JK22

Det er høyforræderi mot USA. VoA og RFE er meget vitalt for amerikanske interesser og av størst viktighet for USAs europeiske allierte. Samtidig er det blitt meget tydelig at Musk kan ha blitt mentalt forstyrret så meget, at han kommer til å rable helt og må tas i forvaring snarest mulig. Flere og flere sier nå at de ikke kan forstå ham.

Enig, dette er så idiotisk som det kunne ha blitt, for Vance tar til ordet for å forkaste det demokratiske systemet som betyr separasjon mellom den utøvende makten, den lovgivende makten og den dømmende makten. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/he-gets-to-make-the-decisions-jim-jordan-argues-trump-can-ignore-judges/ar-AA1yHcld?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=5e2dc0d8047640e7888f79778e6e69a2&ei=19 Denne mannen er gal. "All I know is, again, Article Two, Section One, the very first sentence, 'The executive power shall be vested in a president,'" Jordan said, citing the Constitution. "I think it's important, 'a president of the United States of America,' not in bureaucrats, not in career people — in the president. The guy who put his name on the ballot." Jordan continued, "This is a fundamental difference we have with the left. The left thinks, 'Oh, it's the career experts who make the decisions.' That's not how our country works. It's the guy who puts his name on the ballot, gets elected by 'We the people.' He gets to make the decisions, or she gets to make the decisions. That's how — we don't want the Faucis of the world and all the people in the bureaucracy making the decisions. We want the guy who puts their name on the ballot and gets elected by the American people." Hvis MAGA presset fram og oppmuntre Trump til å ignorere domstolene, er dette ikke en konstitusjonell krise, men et åpenlyst opprør mot den amerikanske republikken for å tvinge gjennom et sivildiktaturstyre i fascistisk ånd. Dette vil ikke flesteparten av det amerikanske folket finne seg i.

Avsluttet.

Avsluttet.

Avsluttet. Det er tydelig at Diskusjon.no har et alvorlig problem. Veldig alvorlig.

Den libanesisk-syriske grensekrigen har startet. Det startet 5. februar da HTS-styrker rykket inn i grensebyen Hawsh al-Sayyid Ali som er sjiabefolket, i al-Qusayr regionen. Dette fulgt til meget voldsomme sammenstøter da Hizbollah-styrker valgt å støtte de lokale mot noe de mene var et overlagt angrep på sivilbefolkningen som sett mot kristne og alawittiske landsbyer i vestre Homs. 13 HTS militante var drept. Siden spredt stridighetene seg langs grensen mellom store styrker som deretter slåss mot hverandre, hvor Hizbollah får støtte fra andre militsstyrker og LAF regjeringsstyrker som rykket fram under direkte ordre av president Aoun. Stemningen i Libanon har blitt fiendtligstemt mot HTS som kalles "jewlani", spesielt etter det hadde kommet ut at libaneserne hadde blitt trakassert og utsatt for voldsbruk med dødsfall til følge, mange bygninger eide av dem eller slektninger av disse har blitt brent ned blant annet i Hawsh. LAF-styrker som kom til, avløste militsstyrkene mens disse hentet fram artilleri og gravd seg ned langs grensen mens disse besvarte ilden fra HTS-styrker som blant annet mistet en T-72 stridsvogn. LAF er ikke lenge en svak styrke, som et resultat av sterk amerikansk støtte i de siste ti årene har de 76 stridsvogner, 1,500 kampkjøretøyer og 250 artilleristykker - mer enn nok for å slåss mot HTS-styrker. De har også et flyvåpen med Hellfire-armerte COIN fly av type Embraer og Cessna, som kan angripe Syria som ikke har et luftforsvar eller luftvernsforsvar. Og samtidig ble et våpendepot ved Damaskus med tyrkiskprodusert våpenmateriell helt uventet ødelagt av israelerne som var informert om dettes natur, for tyrkerne har planer om å utplassere tyrkiske styrker i Syria i den nære fremtiden. Israelerne sier våpendepotet er "under Hamas` kontroll".

Solberg burde gå snarest mulig fra Høyre, som trenger å finne en ny leder med den nødvendige handlingskraften og integriteten som trenges, de trenger en stødig person som ikke vil driste seg på strukturendring og reformiver som er i stand til å fremme de konservative (progressiv-konservative, ikke radikalt, ikke sosialkonservativ eller nyliberalistisk) interesser som finnes i det norske folket. Vi trenger en sterk sentrum hvor Ap og Høyre er nødt til å samarbeide, hvor det ikke lenge er rom for unødvendige konflikter i slike farefull tid som vi lever i. Vi er meget klart over at Støre er ganske treg, men Stoltenberg i det minst - selv om han fremdeles trenger en skikkelig dose ydmykelse - har ord på seg for handlingskraft og stødighet, samtidig som man vet at han har sterk integritet som et maktmenneske. Det gjør at mange deretter ser på nytt mot Ap, samtidig som Sp er i trøbbel ved å tviholde på Vedum som hadde de dårligste meritter som en finansminister på lenge, slik at distriktspolitikken hadde blitt skadelidende. Frp kunne vinne stort, ennå er dette partiets umodne natur noe som gjør de fleste betenkt tross tendens for å støtte Frps kampsak. For å være ærlig, hvis Støre skifte om til utenriksministerposten så Stoltenberg kan overta, kunne vi lettere puste ut.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/people-are-really-angry-lawmakers-facing-voter-blowback-over-elon-musk-s-chaos/ar-AA1yElYC?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=6a8008fcec4d480b93d53b4bf25912fb&ei=28 Ja, det har begynte å gå opp for flere og flere hva Musk drev med, nedstengningen og ødeleggelsen av USAID har kommet som et stort sjokk fordi det amerikanske folket blir lik sterkt berørt som resten av verden - hjelp til sosialnød, finanser for misjonær virksomhet og opprettholdelse av ordrer for mat- og medisinprodusenter med flere millioner involverte arbeidere og verdi for flere milliarder dollar - en halv million tonn - 500,000 tonn - ! - er blitt sittende fast slik at disse risikere å råtne fordi det ikke er store ledige egnede lagerfasiliteter da disse skulle utskipes. "Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said the Senate’s phones were receiving 1,600 calls each minute, compared with the usual 40 calls per minute," the Post is reporting. "Many of the calls she’s been receiving are from people concerned about U.S. DOGE Service employees having broad access to government systems and sensitive information. The callers are asking whether their information is compromised and about why there isn’t more transparency about what is happening, she said." Murkowski is particularly vulnerable because her state employs a larger than-normal number of federal workers. Hele den føderale arbeidsstokken er i sjokk. Det er ikke bare snakk om byråkratiet, men om hele apparatet av statlige virksomhet og privat-statlige arbeidsforetak fra kioskarbeideren i kongressbygningen til nobelprisvinnende vitenskapsmenn - det er flere millioner høyutdannede og velformuende mennesker med nettverk som talt flere titalls millioner med direkte forbindelse til firmaer og verdier verdt flere hundre milliarder dollar! Det er en meget stor del av etablissementet som bestyrer USA som har kommet under angrep av Musk, som er i ferd med å bli mektig upopulært. Så upopulær, at disse kan gjøre enhver for å ruinere ham. Dette er ikke vanlige folk eller "folket", det er disse som har makt. Som er kommet under et stort angrep, som kan lede til ruin for de republikanske kongressmedlemmene som ikke ser ut til å fatte hvor VIKTIG statsapparatet er for USA. Og mange vanlige mennesker har blitt sterkt rystet da de innså at deres personlige opplysninger kan komme på avveie som et resultat av Musk - dette kan lede til at stemningen vil snu, for om kaoset fortsette og om det skulle oppnå misbruk eller lekkasje kan dette få mange trofaste GOP-velgerne til å miste fatningen. For meget mange republikanske velgerne er avhengige av statens evne for å forsørge disses opplysninger knyttet til formue, helse og eiendeler som rettigheter. "Lawmakers, including Republicans, have asked for clarity from the White House about the scope of Musk’s team’s access to data, including classified and personal information, this week. Some also expressed confusion about what is going on," the report states with Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) confessing, "A lot of people think that Elon Musk is off the chain and causing all kinds of havoc." De er sint. Og hvis Trump skulle bare fortsette i full fart - han ser ikke ut til å ense hva det er som skjer - mens MAGA-folk lever i seiersrus og republikanerne driver med virkelighetsfornektering - kan det endelig få folk flest til å fatte at de må KUTTE UT GOP-partiet. Flere selvstendige politikerne som ikke er med noen av de to partier, er i full gang med å manøvrere seg for velgesankning. De lukter blod.

