 2021, but Trump — and other presidential hopefuls — now vow to reinstate it.

“It frightens me,” said Mary Guy, a professor of public administration at the University of Colorado Denver, who warns the idea would bring a return to a political spoils system.

Experts argue Schedule F would create chaos in the civil service, which was overhauled during President Jimmy Carter’s administration in an attempt to ensure a professional workforce and end political bias dating from 19th century patronage.

As it now stands, just 4,000 members of the federal workforce are considered political appointees who typically change with each administration. But Schedule F could put tens of thousands of career professional jobs at risk.

“We have a democracy that is at risk of suicide. Schedule F is just one more bullet in the gun,” Guy said.

The ideas contained in Heritage’s coffee table-ready book are both ambitious and parochial, a mix of longstanding conservative policies and stark, head-turning proposals that gained prominence in the Trump era.

There’s a “top to bottom overhaul” of the Department of Justice, particularly curbing its independence and ending FBI efforts to combat the spread of misinformation. It calls for stepped-up prosecution of anyone providing or distributing abortion pills by mail.

There are proposals to have the Pentagon “abolish” its recent diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, what the project calls the “woke” agenda, and reinstate service members discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.

Chapter by chapter, the pages offer a how-to manual for the next president, similar to one Heritage produced 50 years ago, ahead of the Ronald Reagan administration. Authored by some of today’s most prominent thinkers in the conservative movement, it’s often sprinkled with apocalyptic language.

A chapter written by Trump’s former acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security calls for bolstering the number of political appointees, and redeploying office personnel with law enforcement ability into the field “to maximize law enforcement capacity.”

At the White House, the book suggests the new administration should “reexamine” the tradition of providing work space for the press corps and ensure the White House counsel is “deeply committed” to the president’s agenda.

Conservatives have long held a grim view of federal government offices, complaining they are stacked with liberals intent on halting Republican agendas.

But Doreen Greenwald, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said most federal workers live in the states and are your neighbors, family and friends. “Federal employees are not the enemy,” she said.

While presidents typically rely on Congress to put policies into place, the Heritage project leans into what legal scholars refer to as a unitary view of executive power that suggests the president has broad authority to act alone.

To push past senators who try to block presidential Cabinet nominees, Project 2025 proposes installing top allies in acting administrative roles, as was done during the Trump administration to bypass the Senate confirmation process.

John McEntee, another former Trump official advising the effort, said the next administration can “play hardball a little more than we did with Congress.”

In fact, Congress would see its role diminished — for example, with a proposal to eliminate congressional notification on certain foreign arms sales.

Philip Wallach, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies the separation of powers and was not part of the Heritage project, said there’s a certain amount of “fantasizing” about the president’s capabilities.

“Some of these visions, they do start to just bleed into some kind of authoritarian fantasies where the president won the election, so he’s in charge, so everyone has to do what he says — and that’s just not the system the government we live under,” he said.

At the Heritage office, Dans has a faded photo on his wall of an earlier era in Washington, with the White House situated almost alone in the city, dirt streets in all directions.

It’s an image of what conservatives have long desired, a smaller federal government.

The Heritage coalition is taking its recruitment efforts on the road, crisscrossing America to fill the federal jobs. They staffed the Iowa State Fair this month and signed up hundreds of people, and they’re building out a database of potential employees, inviting them to be trained in government operations.

“It’s counterintuitive,” Dans acknowledged — the idea of joining government to shrink it — but he said that’s the lesson learned from the Trump days about what’s needed to “regain control.”

#Conservative groups draw up plan to dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump’s vision #maga #white lies #election interference #election fraud #trump #trump lies

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 7/31/2023

Fifth Place: Erick Erickson

On 7/30/2023, Mr. Erickson tweeted the following:

Starting to see more and more progressives demand public swimming pools. Get ready for the next entitlement program.

Not public swimming pools! Anything but public swimming pools!