Trolig var F-16 eller Mirage 2000 tatt i bruk for et langdistanseangrep med 1-tonns JDAM/AASM med stridshode beregnet på bakkepenetrering mot et underjordisk HQ i Selydove, Donetsk som skal ha blitt helt utradert - bare et hulrom var tilbake der hvor den var, akkurat som i Beirut etter 77-tonnersbombeangrepet. Opptaket som avslørt at 500-kgs JDAM var benyttet med Su-27, vist også at disse er av type JDAM-ER - som da bare fantes i 1-tonns JDAM. Med vestlig målsøkning/lokalitetspoder som monteres på F-16 og Mirage 2000 er det mulig å lansere et angrep på lengre hold enn med sovjetiskbygde fly. Det mener at det kan angripes på minst 64 km hold. Siden det nå er et tilstrekkelig antall moderne fly tilgjengelig, mener det at ukrainerne kan gjennomføre flere angrep enn tidlig ettersom de nå trolig får minst hundre til to hundre 250-kg opptil 1-tonns presisjonsbomber per måned - ikke medregnet overskuddsmaterialet som kom fra land som Australia, hvor hele arsenalet av eldre Mk 80-serien og JDAM har blitt utrangert til fordel for nyere bomber. Det kan mene at ukrainerne til en viss grad kan angripe taktiske mål som HQ i brigadenivå langs feltet og andre viktige mål, samtidig som det er klart at dronestyrkene er i stand til å ta ut taktiske SAM-systemer i stor grad. Men da et redningshelikopter hentet en Su-25 pilot, var det oppdaget at droner som prøvd å angripe det, var jammet i senk på minst 100-200 m hold. Dette kan betyr at helikopterbesetningen måtte koble av all elektronisk for å kunne flyr, sannsynlig bare bruke analog utstyr. Dette overrasket ukrainerne som ikke ventet seg noe liknende, da man vil finne jamming på klossere hold.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-wants-to-end-a-popular-wall-street-tax-break-what-to-know-about-the-carried-interest-loophole/ar-AA1yCgDp?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=cb5476d1ddbc4da5a83c7d2fc92a9611&ei=16 Det ser ut som at Wall Street kan bli den neste som vil få et sucker-sukkertøy i fremtiden. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-looks-to-end-a-controversial-tax-loophole-that-has-enriched-wall-street-s-wealthiest-for-years/ar-AA1yBbav?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=87efed1bef324308ac27e325d5c52b85&ei=56 A little-known provision in the tax code allows private equity managers and hedge fund speculators to treat their earnings not as income but as capital gains, allowing them to cut their tax burden by roughly half. But previous attempts to crack down on the practice failed as Wall Street whales like Blackstone's Steven Schwarzman compared an attack to the Nazi blitzkrieg. President Donald Trump is mounting another effort to eliminate a controversial loophole that has long allowed Wall Street’s überwealthy to evade millions of dollars in taxes every year. At stake is a little-known provision known as “carried interest" that benefits private equity managers, hedge fund speculators, and other investment professionals. It allows them to treat personal earnings not as income in the legal sense but as capital gains—subject to a far lower bracket that can halve their tax burden. Ever since Wall Street’s bankers were bailed out of their high-risk bets that triggered the global financial crisis, politicians like Barack Obama have taken aim at this loophole. And even Trump, during his first run for the presidency, argued billionaire speculators were “getting away with murder” thanks to this peculiarity. This latest attempt to crack down on the practice comes amid a broader tax relief plan the administration is trying to push through Congress at a sensitive time when the country's finances are already strained. The package includes an extension to Trump’s signature 2017 tax cut, which is due to sunset at the end of this year if new legislation is not passed. “This will be the largest tax cut in history for middle-class working Americans. The president is committed to working with Congress to get this done,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday, defending the package. "Wall Street investors should not be paying less in taxes than firefighters and teachers" If successful, closing the gap in the tax code from carried interest could yield an estimated $100 billion in annual savings for the American taxpayer in conjunction with another policy proposal to eliminate tax breaks for billionaire sports team owners. “Right now the wealthiest Americans are gaming our tax system to get out of paying their fair share,” Wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin said in a statement. “Wall Street investors should not be paying less in taxes than Wisconsin firefighters, teachers, and small business owners.” On Thursday, Baldwin, together with 12 other Democratic senators in the upper house of Congress, tabled a proposal called the Carried Interest Fairness Act. The investment industry has countered that the money the highest-paid speculators make is in fact capital gains from the sale of assets, not a salary. Furthermore, it has argued the loophole has been around for over 70 years already and that changing it now could indirectly hurt their clients like pension funds, charitable trusts, and university endowments reliant on above-average returns. Yet back in 2011, Warren Buffett argued for the need to close this loophole out of a sense of propriety since it allowed him to shrink his total tax bill to 17% of his taxable income—a lower rate than that paid by any of his staff. “My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress,” the Berkshire Hathaway chairman wrote in a New York Times op-ed, sensing the rising anger in the country at the time to what Obama called “fat-cat bankers.” However, just because a crackdown is once again being proposed doesn't mean it will lead to any actual legal changes. Will the loophole finally be closed? Don't count on it Trump needs support in Congress to pass tax cuts that could cost the Treasury between $5 and $11 trillion, according to calculations by the government watchdog Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. This kind of largesse, coming at a time when Uncle Sam is already $36 trillion in the hole, would likely give pause to some congressional legislators who might otherwise be inclined to support Trump’s other tax cuts, such as on tips and overtime pay. His proposal includes an estimated $200 billion in potential relief for the wealthy in the form of larger federal tax deductions that households can claim in jurisdictions with very high state and local taxes (SALT). Since this benefits those living in areas like New York City and San Francisco, where many of these same high-net-worth investors reside, it’s quite possible their added tax bill would be partially offset by the proposal to raise or eliminate the ceiling the federal government imposes on their SALT deductions. Lastly, success in closing the carried-interest loophole is anything but guaranteed. If there has been one economic policy on Capitol Hill that enjoys bipartisan consensus, it was that this tax break for ultrawealthy speculators, who are well-known for generously donating to political campaigns, can be attacked but must never actually be touched. As a result, each and every time an attempt has been made to deprive Wall Street of its coveted tax loophole—including Trump’s own 2017 tax cut—any references that might follow through mysteriously vanish from the final bill. In fact, Wall Street famously felt so strongly about retaining this boon that Steven Schwarzman, the CEO of Blackstone, once compared the very idea of eliminating it to nothing less than the Nazi blitzkrieg. In comments the private equity speculator later was forced to walk back, he scathed: “It’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.” Trump som ikke er en Wall Street-"forretningsmann" - ikke minst fordi forretningskretsene stort sett bare så på ham med forakt i fortiden - hadde lenge ønske å lukke dette fornuftstridige smutthullet som gjør det mulig for Wall Street å bli søkkrik i møte med skattemyndighetene. Han vil ha meget omfattende skattekutt, men er ikke blind for at han trenger en stødig inntektskilde for skattekassa - og ettersom han så ut til å være mer opptatt av industri, tech og småforretning - vil et slikt angrep på Wall Street ikke være problematisk for ham. Tilhengere av skattekutt argumentert nemlig at hvis de skal ha et mye flatere skattenivå, må alle smutthuller fjernes.

Dette er privatsikkerhetspersonell fremfor statlig sikkerhetspersonell. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/house-democrats-denied-access-to-department-of-education-amid-reports-of-potential-dismantling/ar-AA1yBvKr?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=cb5476d1ddbc4da5a83c7d2fc92a9611&ei=90 Kongressmedlemmer har ubegrenset adgang til departementsbygninger, spesielt disse underlagt disses autoritet og skal ikke blokkeres fra å entre disse bygninger hvor de har avtale eller kan vente. The confrontation began when Democratic lawmakers arrived at the Department of Education building, only to be blocked by private security contractors. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) and other members of Congress engaged in a tense exchange with the guards, demanding access to the public building. “We are members of Congress with oversight responsibilities. We are not dangerous people. We are here to advocate for America’s children,” one lawmaker said, addressing the security personnel. “This is not Russia. We are not thugs or thieves. We are teachers, parents, and representatives of the people.” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) echoed Frost’s sentiments, criticizing the lack of transparency. “Parents in the United States, if you want to advocate on behalf of your children, you are not allowed to come into this building where you pay taxes,” Waters said. “Children with disabilities, young women who have been victims of sexual assault—we are not allowed to advocate for them. America, we have a problem.” The lawmakers emphasized that the Department of Education is funded by taxpayer dollars and should be accessible to elected officials tasked with overseeing its operations. Det har kommet ut at republikanerne vil oppløse DoE i strid med konstitusjonelle bestemmelser, ettersom det bare kan gjøres med et flertallsvedtak i kongressen - som ikke er mulig med tanke på at det ikke er nok flertall for republikanerne for slike vedtak. De vil heller overføre utdanningsansvaret til delstatene og kommunene a la Norge, men uten føderal støtte mens det er statlig støtte uansett hvor lite det er. Det er ikke mange delstater som rett og slett har råd, og mange kommuner har store problemer fordi eiendomsskatt som kunne falle i verdi, er det eneste øremerket skoledrift. Føderal støtte hendt som ledd for å motvirke tendensen. However, Democrats warn that dismantling the Department of Education could jeopardize federal funding for public schools, programs for students with disabilities, and initiatives to address sexual assault on school campuses. Samtidig kom det ut at digitalisering hadde fulgt til svekkede kvalitetsnivå blant skolebarn i læreevne, mens det avsløres at sosialøkonomiske forhold i større og større grad sammen med normsvekkelse til at mange skolebarn ikke kunne fortsette til collegenivået. Hele to tredjedeler falt ut. Det er ikke lenge de fargede og latinos, fattige hvite og hvite med sterk sosialøkonomisk stressbelastning er sterkt rammet. Så hvis det blir verre og verre - da mene det at oppløsningen av DoE og delstatlige finansproblemer vil følge til en nedgående spiral. Mange yngre voksne og tenåringer opplever at deres foreldre og besteforeldre prøver å ta bort mulighetene de selv hadde nytt godt av, fra dem. Polariseringen, diskriminering og sosialøkonomisk forfall samt kulturkrig har fulgt til at mange ikke klarer å finne seg til rette og dermed "koble seg ut". Litt for mange endt opp med å ha urealistiske ambisjoner og dårlig motivasjon.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/page-after-page-is-disappearing-from-government-and-military-websites-here-s-what-trump-s-already-purged/ar-AA1yExDW?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=958aebb2a1094cca83a13daeb35446ad&ei=19 Last Friday, the US Office of Personnel Management directed all federal government agencies to review internal and external information and remove anything related to gender ideology. The guidance included taking "down all outward facing media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) that inculcate or promote gender ideology," prompting many websites to briefly go dark while they were scrubbed. Trump said he was fine with that outcome. "If they want to scrub the websites, that's OK with me," he said, triggering concern. The order includes the removal of references to trans and queer terminology and replacement of "gender" with "sex." The OPM memo also impacted the listed identities on department documentation, the jobs of employees "whose position description involves inculcating or promoting gender ideology," and shutting off email features for users to input their pronouns. Some systems, though, have remained untouched, and there remains uncertainty about how far the executive order and other related directives will go. The White House simply pointed to the order when asked for comment. Military websites Military websites have been cleared of terminology related to gender ideology. This includes any and all references to the LGBTQ+ community, which has now been cut to just LGB. Other pages have also gone missing. For instance, the Army and Navy removed webpages showcasing the contributions of female service members this week. Some of the pages were apparently restored after inquiries about the scrubbing, Military.com reported. Ret. Navy Adm. James Stavridis, the former top commander in Europe, said on X that the views of women in DoD today are a "big mistake" with long-term repercussions. In a statement to Business Insider, DoD said it "will fully execute and implement all directives outlined in the Executive Orders issued by the President, ensuring that they are carried out with utmost professionalism, efficiency, and in alignment with national security objectives. We will provide status updates as we are able." The Army provided a similar statement on its online activities, and the Navy told BI its stance was in line with the Pentagon's. The Marine Corps told BI that the Marine Corps Public Web had completed a "comprehensive review of public-facing content hosted across the Marines.mil enterprise." The Coast Guard did not respond to BI's request for comment. Content such as official messages and publications were not removed, instead requiring only a cancellation or revision. Historical and news-related content and videos weren't scrubbed either. Questions remain on who's been in charge of scrubbing the sites; the OPM memo appears to leave the task up to each individual agency. OPM also requested a complete list of actions taken by every department and any other plans to "fully comply with this guidance" by today. The Pentagon also issued guidance last Friday from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth indicating identity months were "dead at DoD." That included February's Black History month. That move comes amid new reports that transgender service members are already being affected in the wake of Trump's executive order and that identity-based clubs at West Point are being shut down. Right now, it's unclear if DoD's defense video and imagery distribution systems, known as DVIDS, will be updated. Defense Media Activity didn't respond to BI's request for comment. As of now, it still includes previous imagery and graphics celebrating identity months like Pride Month. Just last week, the Air Force posted a graphic honoring Black History Month. The State Department, CDC, and other sites Other federal government websites, such as those for the Department of State, were also scrubbed in line with Trump's executive order. This included the state department's travel guidance and resources for LGBTQ+ people, which has also been stripped to just LGB. Some unrelated content, such as country data on the State Department pages, has also disappeared. The USAID website has been cleared out as well. The Center for Disease Control and Protection, as well as other health resources, saw similar purges, including a swath of website pages related to trans and nonbinary healthcare, sexually transmitted infections and diseases, HIV, and vaccinations. Data related to youth and LGBTQ+ mental health, substance abuse, and violence, as well as federal goals for curbing that, were also removed. These moves sparked intense criticism. Lawmakers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called them "staggeringly stupid, anti-science" actions that will have "real consequences." Sen. Patty Murray of Washington likewise called these apparent purges "absolutely unacceptable." After intense backlash from healthcare providers and other concerned parties, some of this information was restored. However, some guidelines on contraception and information on racial inequities is still gone. The CDC's website also still indicates it's being modified to comply with Trump's executive orders. In a statement to BI, the CDC said: "All changes to the HHS website and HHS division websites are in accordance" with Trump's executive orders on gender and DEI. Numerous pages have also gone missing on websites for the Census Bureau, Department of Justice, US Patent and Trademark Office, Food and Drug Administration, Department of the Interior, Department of Veterans Affairs, and a number of others, clearing out a range of data, including some sexual harassment pages and climate change information. Trump's executive orders have already made an impact on government and military departments, but changes could continue as the guidance is implemented by various agencies. The OPM memo also impacts any training and resource groups related to gender identity, "intimate spaces" such as bathrooms, and programs, contracts, and grants. These have had impacts on other programs as well, pausing them amid reviews. Det minner om en digital bokbål.

.... det er over en million som fikk tilbud som å slutte...

https://x.com/NOELreports/status/188811286354746613 Lenken kunne ikke bli inkludert fordi det er ingen tvitring på den URL-en. MOD, hva foregår - er X/Twitter stengt ut av diskusjon.no? De første fysiske bevis på bruk av ukrainskbygde kryssermissiler er funnet i Rostov oblast, Russland. Det var funnet en jetmotor fra et "Peklo" kryssermissil som sannsynlig var lansert av kampfly, en Su-27 kan frakte minst to Peklo kryssermissiler som vil deretter oppsøke deres mål uten assistanse fra kampflyet. Det er lett å se at det er pylonfestinger øverst på denne "missildronen" slik at disse festes med pylonen montert under vingene på et kampfly. Minst 6 Mirage 2000-5F har kommet til Ukraina, som etter sigende har faktisk BVR kapasitet i kontrast til F-16 som ikke har nok BVR armering med seg. Bilder av disse flyene over Polen vist at disse har ultraavstands brenselstank med seg, som gjør det mulig å flyr meget lenge - for de har våpenpylon under selve skroget i tillegg til vingene. 80 km "Mica" BVR missiler er et velbrukt våpen over hele verden, så det ikke er politiske eller praktiske hindringer. Dermed kan en Mirage 2000-5F angripe et russisk fly opptil 30 km dypt fra der frontlinjen begynner, uten å komme ut for russisk SAM og BVR-kapable fly med klar unntak av MiG-31. Sannsynlig vil Mirage 2000-5F være avskjæringsjagerfly med kapasitet for frakt av stand-off angrepsvåpen som de velkjente SCALP kryssermissilene, som med sin lange kampradius kan patruljere over store deler av Ukraina og dermed holde russerne gjettende. I mellomtiden kan det gjør Su-27 og MiG-29 ledig for bruk av ukrainske stand-off våpen som vil lanseres mot mål dypt inn i Russland opptil 500 km. De fåtallige Su-24 vil helt sikkert få en ny rolle i fremtiden. Hvis Trump vil sette Putin under press, burde han tillate bruk av BVR-våpen og større våpen; store 500 kg JDAM bomber er observert ganske nylig i Ukraina; disse er lik kraftig som en 1-tonns russisk bombe pga. eksplosivblanding. Det er de russiske bombeflyene av type Su-34 som er kritisk for det russiske avansementet, som for tiden er i sneglehastighet pga. veldig dårlig vær - det er meget turbulent vær over hele Øst-Europa fordi det er svært varmt i møte med sterke kuldebølger.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/consumer-confidence-drops-amid-trump-turmoil-polls/ar-AA1yDiu2?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=91ec156015c14cf697f498649292b358&ei=52 American consumers are finally beginning to understand that tariffs will hit them, according to polls. Republicans believe they’ll get stuck with 40 percent of the hikes, while Democrats believe they’ll end up footing the bill for 68 percent of the boost, according to a survey commissioned by academic economists from mid-December to early January. Altfor mange hadde blitt bedratt på det groveste gjennom sosiale medier og diverse mediekanaler av Trump, trumpister og MAGA som innbilte dem om at tollsatser er en utgiftspost for eksportører som selge til USA, når det i virkeligheten er snakk om importører som må overføre kostnadene til kundegruppen som etterspør utenlandskproduserte råvarer og ferdigvarer. * Gratulere med sucker-sukkertøyet.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/doge-working-with-two-trump-health-appointees-to-examine-medicare-and-medicaid-books/ar-AA1yCG1z?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=91ec156015c14cf697f498649292b358&ei=40 Som varslet er Musk nå etter helsedepartementet. Selv om en dommer har beordret halt av destruksjonen av USAID, har det kommet ut at Trump og Musk hadde valgt å ignorere ordren om å sette frysingen av statsvirksomheten, og det er voksende frykt for at de to mennene med MAGA, som tar fordel av forrædersk atferd av kongressrepublikanerne, vil deretter ignorere domstolene. Hvilken kan forklare at dommerne nå i stigende grad har begynte med å gripe inn. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/action-is-once-again-necessary-trump-admin-accused-of-openly-violating-court-order-that-blocked-spending-freeze/ar-AA1yCNWN?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=caada24cc2e3450fb2fb6027591830d6&ei=30 Det kan komme til åpen konflikt mellom MAGA som mente de har folkets mandat selv om det ikke er dekning for dette i en antidemokratisk konstitusjon som derimot er opptatt av maktfordelingsprinsippet, og domstolene som skyldes sin eksistens i det amerikanske lovverket som har 1789-konstitusjonen som eksistensberettigelse. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/leaked-document-says-large-scale-immigration-enforcement-action-coming-soon-to-l-a/ar-AA1yCLr4?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=be24fb684e6047f18a4efb2e05580ef7&ei=23 Det truer med å utløse konflikt som kan bli svært alvorlig, nå som det er voksende folkelig misnøye da det var oppdaget at legale migranter oppbringes og deporteres, endog rett ut av republikanerbeskyttede tilfluktssteder i Florida - og "administrasjonen" truer med å angripe erklærte tilfluktbyer og delstater som vil beskytte migrantbefolkningen i deres egne administrasjonsområder. Det var aldri et ønske om at legale migranter skulle deporteres, bare de illegale. Hvis ICE skulle prøve å tvinge seg inn i California kan det lede til en føderal-delstatlig konflikt. I California er det voksende misnøye, også de rurale republikanerne har begynte å klage, ikke minst da deres føderale representanter nektet å lytte på dem. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/outrage-as-trump-grants-refugee-status-to-group-behind-south-african-apartheid/ar-AA1yCT70?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=04127b1c4a4f43168b5667cf989674d9&ei=27 Det er nå kraftige anklager om rasisme mot Trump, det foregår åpenlys raseprofilering under angrepene på departementene og utrenskningen av DEI som fulgt til meget store problemer for ikke-hvite overalt samtidig som hvite migranter stort sett ignoreres til fordel for ikke-hvite migranter under ICE-raid. Han har gitt flyktningstatus med en presidentordre til hvite sørafrikanerne som hadde en fortid som apartheidstilhengere eller er i konflikt med koalisjonsregjeringen i Sør-Afrika hvor et av partiene er hvitdominerte DA. "#DonaldTrump announces that white Afrikaners, the architects and chief beneficiaries of South Africa’s racist apartheid policies 1948-1994 will be given urgent access to refugee resettlement problems in the United States," wrote Hugh Riminton, national affairs editor for Australian network 10 News First. "White Afrikaners getting to jump in line while Venezuelans are getting their TPS status revoked… Hard to think of a clearer picture!" wrote Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee email and text deputy director George Clark. "When Donald Trump ceases all refugee resettlement, but makes an explicit exemption for white supremacists, it’s time the press call him what he is: an avowed racist," wrote Democratic strategist Matt McDermott. Det er nå kommet rapporter om at "the black republicans" og store deler av latino fløyen i republikanerpartiet har fått seriøse betenkninger. Det meldes også om at de evangelikale kreftene i republikanerpartiet har kommet i tvil, for selv om de har kristenfascistiske holdninger, har de en universalistisk identitet basert på tro og kristne gjerninger som knapt bryr seg om rase. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/trump-s-big-firing-spree-is-screwing-the-working-class/ar-AA1yAyoE?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=2e470cc3db044b0eac9949f7c25e2046&ei=18 The theory of the unitary executive is being put into practice by Donald Trump, and the field experiment isn’t going well. The theory states that the president has the right to fire, at will, any executive-branch official who does not enjoy civil-service protection. This contradicts longstanding legal precedent that executive-branch officials at independent agencies are appointed for fixed terms at the direction of Congress and that the president can’t, under normal circumstances, remove them. But for more than a decade, the Supreme Court has been chipping away at that independence, weakening necessary government curbs on bad behavior in the business world. President Donald Trump’s full-tilt embrace of the unitary-executive cult (“I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president”) demonstrates how very empty his claim is to represent the interests of working people. Earlier this week, Trump fired the chairman of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, Rohit Chopra. Under Chopra, CFPB limited overdraft fees, removed medical bills from credit reports, and initiated a regulatory crackdown on surveillance by data brokers. It was, Consumer Reports said, “an impressive track record of accomplishments for working families,” but to industry and its conservative allies, that was the problem. The Wall Street Journal, in a January 23 editorial (“Why Is Rohit Chopra Still Employed at the CFPB?”) called Chopra “a source of internal opposition to Mr. Trump’s deregulatory agenda.” The bankers didn’t want him, so he had to go. Chopra was serving a Senate-confirmed five-year term that wasn’t due to end until late 2026. But in 2020 the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional a stipulation in the law creating CFPB that its director couldn’t be removed except for cause. Elon Musk, director of the White House advisory panel masquerading as the Department of Government Efficiency, wants to eliminate CFPB altogether, but under unitary executive theory that may not be necessary. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whom Trump named Chopra’s acting replacement, immediately used that power to shut down virtually all the CFPB’s regulatory activity. Two other independent agencies Trump disabled by applying unitary executive theory are the National Labor Relations Board and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where Trump fired a combined three officials, immediately denying both agencies the quorum necessary to function. At both these agencies the action was unprecedented, as with Chopra, but also illegal. The EEOC enforces laws prohibiting workplace discrimination. Ordinarily there are five Senate-confirmed EEOC commissioners, two from the president’s party and three from the opposing party; each commissioner is supposed to serve a five-year term and the terms are staggered so you don’t get five vacancies at once. Trump short-circuited that, dismissing Democrat Charlotte Burrows, who wasn’t due to leave until July 2028, and Democrat Jocelyn Samuels, who wasn’t due to leave until July 2026. Because President Joe Biden never nominated a Republican to replace Trump appointee Keith Sonderling, whose term expired in July, the EEOC is now down to only two commissioners, Democrat Kalpana Kotagal and Republican Andrea Lucas. That effectively puts the EEOC out of business; by law the EEOC needs three commissioners to issue regulations. In theory the commission’s general counsel can still initiate lawsuits, but Trump fired the general counsel, too. (General counsels, it’s generally accepted, can be removed by incoming presidents.) The National Labor Relations Board is the main federal agency that enforces labor laws. People often think that job is done by the Labor Department (which is not an independent agency and predates the NLRB), but that’s mistaken. The Labor Department’s role regulating management-labor relations is more circumscribed, focusing on things like minimum wage and overtime laws. If you’re trying to organize your workplace, or if your employer is violating some labor law, the federal agency you deal with is almost always the NLRB. Like the EEOC, the NLRB has three board members from the president’s party and two from the opposing party. As with the EEOC, NLRB members serve staggered terms of five years, and without a three-person quorum the commission can’t operate. Unlike the EEOC, the NLRB had two vacancies rather than one when Trump came into office—Democrat Lauren McFerren’s term ended this past December and Republican John Ring’s ended in December 2022—so all Trump had to do was fire a single board member, Democrat Gwynne Wilcox, to deny the NLRB a quorum. The EEOC was created under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which said commissioners would serve five-year terms but did not otherwise spell out the circumstances of their dismissal. It didn’t have to, because way back in 1935 the Supreme Court had ruled that a president could not dismiss at will commissioners or members of any independent agency that performed quasi-legislative and judicial functions (such as the EEOC, which did not yet exist). The case, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, arose from President Franklin Roosevelt trying in 1933 to fire a conservative anti-New Deal commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission named William Humphrey. Humphrey, a cranky former representative from Washington state, had been appointed by Roosevelt’s predecessors, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, and he sued to get his job back. Humphrey died from a stroke one year after his firing, but Humphrey’s heirs continued the lawsuit on the grounds that Humphrey was owed back pay. They won. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 was written while Humphrey’s Executor was still being decided. It therefore spelled out what the Civil Rights Act could later assume: That no board member could be removed before his or her term ended except for “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.” Even then, the board member had to be given notice and granted a hearing. Trump dispensed with all that. Trump’s removal of two of the three officials, Burrows and Wilcox, may reflect Trump’s anti-DEI animus as well, because Burrows and Wilcox are both Black women. Indeed, Wilcox is (somewhat surprisingly) the first Black woman ever to serve on the NLRB. All three women are suing to get their jobs back. Wilcox almost certainly will win at the district and appellate levels, and Burrows and Samuels probably will, too. But it’s less clear that any of them will win when Trump inevitably appeals the case all the way up to the Supreme Court. In the 2020 ruling about the CFPB, Selia Law LLC v. the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Chief Justice John Roberts said a president could remove a CFPB chair because the CFPB chair was someone who, “acting alone,” could “wield significant executive power.” That isn’t true of the commissioners and board members Trump fired. Roberts’s decision noted that the high court previously upheld limits on the president’s power to fire in certain cases, but he left open the question of whether it would continue to do so, and some of his language suggested it would not. “In our constitutional system,” Roberts wrote, “the executive power belongs to the President, and that power generally includes the ability to supervise and remove the agents who wield executive power in his stead.” This is a fight that the Trump administration is eager to begin. At the risk of being unlawyerly, I think the Supreme Court should take a hard look at the person whose executive power it’s thinking about expanding. We’re talking about the craziest and meanest human who ever inhabited the Oval Office. The theory of the unitary executive can, of course, also be opposed on a purely legal plane as a repudiation of accepted regulatory practices stretching back to the establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1887. But if that doesn’t float your boat, consider how Trump would use it to paralyze or manipulate other agencies: the Securities and Exchange Commission, which polices publicly-traded corporations; the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which polices the banks; and the Federal Reserve, which polices the economy. You think Donald Trump doesn’t want to fire Jerome Powell? He threatened to do so repeatedly during his last term. When Trump gets tired of trashing the government, he just might start trashing the economy. At that point even Trump’s plutocrat allies may regret giving him so much power. Massevis av lovbrudd, Trump er i ferd med å gjøre arbeiderne rettighetsløs ved å slå ut meget viktige mekanismer som hindrer arbeidsgivere, firmaeiere og bankiere fra å forgripe seg på sine ansatte og eventuelt sine kunder. Og Roberts var med på dette, som bare kommer til å slutte med at denne idiotiske høyesterettsdommeren som nå er i en svis mellom hans ed mot konstitusjonen eller hans ambisjon om å fremme en plutokratisk ordning kan bli henrettet om han treffe galt valg og det bryter ut borgerkrig. Roberts` ettermæle er nærmest ødelagt; han kan miste livet i slutten som mannen som ødela den amerikanske republikken fordi hans valg om å gi Trump immunitet fra lovverket var det som gjør alle disse ukonstitusjonelle presidentordrene mulig, ved at en enslig mann er i stand til å forbryte seg mot lovene som han er forpliktet til å følge i tråd med grunnlovsfedrenes vilje og the Bill of Rights. Så snart arbeiderklassen som ga deres støtte til Trump realisere at de taper massivt på dette... raseopptøyene i 1960-tallet vil være INGENTING. * Gratulere med sucker-sukkertøyet. Det begynner å bli mange sucker-sukkertøy for tiden, og det er gått mindre enn tre uker...