By the way, the top reply is somebody pointing out that the city Erickson lives in--has multiple public swimming pools:

I'm sorry, I can't get over this: Erickson is seriously concerned that progressives are going to--what exactly? Use tax payer dollars to make the community better? That's really something you view as a concern? As one Twitter user put it:

i like that the worst thing this guy can imagine is americans collectively deciding to use the wealth they produce and the taxes they pay to give themselves something nice

Fourth Place: Stephen Strang

Right-wing watch posted a clip of him on Friday talking about allowing drag queens to read to children, he says "They would not let someone dressed up in a Nazi uniform go in and read stories to children."

First off, who exactly is the "they" in this case? Second off, there is obviously no comparison between the ideology of the most genocidal and murderous regime of the twentieth century and people dressing in drag, and the fact that you think these two things are on even remotely the same level shows there is something wrong with you.

Third Place: Donald Trump

NBC reached out to forty-four of Trump's former cabinet officials to see how many of them would support his 2024 run for re-election--only four did. Those four, for those curious, are Mark Meadows, Ric Grenell, Matthew Whitaker, and Russ Vought. A Tea Party holdover who played a key role in the Freedom Caucus until he was made Trump's Chief of Staff and who appeared in a debunked creationist propaganda film, a small time ambassador who once got into a fight with Nick Fuentes over if he was immoral for being a homosexual, a failed Congressional candidate turned Attorney General, and a man who is only known for hindering Biden's transition to the Presidency, respectively.

What I find funny though is not that this group of nitwits have endorsed Trump's re-election, but that they are the only ones who worked with Donald Trump to have done so. If so few of the people who were around Donald feel comfortable giving him a second term, what should that say to the rest of us?

Second Place: Jonathan Chait

What's wrong with this picture?

If you said the fact that it implies the corruption of a Supreme Court Justice is on the same level as the corruption of the son of the President despite one actually having the power to impact people's lives and the other not, you'd be correct. However, this false comparison is the entire basis of New York Magazine's article "The Sleaze Problem: How Democrats can clean up the Supreme Court and address the Hunter Biden affair." Why Democrats need to address the Hunter Biden affair--which is little more than trumped up charges against a private system--I'm not sure.

The column even sees its author admitting that nothing Hunter Biden did was illegal while also accepting the incorrect notion that nothing Clarence Thomas did was illegal.

The article proposes that Democrats should propose an ethics code for the Supreme Court while aiming for Republican support through also creating a stricter ethics code around the actions of family members of politicians. Of course, Chait admits this wouldn't actually work because doing so would indict the Trump kids even more than Hunter Biden--but on the bright side, at least the Democrats now have an answer for the irrational and nonsensical charges against Hunter Biden. If only Democrats would play into GOP talking points, that would show them.

Winner: Samuel Alito

Did you know that nothing in the Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate the Supreme Court? Well that's what Samuel Alito thinks--of course, it isn't actually true. Congress specifically has the power to stop courts from ruling on specific issues, to determine who is on the Supreme Court, and various other forms of regulation--but Alito doesn't want to mention that, because that could get in the way of his power grab.

Samuel Alito, you've said the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

#eric erickson #stephen strang #donald trump #johnathan chait #samuel alito

[masterofbiography]