Dommerstanden har begynte å gripe inn, selv Trump-nominerte dommere skal ha fått nok av den alvorlige situasjonen omkring DOGE og kuppforsøket mot kongressens autoritet. Så langt har ikke den føderale høyesteretten kommet på banen, men det vil ikke være overraskende om domstolene over hele USA har startet meget intense samtaler. Fordi de kan oppleve at DOGE vil før eller senere går løs på dem.

Hvor mange døde vil du ha? 5,5 mill. mennesker. Skal alle disse utryddes? Eller skal disse fordrives med hjelp av massedrap akkurat som i 1948 da det bare var få hundretusener palestineraraberne den gang? Rundt 7,500 til 11,000 sivilister kan ha blitt drept den gang - bare om lagt 1,400 av 13,000 døde var dokumenterte militante. Det betyr 100,000 til 200,000 døde i dag. Skal israelerne begynner med å arbeide med å lage graver akkurat som i Rwanda? For disse palestinerne vil ikke la seg fordrives uten motstand.

Delusion: The mental state that drives Trump's hardcore supporters with scary accuracy | Opinion https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/delusion-the-mental-state-that-drives-trump-s-hardcore-supporters-with-scary-accuracy-opinion/ar-AA1yAGPJ?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=f6305bdb1fe744148733a7fc0e8d2fa0&ei=52 Donald Trump campaigned against consensual reality and won. Every plank of his platform – from the economy to immigration to abortion – was based on easily provable lies. Despite Trump’s bombastic assertions to the contrary, inflation is down, growth is up, illegal border crossings are down, crime is down, and vaccines work great. Tariffs are taxes on imports and American companies say they’re planning to raise prices. None of that mattered at the polls because Trump created a conspiracist permission structure to ignore the facts and focus on hate. Delusion strongly predicted a vote for Trump. An Ipsos poll in the final weeks of the campaign found that voters who falsely believed that we are living through a record-breaking violent crime wave favored Trump by 26 points, while those who knew the truth broke for Harris by 65 points. Those who knew that the inflation rate is back to the historic average favored Harris by 53 points. Respondents who knew that illegal border crossings are down favored Harris by 59 points. Part of the problem is the media. Certainly, the mainstream media is shy about stating the truth and the rightwing media-influencer complex is dedicated to disseminating lies. Social media barons use algorithms to maximize their profits at the expense of our edification. But the problem goes deeper than that: You also have to look at the conspiracist mindset that says the mainstream media is the enemy of the people, the government is controlled by the Deep State, and scientists are on the take, because it’s what makes people turn away from consensual reality. CBS correspondent Leslie Stahl once asked Donald Trump why he constantly attacked the press. “I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you,” Trump replied. Trump also discredits the government as a source of information. When the latest statistics showed that crime was down, Trump accused the FBI of making them up. When the jobs report was revised, Trump accused Harris of faking it. The conspiracist mindset allowed Trump’s followers to reinterpret his 34 felony convictions as evidence of the plot against him, rather than evidence of his terrible behavior. Once you adopt a conspiracist mindset where you can dismiss any evidence that clashes with your prejudices as part of the conspiracy, you are free to create your own reality. Since it’s a worldview that scapegoats your fellow citizens as diabolical deceivers, that reality is bound to be ugly. Worse still, your willingness to discount mainstream sources of evidence in favor of the outlandish claims of demagogues becomes a badge of ideological purity. You welcome the lies. This is why social scientists have been warning about the link between conspiracism and totalitarianism for a century. There was never any evidence that the Jews secretly controlled the world – but it didn't matter because lack of evidence was proof that the Jews controlled the press, and the universities, and science and the arts. Jews in pre-war Germany didn't control any of those things – but no evidence to the contrary could penetrate the conspiracy theory. And the complete absence of evidence for their hegemony was just proof of their total domination. Another reason why conspiracism and totalitarianism are closely connected is that conspiracy theories take away our ability to have good-faith debates. If everything you don't like becomes evidence of your opponent's plot to destroy you, you can't discuss anything rationally. Human-caused climate change is a fact. But conspiracism takes the debate out of the realm of evidence and into the realm of character assassination of scientists and their supporters. It paints us as hoaxers and saboteurs. Vaccines have saved hundreds of millions of lives, but instead of debating their merits based on evidence, anti-vaxers portray their opponents as agents of a nefarious coverup to kill children. And it's completely irrefutable within their conceptual framework. When scientists or the government or journalists come forward with evidence that vaccines save millions of lives and prevent untold suffering, the conspiracist answer is: Well, that's what conspirators to kill our children would say. There’s a much-needed movement afoot to fix our media ecosystem, but we can’t do that until we address the conspiracist mindset that predisposes people to believe Trump’s lies. Dette er svært alvorlig, for det utgjør en eksistenstrussel mot menneskeheten og må stanses, for i verste fall kan det lede til katastrofale konsekvenser ved at det kan ødelegge menneskeheten som et sosialt vesen. Konspirasjonsteori GJØR DEG DUMMERE. It’s science: Trump voters are dumb (2022) The United States is experiencing an existential democracy crisis, with leading Republicans and millions of their voters and supporters either tacitly or explicitly embracing authoritarianism or fascism. Democrats, for the most part, have not responded with the urgency required to save America's democracy from the rising neofascist tide. American society was founded on white settler colonialism, genocide and slavery. This unresolved "birth defect" at the foundation of the American democratic experiment meant that the country was racially exclusionary by design, from the founding well into the 20th century. At present, American politics is contoured by asymmetrical political polarization, in which Republicans have moved so far to the right that the party's most "moderate" members are far more extreme than the most "conservative" Democrats. This makes substantive compromise and bipartisanship in the interests of the common good and the American people almost impossible. Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, Trump supporters and Trump-loathers, increasingly do not live in the same neighborhoods or communities. In all, they largely do not socialize with each other, or have other forms of meaningful interpersonal relationships in day-to-day life. To the degree that "race" is a proxy for political values and beliefs, the color line functions as a practical dividing line of partisan identity and voting. Religion is also a societal space that is divided by politics. For example, public opinion research shows that white right-wing evangelical Christians have increasingly embraced authoritarian views, conspiracy theories and other anti-democratic and antisocial values. As the new Faith in America survey by Deseret News & Marist College highlights, the basic understanding of the role of religion in a secular democracy has become so polarized that 70% of Republicans believe that religion should influence a person's political values, where as only 28% of Democrats and 45% of independents share that view. Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, also do not consume the same sources of information about news and politics. Conservatives now inhabit their own self-created media echo chamber, which functions as a type of lie-filled and toxic closed episteme and sealed-off universe. The creation of such an alternate reality is an important attribute of fascism, in which truth itself must be destroyed and replaced with fantasies and fictions in support of the leader and his movement. America's struggle for democracy and freedom against authoritarianism is taking place on a biological level as well. Social psychologists and other researchers have shown that the brain structures of conservative-authoritarians are different than those of more liberal and progressive thinkers. The former are more fear-centered, emphasizing threats and dangers (negativity bias), intolerant of ambiguity and inclined to simple, binary solutions. Conservative-authoritarians are also strongly attracted to moral hierarchy and social dominance behavior. Recent research by Darren Sherkat, a professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University, demonstrates that America's democracy crisis may be even more intractable than the above evidence suggests. In his recent article "Cognitive Sophistication, Religion, and the Trump Vote," which appeared in the January 2021 edition of Social Science Quarterly, Sherkat examined data from the 2018 General Social Survey and concluded that there are substantial negative differences between the thinking processes and cognition of white Trump voters, as shown in the 2016 presidential election, as compared to other voters who supported Hillary Clinton or another candidate, or who did not vote at all. Sherkat observes that Trump support has been linked to religion and level of education, but until now not to "cognitive sophistication," which was found "to have a positive effect on voting, but a negative effect on choosing Trump." He notes that "philosophers and political elites have debated the potential effects of mass political participation" for generations, concerned "about the unsophisticated masses coming under the sway of a demagogue." In effect, this debate was always about the quality he calls cognitive sophistication, since citizens who lack it "may not be able to understand and access reliable and valid information about political issues and may be vulnerable to political propaganda": " - Low levels of cognitive sophistication may lead people to embrace simple cognitive shortcuts, like stereotypes and prejudices that were amplified by the Trump campaign. Additionally, the simple linguistic style presented by Trump may have appealed to voters with limited education and cognitive sophistication. Beginning with [T.W.] Adorno's classic study of the authoritarian personality, empirical works have linked low levels of cognitive sophistication with right-wing orientations.... Trump's campaign may also have been more attractive to people with low cognitive sophistication and a preference for low-effort information processing because compared to other candidates Trump's speeches were given at a much lower reading level…. While much of the Trump campaign's rhetoric and orientation may have resonated with the poorly educated and cognitively unsophisticated, those overlapping groups are less likely to register to vote or to turn out in an election - " As part of his research, Sherkat evaluated the political decision-making and cognition of Trump's voters, using a 10-point vocabulary exam. In a guest essay at the website Down with Tyranny, he explains what this vocabulary test revealed about white Trump voters: " - Overall, the model predicts that almost 73% of respondents who missed all 10 questions would vote for Trump (remember, that is controlling for education and the other factors), while about 51% who were average on the exam are expected to vote for Trump. Only 35% of people who had a perfect score on the exam are predicted to be Trump supporters. Notably, this very strong, significant effect of verbal ability can be identified within educational groups. While non-college whites certainly turned out more heavily for Trump, the smart ones did not — only 38% of those with perfect scores are expected to go for Trump, and only 46% of non-college graduates who scored a standard deviation above the mean. The same is true for college graduates — low cognition college graduates were more likely to vote for Trump. ... What is really depressing isn't just the poles of the vocabulary exam, it's the average. The mean and median of the scale is 6 — so half of white Americans missed 4 of the easy vocabulary questions - " Sherkat's research also explored how religion impacted support for Donald Trump among white voters: "This study confirms that white Americans with fundamentalist views of the Bible and those who embrace identifications with sectarian Protestant denominations tended to vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 election." Belief that the Bible is the literal "word of God" also impacted Trump voting: "Viewing the Bible as a book of fables is also significantly predictive of vote choice, with secular beliefs reducing the odds of a Trump vote by 80 percent when compared to literalists, and reducing the odds of a Trump vote by 52 percent when compared to respondents who view the Bible as inspired by God." In an email to Salon, Sherkat offered additional context and implication on the relationship between white Christianity, American neofascism and cognition: " - The problem of the contemporary American fascist right is rooted in education and information. And this problem is not simply about attainment of some quantity of education, but of the quality and content of education, how that leads generations of white Christian Americans to process information about a wide range of issues. The segregation academies that proliferated in the mid-1960s and accelerated in the 1970s have taught millions of Americans a radically skewed version of American and world history and encouraged a continued segregated society. The homeschooling movement augmented this division, and further denigrated the value of knowledge. White fundamentalist Christians have always segmented their communities from the rest of America, and even exert considerable control over public educational institutions, particularly in rural areas and in the states which embraced slavery. White fundamentalist Christians distrust mainstream social institutions like education and print media, and they actively seek to eliminate public education and to provide alternative sources of information. As a result, people who identify with and participate in white Christian denominations and who subscribe to fundamentalist beliefs have substantial intellectual deficits that make them easy marks for a wide variety of schemes — from financial fraud to conspiracy theories. If you can't read the New York Times, you're going to believe whatever you hear on talk radio or on television. It's simply impossible for people with limited vocabularies and low levels of cognitive functioning to make sense of the complex realities of the political world. And we now have a population where for 55 years substantial fractions of white people have gone to private fundamentalist Christian schools that leave them both indoctrinated in Christian nationalism and ill-prepared to process any additional information. Worse, we now have over a million children in a given year who are homeschooled by parents who are uneducated white fundamentalists — and that total has been pretty constant for three decades since the homeschooling movement blossomed - " What does this mean for the present and future of American democracy in this time of crisis? Sherkat cited the "disturbing ... influence of anti-intellectualism on American public life," which lends "performative power to ignorant elites": " - Spouting off obvious untruths is no longer a mark of shame, because even basic historical and contemporary truths are not recognized. We seem to have a stable set of about 30% of Americans, 35% of white Americans, who are oblivious to political realities and incapable and unwilling to come to terms with any of our key social problems. The increasing control over public education by right-wing fanatics is entrenching ignorance and intellectual laziness in future generations. It does not bode well for the future of American democracy - " Donald Trump and his movement did not create all these American authoritarians and aspiring fascists. Such people have long been a feature of American society. What Trump and have accomplished in recent years is to empower and normalize a dangerous set of antisocial, anti-human, retrograde and anti-democratic values and beliefs. Saving America's democracy will require a moral and political reckoning and acts of critical self-reflection on a nationwide scale about the American people's character and values, and about how their leaders and governing institutions have failed them. Changes in laws and institutions are necessary. But on their own, such interventions will not stop the spread of fascism. A lasting remedy will demand that the country's political, cultural, and educational institutions be renewed, re-energized, and reimagined. The questions Americans must ask themselves are simple yet enormous: Who are we? What are we to become? How can we unite in defense of democracy, the common good and the general welfare? Without real answers to those questions, there will be no democratic renewal in the 21st century -- and fascism wins. Denne artikkelen er veldig viktig fordi dette kan skje her i Norge, det er tydelig at manglende kognitive egenskaper er et langt større problem enn antatt - ikke fordi man er dummere eller sløvere, men fordi man ikke var gitt gode oppvekstforhold for å opparbeide seg kognitive sofistikerte egenskaper med hensyn til helse, sosial utvikling og utdanningsform - det er mulig at problemene med norsk ungdom i dag skyldes to faktorer; sosial stress pga. innvandring med identitetskonflikt og politisk innblanding i skolevesenet som i tretti år har ikke gått bra som ønskelig - spesielt siden 2011. Alle i prinsippet er smart; men man kan bli hemmet og dermed fordummes uten at det er deres feil, selv om disse må i slutten gjøres ansvarlig for disses handlinger. Polariseringen, den republikanske kontrarevolusjonen som svekket demokratstyret i USA og økonomiske motsetninger samt sterk sosial og økonomisk stress paret med en politikerforakt som ikke har minsket selv etter Trump kom inn i politikken, har skapt et meget alvorlig befolkningsproblem som kan lede til USAs ruin. Og da har man ennå ikke nådd fasen hvor man kan ende opp med å bli en meget alvorlig trussel for alle og i slutten seg selv. USA har aldri klart å lege sårene fra sin fortid, og republikanerne river dem opp så meget, at det truer med å oppsluke landet helt og fullstendig.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/christian-columnist-raises-alarm-over-trump-and-musk-defunding-evangelical-ministries/ar-AA1yxm57?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=b0855573d4f740efafadc7909568209f&ei=22 Elon Musk's destruction of USAID, with the approval of Donald Trump, is leading to evangelical charitable organizations questioning their viability as they are caught up in the DOGE purge of government officials and programs. Appearing on MSNBC on Thursday morning, New York Times columnist David French, who writes from a Christian perspective, stated that evangelicals who helped propel Donald Trump back to the Oval Office may be unaware of what is happening on his watch. Speaking with host Joe Scarborough, French was asked about Elon Musk's efforts to dismantle government programs and the unforeseen collateral damage. "Look, a lot of Americans do not realize that this Elon Musk effort at USAID and other parts of the government has explicitly targeted evangelical ministries," he told the "Morning Joe" host. "These are evangelical ministries who fought for years to have the ability to have equal access to funding, to help serve the poor, to help serve some of the most vulnerable people in the world." "And so you're seeing what you're seeing is a targeting of some of the best things America has ever done, including, you know, as you're talking about PEPFAR [President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief], you're talking about targeting evangelical ministries who serve refugees. This is a comprehensive attack on America's moral and humanitarian standing in the world." "I'm sorry to say, Joe, an awful lot of Americans are standing and cheering every element of this," he lamented. Veeldig interessant... det har kommet ut at USAID også sørget for sosialhjelp og nødhjelp i selve USA, blant annet ved å ordne med finanser for et stort antall ulike organisasjoner - deriblant kirker og kristne nødhjelpsorganisasjoner. På den ene siden fant jeg dette morsomt fordi de evangelikale hadde spredt sin gift i form av intoleranse mot homoseksuelle og transseksuelle, som fulgt til dødsstraff i flere afrikanske land, kristenfascistiske eksport til Brasil for eksempel. På den andre siden blir jeg bare oppgitt, for det er ikke bare de evangelikale - andre moderate kristne som protestanter og katolikker rammes lik hardt. * Gratulerer med sucker-sukkertøyet.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-plans-mass-firings-of-healthcare-workers-wsj/ar-AA1yzzF5?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=f908088e303440a9a1678f5f6ea996eb&ei=21 USAID er ødelagt, trolig er helsedepartementet nestemann. According to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Department of Health and Human Services employs more than 83,000 people. The agencies within the department perform a range of functions, including monitoring the ongoing avian flu outbreak and other viruses. CIA er også rammet, der skal ledelsen ha blitt tvunget til å rette seg etter forlangelser av MAGA-folk om å kutte ned sin bemanningen - som skal ha fått eksperter til å frykte det verste. CIA er essensielt for USAs sikkerhet mot eksterne fiender som FBI er viktig mot interne fiender. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careers/a-funny-thing-happened-on-the-way-to-closing-the-u-s-department-of-education-opinion/ar-AA1yAEe9?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=aa8d8ff035c5417e834722bc5e723cf3&ei=36 Det virker som det råder forvirring også innad blant Prosjekt 2025-folka, de vil ha to personer som er ekstreme antipatier av hverandre, for utdanningssekretærposten og visutdanningssekretærposten; Linda McMahon og Penny Schwinn som kunne risikere å komme i åpen konflikt med hverandre når disse skulle lede utdanningsdepartementet - McMahon vil legge ned mens Schwinn vil ha mer effektiv ledelse. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-head-of-the-fec-is-defying-trump-s-attempt-to-fire-her/ar-AA1yz9NQ?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=fc91ed86c1094383b4f514609e583dfe&ei=54 Trump prøver å sabotere valgordningsapparatet i USA, men sjefen for FEC (Federal Election Commission) hadde satt seg i vegen og nektet å akseptere hans autoritet ved å påpeke at FEC er underlagt hele regjeringsapparatet ved at den svarer for seg ovenfor huset i kongressen, får autoritet fra senatet i kongressen og nominering av presidenten - som har begrensede makt over dette meget viktige organet. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/doomsday-scenario-here-s-what-would-happen-if-trump-defies-the-supreme-court/ar-AA1yATrZ?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=020b63565bb748a79c6228026e3a25c6&ei=49 Mange håper på at den føderale høyesteretten vil endelig sette et stopp på Trumps ulovligheter, selv om det hersker en sterk tvil om Roberts er villig til å konfrontere monsteret han selv hadde skapt. Men høyesterettsdommerne med et par unntak - Thomas som lider av akutt identitetsforvirring og Alito som simpelt er korrupt, er generelt opptatt av institusjonens autoritet og de kan ikke tolerere utviklingen om den skulle forverre seg; for det er konstitusjonen som er eksistensberettigelsen for høyesteretten. Det er en sterk mulighet at Trump og MAGA vil ignorere høyesteretten om den skulle sette seg i motstand. Uten kongressens støtte vil rettsinstansene finner seg i en meget alvorlig krise med åpen konflikt mellom den utøvende makten og den dømmende makten. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-holds-back-billions-in-funding-despite-court-ruling-states-tell-judge/ar-AA1yxS5D?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=e2f5b5270b82417c877123e00e3b5a9b&ei=55 Hvilken er en sterk mulighet, for selv om frysordren var trukket tilbake etter en føderal dommer grepet inn 31. januar, har det blitt oppdaget at enorme mengder pengesummer som skulle være tilgjengelig for demokratiskstyrte delstater som trenger midler for infrastrukturarbeid og andre viktige statlige virksomheter har blitt holdt tilbake. Dette skal ha fått dommeren til å reagere ved å skjerpe den eksisterende ordren. Hvis det heller ikke virker, vil Trump ha gjort seg skyldig i en meget alvorlig forbrytelse. For den setter USAs eksistens som en føderasjon i fare. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-locks-rowdy-gop-lawmakers-away-sit-here-until-you-figure-it-out/ar-AA1yz102?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=f424adc2cda84030bb9d918cd9b076ac&ei=30 Det begynner å bli turbulent blant de republikanske kongressmedlemmene som mer og mer krangler om hvor mye de vil kutte, det virker som at de helt ignorere den alvorlige konstitusjonelle krisesituasjonen og vil heller fremme sine egne ambisjoner uten å ense konsekvenser. Flere vil ha gigantisk skattekutt mens andre vil beskytte deres interesser knyttet til egen økonomi eller hjemstat/kommune. Mye tyder på at det komme til å munne ut en katastrofal feil, for disse ser ikke ut til å realisere den egentlige situasjonen. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/this-guy-is-a-threat-to-us-all-outrage-as-avowed-christian-nationalist-confirmed/ar-AA1yyXXP?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=020b63565bb748a79c6228026e3a25c6&ei=76 Republikanerne nok en gang ignorere sunn fornuft og vil slippe en ekstremist inn - Russell Vought som nå kan komme til senatet for å velges eller avvises. Demokratene er i harnisk, for de mener han er en fiende av USA med hans hatske utfall mot den amerikanske konstitusjonen. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/confirmation-of-trump-nominee-expected-to-fuel-lawless-rampage/ar-AA1yASdN?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=c06bcc4abd314b2da39f514185fb3317&ei=83 Og; som ventet; Vought er inn. Tross over tretti timer i et kjør klarte ikke demokratene å stanse prosessen som endt med at han fikk 53-47 i avstemning og dermed er blitt USAs budsjettminister. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement Thursday that "in confirming Vought, Republicans have put their stamp of approval on ending American democracy—built on three co-equal branches of government—and on creating a government of billionaires, by billionaires." "Our nation is facing an extraordinary crisis," said DeLauro. "Donald Trump is attempting to claim absolute power for the presidency. The chaos, confusion, and flagrantly unconstitutional actions of the early days of this administration are largely of Vought's design and doing. With Vought's encouragement, the administration has taken the groundless position—and demonstrated—that they believe the White House has the absolute power to determine spending, and that they can choose to simply not fund programs and services that Congress has promised to the American people. This could not be further from the truth." "The Constitution empowers Congress, not the president, with the power of the purse," DeLauro continued. "The president is not a king who can pick and choose which laws to follow and which laws to ignore. But the president is relying on the guidance and counsel of Russ Vought to do just that." "Vought is an extremist who has made clear he'll ignore our nation's laws, cut funding that helps people across the country, and give Trump unprecedented and unconstitutional power," warned Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, following Vought's confirmation. "There will be consequences." McConnell var med på å slippe Vought inn. Det bare gjør hans skamløsheten enda større. For Vought aktet å ta bort Social Security, Medicare og Medicaid under ideen om at det bare forlenge fattigdommen. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/hard-to-defend-gop-lawmakers-fed-up-with-trump-s-antics/ar-AA1yBmnR?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=c06bcc4abd314b2da39f514185fb3317&ei=43 Trump gjør svært lite utover bare posere i det hvite huset, gjøre intervju, sende ut x/twitter-meldinger og sette hans signatur på presidentordrene som mer og mer har blitt en flom som er helt uparallelt, hundrevis sendes ut - og ingenting tyder på at det vil stoppes. Han gjør så lite at republikanerne mer eller mindre var overlatt til seg selv mens Prosjekt 2025-folka har blitt sluppet løst sammen med Musk uten noe som helst oversyn. Og han simpelt sier ingenting om hva de talløse presidentordrene innbar. Trump is “burning up political goodwill at an alarming rate,” one member said. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/what-are-they-idiots-conservative-slams-outrageous-trump-claim-about-federal-workers/ar-AA1yBmdJ?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=c06bcc4abd314b2da39f514185fb3317&ei=86 I det minst er det en republikaner som reagere med sinne mot Trump. After worrying, "All of that is being shut down. The camps are being collapsed in many areas, and people who've had their houses burned down, their children raped, who are traumatized, were getting food aid from us, the whole operation is going to be shut down," he told the hosts. "Now, Marco Rubio, who I've always had great respect for, is being blamed for this. But this is being orchestrated by Musk, not Marco Rubio and by the director of OMB. They don't care what happens to the people of the world because they don't vote in the United States." "They don't care that hundreds of millions of people are going to be at the edge of starvation if these programs aren't restored immediately," he added. "Now, let me let me say the notion that you're going to spend $38 billion with 292 people is ridiculous. I am, one, a conservative Republican. I served in the Massachusetts House for 12 years as a Republican. I am a lieutenant colonel in the reserves, I am retired, I served in the first Gulf War. I am not a liberal. I am not on the left. Many, many church-based organizations get large amounts of money from USAID to do humanitarian work. There will be no one to process the grants, there will be no one to ship the food aid, because all those people have been fired or laid off." "I trained students, many of them Roman Catholic and Evangelical, in Texas, to work at AID all of them have been laid off –– all of them," he exclaimed. "They were not lunatics they were not communists, and it's outrageous for the president to make those claims because it's complete nonsense." He later added, "I have great respect for the State Department, they're the best diplomats in the world. I was a diplomat for a while as President Bush's envoy to Sudan, but they are not operational. They cannot deploy disaster assistance response teams which AID sends all over the world. They hire generalists in the foreign service, AID hires specialists." "You have to have an advanced degree to work in AID, or you can't get hired, which means Phds and medical doctors, agricultural economists, agricultural scientists," he elaborated. "We have the logisticians. How do you think food aid gets moved? It doesn't just appear it magically. You have to have people, experts in logistics –– 294 people to spend to spend $38 billion. What are they, idiots?" Mitt råd til deg; Andrew Natsios; gå ut av GOP-partiet. Slutte med å stemme republikansk. Alle Tesla-sjåfører her i Norge burde skaffe seg en ny elbil, gjerne av europeisk opprinnelse, i løpet av dette året - og sende bilene tilbake til USA. For der er Trumps folk i ferd med å ødelegge elbilmarkedet mens Musk er helt oppslukt at hans DOGE-arbeid.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/02/06/russia-may-have-launched-a-second-oreshnik-ballistic-missile-at-ukraine-but-this-one-reportedly-exploded-on-russian-soil/ Husk hva jeg sa om det russiske "mirakelvåpenet" - at det simpelt er en "kortavstands" ICBM med et mindre trinn? Jeg fikk rett. 100 %. Og selve våpenet er totalt mislykket. After warning U.S. officials of its intention to launch, Russia lobbed a mysterious new ballistic missile—initially mistaken for a nuclear-capable ICBM—at the city of Dnipro in eastern Ukraine on the morning of Nov. 21, damaging buildings and injuring dozens of people. The mystery weapon turned out to be a variant of Russia’s RS-26, a 40-ton, solid-fueled missile with six independent reentry vehicles. Its name, Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin announced shortly after the strike, is “Oreshnik.” That’s Russian for “hazelnut tree.” Three months later on Thursday morning, the Russians reportedly launched another Oreshnik—this one apparently targeting Kyiv. Air raid sirens wailed. City residents scrambled for shelter. But then … nothing. No scream of incoming reentry vehicles. No thunderous impacts as the non-explosive vehicles slammed into the ground. According to Kirill Sazonov, a Ukrainian war correspondent, the Oreshnik “did not fly far.” It reportedly malfunctioned and exploded—on Russian soil. Everyone knew an attack might be coming. A week after the first Oreshnik strike, Putin threatened to fire additional Oreshniks—and specifically warned he’d target “decision-making centers” in Kyiv, where Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky, top officials and commanders and their staffs work. But the threat was only as real as the Oreshnik is reliable. While it’s not yet possible to independently confirm the second Oreshnik’s mid-flight failure, a mishap wouldn’t be surprising. The Oreshnik is just an RS-26 with less fuel and thus a shorter range. The very first RS-26 test, in 2011, ended in explosive embarrassment as the prototype rocket veered off course and blew up a few miles from its launch site at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northwestern Russia. In reportedly failing, the second Oreshnik not only spared Kyiv residents and Ukrainian leaders a long frightening morning hunkering underground, it also backfired on the Kremlin. After all, the ICBM-like Oreshnik with its nuclear associations is scarier than it is militarily effective. Complex and inaccurate, the Oreshnik is an expensive way “to deliver not that much destruction,” Jeffrey Lewis, the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, told Reuters. In that sense, it’s a terror weapon—a device meant to scare far more people than it injures and kills. That’s why Putin followed up the first Oreshnik strike with a chest-pounding media event kicking off what The Moscow Times described as “a military propaganda campaign designed to exaggerate the capabilities of the Russian military-industrial complex and the might of a new weapon.” Putin “had to use [the Oreshnik] and then do a press conference and then do another press conference and say: ‘Hey, this thing is really scary, you should be scared,’” Lewis said. But now that fully half of the Oreshniks may have crashed before reaching their targets, the terror missiles are surely becoming less scary by the day. Update, 8:34 P.M. EST: Twelve hours after the air raid warning in Ukraine, there has been no official confirmation of the purported Oreshnik launch—-nor of the purported crash. By now, satellites should have registered the fire that would likely result from such an impact. RS-26 ICBM er ikke ofte testet for å garantere at disse vil virke - og det har vært meldinger om at disse ikke nødvendigvis er pålitelig til enhver tidspunkt. Dette våpenet var utviklet for å ha størst mulig mobilitet til tross for bruk av fast brennstoff og er ikke i stand til å dekke hele det nordamerikanske kontinentet uten å måtte utplasseres ganske nær Russlands grenser mot Baltikum eller Stillehavet. RS-26 er en "lettvektet" RS-24 som kritiseres å være for tung og måtte ha ekstra trinn med flytende brennstoff for maks. rekkevidde. Russerne hadde arbeidet meget hardt med å ha størst mulig mobilitet og kamuflasje for sine rakettstyrkene armert med ICBM, men den fysiske loven setter en rekke begrensninger som gjør bruk av RS-24 problematisk, så meget at en "mindre" variant kalt Yars-S måtte utvikles - i tillegg til RS-26 som mistet et trinn og skulle vekte mindre enn 36 tonn. RS-24 er på 50 tonn. Det som har vært studert av vrakrestene og de siste meldinger kan tyder på at russerne kan ha kvalitetsproblemer med sine "lettvektede" ICBM våpensystemene.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/i-wonder-why-they-did-that-pam-bondi-orders-the-dissolution-of-the-foreign-election-interference-task-force/ar-AA1yyxMb?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=5bc8f8161cc2434086fc9e1698ef59df&ei=2 Herregud... Dette lukter forræderi lang vei. During her Senate confirmation hearing, Bondi promised not to weaponize the DOJ. However, on the first day of her job, she may have targeted a task force and law simply because their investigations and enforcement happened to uncover or prosecute the actions of the Trump campaign. Vanligvis er det straffbart å lyve for kongressen, så det er ubegripelig at Bondi kunne gjøre det hun gjort! https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/chilling-effect-legal-expert-dismayed-by-trump-action-s-terrible-message/ar-AA1yxWeN?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=a0c684684c9a4ae7918660d3f176e7f3&ei=43 Trump ønsker å ødelegge FBI. University of Michigan Law School Professor Barbara McQuade attacked President Donald Trump in an editorial Thursday for targeting law enforcement as part of his mass firings. Trump is reportedly looking to cut as many as 5,000 FBI agents who worked on Jan. 6 cases. At the same time, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove sent a memo to acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll listing "terminations" of top-level FBI officials. These terminations and the potential agent firings "send a terrible message," McQuade wrote for Bloomberg, and are "degrading the rule of law." She cited the list of Jan. 6 defendants who were granted full pardons or clemency, saying that Trump was giving "vigilantes" a pass for "taking the law into their own hands as long as they act in service to the leader." Then firing the law enforcement officers who investigated such cases "erode respect for the law and those who enforce it," she added. It suggests that FBI agents did something wrong in prosecuting those who broke the law, she wrote. She pointed out that on Wednesday, Bove also sent FBI employees a memo claiming they wouldn't be fired if they "simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner." He claimed the only people who should be worried are those who "acted with corrupt or partisan intent" and were part of "weaponizing the FBI." McQuade said the action has a "chilling effect" on all law enforcement agencies. Investigators are assigned to act with the law in mind, not with politics in mind. She noted that scaring them away from going after the wealthy, powerful, or those with political connections because they might be fired will put those acting ethically in the difficult position of following the law or following political orders. The federal work system has safeguards in place to protect career employees from political decisions that can change every four years with a new president, she recalled. "The so-called deep state is not a rogue operation thwarting a president from carrying out his mandate. It is a group of professionals upholding the law from abuses of power," McQuade wrote. McQuade listed all the crimes FBI agents investigate and warned that fewer crimes would be caught with fewer agents. Even if Trump intends to hire other FBI agents, recruiting, background checks, and training can take many months. In the meantime, the country is left vulnerable, she wrote. The larger concern, she said, is that culling the FBI hurts public safety, a similar argument made by former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi. These actions gut everything the FBI stands for, she closed. Det er begått SÅ MANGE LOVBRUDD helt siden Trump overtok, at det ikke er lenge mulig å tillate hans presidentskap som har blitt helt kriminelt og dermed dypt uegnet etter konstitusjonell standard! Demokratene og andre er blitt dypt rasende, det er voksende misnøye med Schumer som virker helt rådvilt og lamslått fordi han er sperret ut av både speakeren i huset og majoritetslederen i senatet i slik grad at demokratiske representanter måtte bruke fysisk makt for å komme i kontakt med dem! Det hjelpe ikke ved å satse på domstolene som arbeider for langsomt, det hjelpe ikke ved å føre dialog når folk som McConnell ikke er i stand til å stå på sitt og når MAGA sabotere all politisk debatt. Det kommer nå mange absurde lovforslag på republikansk hold at det er ufattelig. Det er tydelig at politikerne må innse at de må følge Konstitusjonens ånd; det er Loven, ikke folket, som bestemmer. Det hjelpe ikke ved å signalisere at folket hadde gitt et mandat til republikanerne når disse fritt bryte Loven som er essensielt for USAs eksistens som en føderal republikk. Da er de nødt til å gjøre opprør. De hadde prøvd med USAID, bare for å bli overstøyet av mediene som vinklet det helt om slik at folk forbli holdt i uviten. Det klokeste er å la alle eks-presidenter og eks-høyesterettsdommere marsjere i takt under størst alvor rett til John Roberts og gjør det meget klinkende klart at alle presidentordrer må erklæres ukonstitusjonelt og at Trump kan risikere arrest. Bush junior burde bli med, for ved å la Roberts nomineres risikere han evig vanære ved å være tilknyttet mannen som kan ha ødelagt USA ved å gi Trump absolutt immunitet. For hvis ikke, kommer borgerkrig til å bryte ut før dette året er omme.