Soldier Boy est né dans le sud de Philadelphie, en Pennsylvanie, en 1919 sous le nom de "Ben". Son père était un riche homme d'affaires qui possédait la moitié des aciéries de l'État et l'envoya dans un pensionnat pour qu'il puisse être correctement éduqué. Malheureusement, Soldier Boy a finalement échoué, ce qui a amené son père à le traiter de déception et à lui dire qu'il n'était pas digne de porter le nom de famille. En 1944, en exploitant les relations de son père, Soldier Boy a pu se faire doser avec la version testée sur le terrain du composé V du Dr Vought et est ainsi devenu le premier super-héros américain, lui permettant apparemment de massacrer des soldats allemands par dizaines au combat. Cependant, probablement en raison de sa valeur pour l'entreprise, Vought-American l'a principalement utilisé pour la propagande de guerre au lieu de le laisser combattre les nazis. Son père n'a pas non plus été impressionné et a dit avec dédain à Soldier Boy qu'il avait pris un "raccourci", affirmant qu'un "vrai homme" n'aurait pas "trompé" comme il l'avait fait. En 1945, un décret exécutif a été rédigé, vraisemblablement par le président Truman, pour établir la date du 28 avril comme Soldier Boy Day afin d'honorer ses efforts héroïques pendant la guerre. Cependant, Soldier Boy est intervenu et a fait que la journée soit connue sous le nom de Journée nationale des super-héros comme un moyen d'honorer tous les super-héros à la place. Après la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Soldier Boy est resté un super-héros majeur avec Vought pendant des décennies et connaissait Stormfront pendant son temps en tant que Liberty, car les deux ont fondé Herogasm ensemble en 1952. Au cours des années 1960 et 1970, Soldier Boy réprimerait les émeutes raciales et attaquerait les manifestants anti-guerre ou les militants des droits civiques. Il deviendrait également le chef de l'équipe de super-héros Payback , où il combattrait soi-disant le crime aux côtés de Crimson Countess , Gunpowder , Swatto , Mindstorm , Black Noir et les TNT Twins.À l'automne 1980, Vogelbaum a appelé Soldier Boy dans le laboratoire et lui a demandé de produire son sperme dans une tasse afin qu'ils puissent étudier sa génétique. À l'insu de Soldier Boy, Vogelbaum a ensuite utilisé son sperme pour créer un bébé qui finirait par devenir Homelander. À un moment donné au cours des années 1980, Soldier Boy est tombé sur un groupe d'enfants un soir essayant de booster une Benz. Une bagarre s'est ensuivie au cours de laquelle les suspects ont tenté de fuir, ce qui a conduit Soldier Boy à ramasser la Benz et à la lancer dans une maison voisine appartenant à la famille Milk, tuant Louis Milk (57 ans), Walter Milk (35 ans) et Lucy Milk (32 ans). ) Dans le processus. Tout l'incident a été vu par Mother's Milk , qui n'était qu'un garçon à l'époque. Cependant, selon le récit officiel donné par Soldier Boy à la presse, les suspects ont tenté de l'écraser avec la voiture, le forçant à dévier le véhicule venant en sens inverse et à le faire s'écraser dans la maison de la famille Milk. Bien qu'ils se présentent comme une équipe soudée, la vérité était que Soldier Boy était détesté par les autres membres de Payback, car il sabotait tous leurs efforts pour faire avancer leur carrière et les maltraitait fréquemment physiquement. L'équipe a réussi à assommer Soldier Boy et l'a remis aux Russes. Vought a dissimulé sa "mort" en affirmant que Soldier Boy était mort en héros se sacrifiant pour arrêter une fusion nucléaire dans l'Ohio.

Joue avec : Dylan Benati

#Benjamin #Soldier Boy #The Boys #Surnaturels #adaptable univers surnaturels

[automatismoateo]

Trump II Architect Russ Vought Embraces A Christian Nationalist Vision For America via /r/atheism

Trump II Architect Russ Vought Embraces A Christian Nationalist Vision For America https://ift.tt/YBXNJro Submitted March 19, 2024 at 09:05PM by ScotAntonL (From Reddit https://ift.tt/n9TgPMI)

#reddit

[toshootforthestars]

From the report by Roger Sollenberger, posted 22 Nov 2023:

The nonprofit, called American Compass, included the names of five donor organizations on a schedule in its 2022 tax statement, a copy of which was obtained by The Daily Beast. The page header says, “Do Not File” and “Not Open to Public Inspection,” indicating the donors may have been accidentally disclosed. Of the five groups, two stand out for their prominent histories of supporting liberal causes—the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Omidyar Network Foundation.