Det er nå slått alarm. Robert Reich: This is no longer about Democrats versus Republicans | Opinion https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/robert-reich-this-is-no-longer-about-democrats-versus-republicans-opinion/ar-AA1yvkRj?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=dd96b0e8956e458a9c15c7a243286b86&ei=99 It’s a coup. As Trump talks about taking over Gaza (“beautiful shoreline”), Greenland (“great minerals”), Panama (“very strategic”), and making Canada the 51st state, the media has gone ape-shite wild. Meanwhile, Trump’s goons are taking over the federal government without congressional authority and very little public awareness. They’re using two techniques. The first is to physically take over an agency or department. Consider USAID. Elon Musk (now a “special government employee”) calls it a “criminal organization” that needs to “die” and brags about feeding it “into the wood chipper.” Which is what he and his tech goons have done — dismantling the work of the 10,000-person, $40 billion foreign-assistance agency, along with the thousands of people in nonprofits and other groups that work with it. The irony of the richest man in the world almost single-handedly destroying an agency designed to help the world’s poor, so that the U.S. federal budget has more room for another giant tax cut for the richest man in the world and his pals, should not be lost on anyone. Yesterday, all of USAID’s Washington facilities were closed. Nearly all USAID’s 10,000 employees have been put on administrative as of Saturday. Staff working around the world have been ordered to return home within 30 days. Thank you for your service,” is the last message on USAID’s website, which for days was offline. Make no mistake: The takeover and dismantling of USAID is a test case for whether Musk and the Trump regime can destroy a part of government without legal or political resistance. So far, the answer seems to be yes. Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune says he “doesn’t believe” the Trump administration is closing an agency without congressional approval, but that it is rather reviewing how the agency is spending money. Thune is either a fool or a knave. The second technique being used by Musk and his tech goons is to gain access to the Treasury Department’s payments system, responsible for nearly all payments made by the U.S. government, and alter it — writing new code for programs that control more than 20 percent of the U.S. economy, including Social Security benefits and veterans’ pay. Musk says he’ll be shutting down some Treasury payments in an effort to root out “corruption and waste.” That is, whatever Musk considers corruption and waste. What’s next? Will Trump, Musk, and Musk’s tech goons take over, or stop funding, the Labor Department? (My sources there tell me Department of Labor workers have been ordered to give Musk’s DOGE access to anything they want — or risk termination.) I don’t know, but I do know that nothing right now seems to be stopping them. The Republican-controlled Congress has essentially surrendered Congress’s powers, including the power of the purse (it has already surrendered its powers over tariffs and foreign policy). There’s not much of a role for Congress left. This afternoon, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee tried to subpoena Musk, but Republicans called a procedural vote without notice so the Dems wouldn’t get there on time. Here’s Congressman Ro Khanna’s account, followed by Musk’s response. My friends, this is no longer about Democrats versus Republicans, left versus right, liberals versus conservatives. The choice right now is democracy or dictatorship (or if you’d rather use the term fascism, go right ahead). And we are sliding faster than I ever thought possible into the latter. Everyone must choose which side they’re on. Now. Det er veldig tydelig at ledende republikanske kongressmedlemmer som Mike Johnson og John Thune kan ha gjort seg skyldig i landsforræderi fordi når disse tiltre deres embete må de avlegge ed til landets konstitusjon, så ved å tolerere kuppshandlingene lansert av Trump og Musk, og deretter motarbeide de legale reaksjoner samt holdt de andre republikanerne ned har de indirekte gitt sitt samtykke til dette massive angrepet på den amerikanske konstitusjonen. Reich har rett, det er ikke lenge snakk om parti eller ideologi, det amerikanske demokratiet er kommet under angrep. The only thing standing between democracy and dictatorship in America Opinion by Thom Hartmann https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-only-thing-standing-between-democracy-and-dictatorship-in-america/ar-AA1yydz8?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=dd96b0e8956e458a9c15c7a243286b86&ei=104 Trump wants FBI agents who investigated his coup attempt, his facilitating espionage, or his other financial and criminal activities fired. Let’s be very clear: this is how dictatorships start. A guy who wants to be a dictator always begins by changing how the government works. Even though the majority of the nation had agreed previously that the government should do certain things in certain ways, he reassures everybody he’s got a better way and it’ll all work out. In the process, he breaks a bunch of laws, but people mostly shrug because they don’t directly affect them. Pastor Niemöller wrote about this in 1930s Germany; to paraphrase: First they came for the government workers… Then people start resisting, which is when he begins to use the police power of the state. The people who show up in the streets, the people who speak out in the media, the people who try to fight him in the legislatures and the courts: he figures out ways to get them fired, harassed, and ultimately imprisoned. When she was being confirmed, Attorney General Pam Bondi refused to say that she would not executed an illegal order on Donald Trump’s behalf. Like if he directed her to investigate somebody who irritated him. Or prosecute somebody who had investigated him. Or imprison — perhaps only temporarily, at first — somebody who has spoken out against him. We’re there now. Bondi just announced that the political prosecutions are about to begin. At first they will be going after the police agencies themselves, as a way of bringing them to heel: Terrify the terrifiers. Next will be the Press. First they will use financial terror to force compliance; we’re already seeing that with Trump’s lawsuits against all three major networks and multiple newspapers. That will expand. Eventually it will turn into shutdowns and arrests. He will remake our schools so they become indoctrination factories for his white, male supremacist worldview and the new authoritarianism. He will realign our democratic country away from democratic allies and toward countries run by dictators like he aspires to become. He will purge the military of leadership that might resist him and of troops who might refuse his orders. He will remake our criminal justice system so it becomes more violent and brutal, opening prisons for “the worst of the worst“ in places beyond the reach of law, like Auschwitz in Poland or Guantánamo in Cuba. He will remake our media so it becomes a Greek chorus, singing his praises and carrying his every word. By proclaiming, as every dictator does, that divine providence and the blessings of God put him where he is, he will bring the country‘s largest religious institutions to heel. He will proclaim grand plans and spectacular efforts, like the Autobahn or remaking Gaza, Greenland, and Panama. They will distract the public from the relentless, grinding destruction of the guardrails of government itself. He and his allies will empower civilian militias who will then become his terror shock troops against the people who oppose him. Hitler had his Brownshirts; Republicans in Nassau County are right now trying to field America’s first armed private militia. He will remake commerce and business, so the most successful companies are those that throw money and resources at him. Fritz Tyson wrote a book about this, about his shame at facilitating it, titled I Paid Hitler. Someday, perhaps, Jeff Bezos or Tim Cook will write a similar book. America today is early in this process, although it doesn’t typically take very long. It took Hitler 53 days. It took Putin about a year. It took Victor Orban about two years. It took Pinochet less than a week, although he had the help of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Trump and his project 2025 friends, however, have been preparing for this for four years: They hit the ground running. This moment proves that the preservation of democracy requires constant attention and a collective commitment to uphold the integrity of its institutions. Right now, though, the only thing standing between democracy and dictatorship in America are public opinion, the media, and the Democratic Party; Republicans have completely caved and the courts move too slowly to stop him. Elon Musk and Donald Trump seem to think they can pull this off in a matter of weeks, and so far — because of the cowardice of Republican legislators and the disorganization and lack of leadership among Democrats — they may be right. Unless we all stand up and speak out now. Han har rett, men han ser ikke ut til å innse at det som Trump vil gjennomføre, vil lede til borgerkrig fordi et stort flertall av det amerikanske folket vil beholde det de allerede har, det er i virkeligheten bare 20 til 30 % av folket som støtter Trump og MAGA/republikanerne i et land hvor det er tradisjonelt lav folkepolitisk deltagelse under valg med omtrent 60 %. Så snart amerikanerne flest innser at de hadde blitt bedratt, svindlet og forrådt fordi de hadde blitt manipulert, narret i styr og dummet ut - vil de oppleve det samme som den fargede mannen i tegneseriefilmen om ham og Snurre Sprett; Snerrende, knurrende med mord i blikket. "Alle" har for lengst innsett at ikkevold og dialog ikke leder noe vei. Myanmar/Burma er for eksempel kastet ut i kaos hvor militærdiktaturet har mistet 50 % av hele landet og bare behersker de større byer. I Georgia merkes det at demonstrantene er i ferd med å forsvinne fra gatene mens det knurres mer og mer over tafattheten. Folk over hele verden er i ferd med å miste troen på ikke-vold, og amerikanerne selv vil hente fram våpnene i verste fall.

Ja, det er den. Men som hver nordmann som vandret ofte ute i det frie er klart over, skarpe kanter, symmetriske linjer og skarpe hjørner er ikke fremmedartet i naturen spesielt fra ulike vinkler hvordan man betrakte et utvalgt objekt. Denne "fjellformasjonen" er bare simpelt for stor, hele tre kilometer - og det er mye som tyder på at det er menneskehjernen som bedrar oss fordi bildet som var tatt i 1990-årene (1997-2006) var med eldre teknologi med dårlig skarphet etter vår standard i dag, med optiske forvrengning pga. vinkling, skyggedanning og lysforhold. Jeg kan se at det ikke er så skarpt som det sies.