* * * *

The donations are striking because American Compass is a partner organization in Project 2025, a controversial right-wing think tank that has been building the policy and personnel firmament for a second Trump administration. Project 2025 is an arm of the Heritage Foundation and it has been criticized for its hard-right, authoritarian agenda—including “dehumanizing” rhetoric towards the LGBTQ community, re-upping Trump’s attempt to include citizenship on the census, leveraging the power of the Justice Department to crack down on critics, and a potentially unconstitutional plan to sic U.S. troops on domestic protesters. Project 2025 backers include xenophobic Trump advisers Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon, as well as Christian nationalist and former Trump budget chief Russ Vought, one of the group’s top advisers. According to The Washington Post, Project 2025 has been crafting “specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents,” with Trump himself “naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute.” The group is also “drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations,” the Post reported. American Compass—whose specific political allegiances lie with the so-called “New Right”—boasts other ties to anti-democratic, pro-Trump luminaries. For instance, the address on its tax filing is inside the Conservative Partnership Institute, which employs Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows and political attorney Cleta Mitchell, another architect of Trump’s potentially criminal plot to overturn the 2020 election. CPI is another key force behind Project 2025.

* * * *

American Compass founder Oren Cass—a former Bain executive and adviser to Mitt Romney’s failed 2012 presidential bid—has staked out what he casts as a more labor-friendly economic conservatism. While he has advocated for “genuine” bipartisanship, Cass is also aligned with the New Right. He rejects many of the absolutist tenets of laissez-faire capitalism that the GOP has held dear for so long, arguing that free-market fundamentals have failed the American worker. Last year, Cass drew a salary of $275,000 from his nonprofit—more than one out of every four dollars raised. Writing about Cass and his New Right peers in June, New York Times columnist David Leonhardt emphasized the caveat that, while these Republicans rage against the free market, “they really are conservative.” This movement, Leonhardt cautioned, should not be mistaken for “disaffected right-wingers who have become moderates without admitting it,” noting that they “support abortion restrictions and oppose gun laws” and “make excuses for Donald Trump’s anti-democratic behavior or even spread his falsehoods.” The departures from traditional conservatism are indeed stark enough to be deceptive, or at least distracting. For instance, while American Compass criticized the Trump and Bush tax cuts, the group has also called to abolish corporate income tax altogether, replacing it with a tax on asset trading in the secondary market. But the rhetoric has apparently been good for fundraising. In 2020, the group’s founding year, Cass trashed free-market absolutism in a Hewlett Foundation interview; that year, Hewlett donated $611,000 to American Compass—nearly half the group’s total founding revenue, and half of what Hewlett gave NPR in 2020. About $198,000 of American Compass’ 2020 revenue went to Cass’ salary. While Cass delivers sharp, almost heretical rebukes of historical conservative economic principles, he also carries conservative banners—for instance, cultural and economic criticism of college education and student debt relief, for instance. He and his New Right cohort are not inclusive, pushing a fierce nationalism with an illiberal agenda of its own. (Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Tom Cotton (R-AR), and J.D. Vance (R-OH) are all seen as flag bearers.) That position has been most broadly articulated by a group called American Moment, a conservative nonprofit that is close with Cass and has featured him in its lecture series. (American Moment’s board includes hard-right up-and-comers like Ryan Girdusky and anti-LGBTQ activist Terry Schilling. The board also has strong ties to the right-wing Clermont Institute.) As analysts unravel Project 2025’s 902-page “Mandate for Leadership,” they’ve found something of an underlying Christian nationalist manifesto.

#the powers that be #bullshittery as a political platform #the conservative movement #news #us politics #2024 us presidential election #christofascism

[humanerrers]

Here's what the early days of a second Trump presidency would look like, based on his words and our conversations with Trump insiders:

His top obsession will be the Justice Department, the FBI and the intelligence community — all of which he thinks conspired to investigate him, thwart him, screw him. He's been very clear that he's willing to unleash these agencies against political enemies.

The next priority will be the Department of Homeland Security and the border, with plans to erect sprawling detention camps, "scour the country for unauthorized immigrants," and "deport people by the millions per year," The New York Times reports. We're told Trump's top criterion for immigration officials will be whoever promises to be most aggressive. Trump has told allies he's confident the Supreme Court will back his most draconian moves.

As first reported by Jonathan Swan for Axios last year, a key tool for Trump's "revenge term" would be the use of Schedule F personnel powers to wipe out employment protections for tens of thousands of civil servants across the federal government. Trump allies want a deep and wide purge of the professional staff that often serves across new administrations.

Officials close to the Pentagon tell us they're worried about a plan, articulated by former Trump official Russ Vought in the Heritage document, to direct the National Security Council to "rigorously review all general and flag officer promotions to prioritize the core roles and responsibilities of the military over social engineering and non-defense related matters, including climate change, critical race theory [and] manufactured extremism." Indeed, the Trump allies see obstacles to remove at every level of every agency.

The bottom line: This Trump-allied machine has the most power over the formation of a potential future government of any group in U.S. history. Trump, if elected, will leverage it to do things with government that none of us has seen in our lifetime.

#us politics #be ready

[aaronjhill]

Prepping for a Second Term

“At the heart of the Trump policy-development process are two aides and former White House speech writers, Vince Haley and Ross Worthington. They are assisted by think tanks formed by Trump administration alums including the America First Policy Institute — stacked with former officials including Larry Kudlow, Kellyanne Conway, Brooke Rollins and Keith Kellogg — and the Center for Renewing America, helmed by former top budget official Russ Vought.” “One of the former president’s allies called AFPI the Trump world’s shadow government.” (This is a good sign. I have been wondering for years why Americans do not do this, as the British do.) “A handful of people at the conservative Heritage Foundation are also involved, including John McEntee, Trump’s former body man turned head of White House personnel. McEntee spent his final months of the administration trying to root out officials deemed insufficiently loyal.” Now, I want to hear about winning the election. What is Team Trump doing about that? What are your plans to combat voter fraud? What about the dubious local election officials and offices?

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Biden reacts to the GOP's proposal to gut social security

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 21, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 22, 2024

In the past few weeks, Josh Kovensky of Talking Points Memo has deepened our understanding of the right-wing attempt to impose Christian nationalism on the United States through support for Trump and the MAGA movement. On March 9, Kovensky explored the secret, men-only, right-wing society called the Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), whose well-positioned, wealthy, white leaders call for instituting white male domination and their version of Christianity in the U.S. after a “regime” change. 

On March 19, Kovensky explained how that power was reaching into lawmaking when he reported on a September 2023 speech by Russ Vought, a key architect of the plans for Trump’s second term, including Project 2025. In the speech, which took place in the  Dirksen Senate Office Building, Vought explained the right wing’s extreme border policies by explicitly marrying Christian nationalism and an aversion to the pluralism that is a hallmark of American democracy. Vought argued that the U.S. should model immigration on the Bible’s Old Testament, welcoming migrants only “so long as they accepted Israel’s God, laws, and understanding of history.”

These religious appeals against the equality of women and minorities seem an odd juxtaposition to a statement by United Auto Workers (UAW) union president Shawn Fain in response to the claim of the Trump campaign that Trump’s “bloodbath” statement of last Saturday was about the auto industry. Fain is also a self-described Christian, but he rejects the right-wing movement.   

“Donald Trump can’t run from the facts,” Fain said in a statement to CBS News. “He can do all the name-calling he wants, but the truth is he is a con man who has been directly part of the problem we have seen over the past 40 years—where working class people have gone backward and billionaires like Donald Trump reap all the benefits…. 

“Trump has been a player in the class war against the working class for decades, whether screwing workers and small businesses in his dealings, exploiting workers at his Mar a Lago estate and properties, blaming workers for the Great Recession, or giving tax breaks to the rich. The bottom line is Trump only represents the billionaire class and he doesn’t give a damn about the plight of working class people, union or not.” 

In the 1850s the United States saw a similar juxtaposition, with elite southern enslavers heightening their insistence that enslavement was sanctioned by God and their warnings that the freedom of Black Americans posed an existential threat to the United States just as white workers were beginning to turn against the system that had concentrated great wealth among a very few men. While white southern leaders were upset by the extraordinary popularity of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the 1852 novel that urged middle-class women to stand up against slavery, it was Hinton Rowan Helper’s 1857 The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It that made them apoplectic. 

Hinton Helper was a white southerner himself and showed no abolitionist sympathies in his deeply racist book. What that book did was to show, using the statistics that had recently been made available from the 1850 census, that the American South was falling rapidly behind the North economically. Helper blamed the system of slavery for that economic backwardness, and he urged ordinary white men to overthrow the system of enslavement that served only a few wealthy white men. The cotton boom of the 1850s had created enormous fortunes for a few lucky planters, as well as a market for Helper’s book among poorer white men who had been forced off their land. 

White southern elites considered Helper’s book so incendiary that state legislatures made it illegal to possess a copy, people were imprisoned and three allegedly hanged for being found with the book, and a fight over it consumed Congress for two months from December 1859 through January 1860. The determination of southern elites to preserve their power made them redouble their efforts to appeal to voters through religion and racism. 

In today’s America, the right wing seems to be echoing its antebellum predecessors. It is attacking women’s rights; diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; immigration; LGBTQ+ rights and so on. At the same time, it continues to push an economic system that has moved as much as $50 trillion from the bottom 90% to the top 10% since 1981 while exploding the annual budget deficit and the national debt.

Yesterday the far-right Republican Study Committee (RSC), which includes about two thirds of all House Republicans, released a 2025 budget plan to stand against Biden’s 2025 budget wish list. The RSC plan calls for dramatic cuts to business regulation, Social Security, Medicaid, and so on, and dismisses Biden’s plan for higher taxes on the wealthy, calling instead for more than $5 trillion in tax cuts. It calls the provision of the Inflation Reduction Act that permits the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies over prices “socialist price controls.” 

Biden responded to the RSC budget, saying: “My budget represents a different future. One where the days of trickle-down economics are over and the wealthy and biggest corporations no longer get all the breaks. A future where we restore the right to choose and protect other freedoms, not take them away. A future where the middle class finally has a fair shot, and we protect Social Security so the working people who built this country can retire with dignity. I see a future for all Americans and I will never stop fighting for that future.”

Biden’s version of America has built a strong economy in the last two years, with extremely low unemployment, extraordinary growth, and real wage increases for all but the top 20%. Inequality has decreased. Today the White House announced the cancellation of nearly $6 billion in federal student loan debt for thousands of teachers, firefighters, and nurses. Simply by enforcing laws already on the books that allow debt forgiveness for borrowers who go into public service, the administration has erased nearly $144 billion of debt for about 4 million borrowers. 

At the same time, the administration has reined in corporations. Today the Department of Justice, along with 15 states and the District of Columbia, sued Apple, Inc., for violating the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act. They charge that the company, which in 2023 had net revenues of $383 billion and a net income of $97 billion, has illegally established a monopoly over the smartphone market to extract as much revenue as possible from consumers. The company’s behavior also hurts developers, the Department of Justice says, because they cannot compete under the rules that Apple has set. 

At the end of February, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued to block the merger of Kroger and Albertsons, a $24.6 billion takeover affecting 5,000 supermarkets and 700,000 workers across 48 states. The merger would raise grocery prices, narrow consumer choice, and hurt workers’ bargaining power, the FTC said. The attorneys general of Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Wyoming joined the FTC’s lawsuit.  

The benefits of the administration’s reworking of the government for ordinary Americans have not gotten traction in the past few years, as right-wing media have continued to insist that Biden’s policies will destroy the economy. But as Shawn Fain’s position suggests, ordinary white men, who fueled the Reagan Revolution in 1980 when they turned against the Democrats and who have made up a key part of the Republican base, might be paying attention. 

In June 2023 the AFL-CIO, a union with more than 12.5 million members, endorsed Biden for president in 2024 in its earliest endorsement ever. In January the UAW also endorsed Biden. Yesterday the United Steelworkers Union, which represents 850,000 workers in metals, mining, rubber, and other industries, added their endorsement.

Just as it was in the 1850s, the right-wing emphasis on religion and opposition to a modern multicultural America today is deeply entwined with preserving an economic power structure that has benefited a small minority. That emphasis is growing stronger in the face of the administration’s effort to restore a level economic playing field. In the 1850s, those who opposed the domination of elite enslavers could only promise voters a better future. But in 2024, the success of Biden’s policies may be changing the game.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Biden #Biden White House #Social Security #GOP Budget #RSC #Republican Study Committee #Christian Nationalism #AFL-CIO #unions #antebellum american #history #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #ACSR #American Civic Renewal #Project 2025

[truck-fump]

The former <b>Trump</b> aide crafting the House GOP's debt ceiling playbook - The Washington Post

New Post has been published on https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2023/02/19/russ-vought-republican-debt-ceiling-strategy/&ct=ga&cd=CAIyGjUzM2UwMTY5ZmFhZTIwMGQ6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AOvVaw1Rx95ST3dAnTE_6AWO1KkC

The former Trump aide crafting the House GOP's debt ceiling playbook - The Washington Post

Last month, amid the raucous battle to elect House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, former president Donald Trump spoke with a hard-line Republican who had …

#Uncategorized

[dlguswls0117]

카지노 6화 6회 E06 다시 보기

카지노 6화 6회 E06 다시 보기 최민색 나옵니다. 한국영화 뺨칠정도의 디즈니플러스 드라마 입니다.

카지노 6화 6회 E06 다시 보기 누누 링크 <

1080P 스트리밍으로 1화부터 8화까지 8부작입니다.

McCarthy는 금요일 국회의사당에서 기자들에게 이렇게 말했습니다. "함께 모여서 '우리 모두 어떻게 함께 일할 것인가'에 대한 능력을 찾는 것 — 우리에게 새로운 것입니다.

하원 공화당 의원들이 연사 자리를 두고 며칠 동안 교착 상태에 빠졌는지에 대한 이 설명은 수십 명의 의원, 보좌관 및 외부 측근들과의 인터뷰를 기반으로 하며, 이들 중 다수는 사적인 심의를 밝히기 위해 익명을 조건으로 말했습니다.

'지배 다수' 또는 '카르텔'

그의 사무실에서 McCarthy는 지난번 공화당이 다수당이 되었을 때의 큰 축하 와인병을 보관하고 여러 지역에서 그가 어떻게 표를 얻을 것인지를 보여주기 위한 투표 더미와 함께 연설자로서 그의 계획에 대해 광범위하게 이야기했습니다.

두 달 전, 선거일 밤, McCarthy와 고위 중위들은 워싱턴의 한 호텔 연회장에서 "TAKE BACK THE HOUSE"를 배경으로 승리 파티를 열었습니다. McCarthy는 로비스트 Jeff Miller, 전략가 Mike Shields, 정치 보좌관 Brian Jack, 공화당 국가위원회 Ronna McDaniel 위원장을 포함한 고문들과 함께 무대 뒤에서 모여 조기 복귀에 대한 지속적인 카지노 6화 6회 E06 다시 무료 보기 누누 업데이트를 받았습니다.

McCarthy와 가까운 동맹국들은 하원에서 승리하기 위해 수백만 달러를 모금하고 전달했지만 또한 공화당의 차기 계층을 형성했습니다. 그들의 목표는 단순한 다수파가 아니라 매카시를 안정적으로 지지하고 법안을 통과시키는 회의를 의미하는 "통치 다수"를 얻는 것이었습니다. 어떤 경우에는 동맹국과 기부자들이 노스캐롤라이나의 매디슨 코손과 워싱턴의 조 켄트와 같은 논란이 많은 후보들로부터 예비선거를 돌리려는 조용한 움직임을 의미했습니다.

공화당원들은 2010년의 다과회 물결에 필적하는 경쟁적인 하원 의석에서의 패배를 널리 예상하고 있었습니다. 그러나 McCarthy 팀에 대한 초기 보고서는 붉은 물결을 보이지 않았습니다. 그들은 McCarthy가 연설을 하기 위해 연단에 올라야 할 때 무엇을 해야 할지 토론하는 데 몇 시간을 보냈습니다. 그는 새벽 2시까지 가지 않았다.

케빈 매카시 하원 원내대표(공화-캘리포니아)는 11월 9일 이른 시간 워싱턴의 웨스틴 호텔에서 열린 하원 공화당 승리 파티에서 연설하고 있습니다. 반환 결과 공화당의 붉은 물결이 있을 것 같지 않다는 결과가 나오자 매카시는 행사를 언급하기 위해 기다렸습니다. . (Jabin Botsford/워싱턴 포스트) McCarthy의 팀이 지배적 다수 대신 좁은 여백과 대담한 "미국을 다시 위대하게(Make America Great Again)" 회원 명단과 싸워야 한다는 생각이 들자 McCarthy를 비방하는 사람들도 같은 사실을 깨닫고 있었습니다. 압도적인 승리의 결여는 Andy Biggs(애리조나) 하원의원과 Matt Gaetz(플로리다) 하원의원과 같은 반 매카시 공화당원들로부터 그가 연사가 될 수 있는지에 대한 의구심을 불러일으키기 시작했습니다.

트럼프 행정부 시절 백악관 예산국장을 지냈고 현재 공화당을 이끌고 있는 러스 보우트(Russ Vought)는 “모두가 그것이 공화당의 물결이 될 것이라고 생각했고 그렇지 않은 한 근본적으로 다른 기회를 갖게 됐다”고 말했다. 보수적인 비영리 단체인 Center for Renewing America입니다. 이 그룹은 전국의 수천 명의 활동가들과 매주 전화 회의를 소집하여 의회 의원들이 연사로 McCarthy를 반대하도록 압력을 가하는 방법에 대해 조언했습니다.

보우트가 분명히 밝힌 것처럼 이 사건은 "카르텔"에 반대하는 것이었습니다. 의회의 공화당과 민주당 지도자들이 일반 의원들의 의견을 거의 또는 전혀 받지 않고 대규모의 반드시 통과시켜야 하는 지출 법안을 개인적으로 협상한 방법에 대한 그의 용어입니다. . Vought는 "그 문제를 해결하고 절차적 통제를 보수주의자들에게 확인하기 전까지는 카르텔과 평소처럼 사업을 할 것입니다."라고 말했습니다.

상공회의소의 극우 의원들로 구성된 House Freedom Caucus는 이 절차를 변경하기 위해 선거 전에 McCarthy에게 반복적으로 접근했다고 그룹 의장인 Scott Perry 하원의원(공화당-펜실베이니아)에 따르면 말했습니다. 카지노 6화 6회 E06 토렌트 그는 McCarthy가 ��름과 가을에 자신을 거부했으며 선거 결과가 발언자가 되려면 그들의 표가 필요하다는 것이 명백해진 후에야 블록에 참여했다고 말했습니다.