Trump 2025

[linux-fan]

Donald har fortsatt, for meg, forbausende høy rating.

 

https://www.nettavisen.no/nyheter/bekmork-maling-for-trump/s/5-95-2576718

Bekmørk måling for Trump

...

Hele 56 prosent av amerikanerne er misfornøyde med jobben president Trump har gjort til nå.

...

min kommntar: Blant Nettavisens egne lesere:

Hva synes du om president Trumps innsats?

😍 6 %

😊1 %

😐3 %

😠11 %

😡79 %

Totalt 636 stemmer. Kun verifiserte brukere har kunnet avgi stemme.

 

[qualbeen]

linux-fan skrev (1 time siden):

Donald har fortsatt, for meg, forbausende høy rating.

 

https://www.nettavisen.no/nyheter/bekmork-maling-for-trump/s/5-95-2576718

Bekmørk måling for Trump

...

Hele 56 prosent av amerikanerne er misfornøyde med jobben president Trump har gjort til nå.

...

min kommntar: Blant Nettavisens egne lesere:

Hva synes du om president Trumps innsats?

😍 6 %

😊1 %

😐3 %

😠11 %

😡79 %

Totalt 636 stemmer. Kun verifiserte brukere har kunnet avgi stemme.

 

Ja, det kan virke overraskende at kun 56% er misfornøyde. Man skulle tro tallene var mye høyere. 

Men husk på at amerikanere flest ennå ikke har begynt å merke ringeffekter av utenrikspolitikken. Så lenge folk har en jobb å gå til, så er de stort sett fornøyde. Innenriks politikk er viktigere for Average Joe, enn en liten krig på andre siden av jordkloden. 

Dette til forskjell fra oss europeere; vi merker lite til innenriks forhold innad i USA, men desto mer føler vi på utenriks politikk, og hans vinglinger, og hans ubehagelige begeistring for Putin! 😡

[Dragavon]

qualbeen skrev (1 time siden):

Ja, det kan virke overraskende at kun 56% er misfornøyde. Man skulle tro tallene var mye høyere. 

Men husk på at amerikanere flest ennå ikke har begynt å merke ringeffekter av utenrikspolitikken. Så lenge folk har en jobb å gå til, så er de stort sett fornøyde. Innenriks politikk er viktigere for Average Joe, enn en liten krig på andre siden av jordkloden. 

Dette til forskjell fra oss europeere; vi merker lite til innenriks forhold innad i USA, men desto mer føler vi på utenriks politikk, og hans vinglinger, og hans ubehagelige begeistring for Putin! 😡

Tenker det at når det økonomiske flykrasjet (politikken) til Trump begynner å virke så blir det mykje meir enn 56%.

[JK22]

"The Gerrymandering War" endt i det verste tenkelige utfallet; de texanske demokratene gav opp så snart republikanerne begynte å true med ulovlig maktbruk og returnert hjem, bare for å oppleve å bli trakassert og utsatt for maktbruk som er 100 % uforentlig med demokratisk maktatferd - flere folkevalgte var regelrett fratatt sin bevegelsesfrihet under som definitivt var kidnapping etter amerikansk lov! Og i slutten vant Trump; i den 20. august 2025 opphørte den texanske delstaten å eksistere som en demokratisk stat. 

Folkevalgte i Texas gir grønt lys til endring av valgdistrikter

Delstatsforsamlingen vedtok som ventet det nye valgdistriktkartet som etter gjeldende amerikansk lov er ulovlig på en rekke steder, ettersom det innbar at flere millioner stemmegivere nå er fratatt retten til å velge deres representanter og man få et rent fåtallsstyre i klar strid med demokratiske retningslinjer. Republikanerne bryr seg ikke om at de har brutt loven eller statens eksistensberettigelse fordi deres gerrymandering er så grov, at det ikke kan forsvares - og det kom indirekte erklæringer om at de vil dermed annullere minoritetsamerikanernes rett til å stemme - en retur til Jim Crow-tilstanden. Som ventet har demokratene satt i gang prosesser for å gerrymandere deres egne delstater, med California i spissen, som vil da betyr at republikanerne vil også bli stengt ut av valgene - og man ser liknende i en rekke republikanske delstater også. Dette hendt til tross for allmenn bestyrelse på alle kanter. Texas har helt oppført med å være et demokratisk republikk og blitt et ettpartidiktatur akkurat som dixiekratene i 1890-1970. 

Trump vil avskaffe poststemmer og elektroniske stemmemaskiner i valg i USA

Og ikke bare med det; midt under all oppstyret omkring møtet med Putin som har delt det amerikanske folket mye mer dypere enn før, hadde Trump kommet med erklæringer om at han vil avskaffe både poststemmer og elektroniske stemmemaskiner ved 18. august. Dette er 100 % ulovlig og en massiv krenkelse av Unionen. 

" - Når det gjelder opptelling av stemmer, skriver Trump at delstatene må gjøre slik de får beskjed om av de føderale myndighetene – representert ved USAs president - "

Dette er bare et av så mange sjokk i så kort tid, at amerikanerne nå sitter i en atmosfære av uvirkelighet. Men reaksjoner som kom i ettertiden, er meget voldsomt. 

Trump just crossed a line no other president ever dared to

With the echo of Vladimir Putin’s whisper in his ear, in front of President Volodymyr Zelensky and seven other European leaders, Trump announced he’s preparing an executive order to ban mail-in ballots and even outlaw voting machines across America ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Sitting in front of the Chancellor of Germany and the Prime Minister of Great Britain — both nations that allow and even encourage mail-in voting — Trump said:

“Mail-in ballots are corrupt mail-in ballots. You can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots, and we as a Republican Party are gonna do everything possible that we get rid of mail-in ballots. We're gonna start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they’re corrupt. And, you know that we’re the only country in the world, I believe, I may be wrong, but just about the only country in the world that uses it because of what’s happened.”

This is not just a partisan maneuver. It’s an open assault on the Constitution, a grotesque power grab, and a direct threat to the foundation of democracy itself. And it’s happening in real time, in broad daylight, with a criminally compliant Republican Party cheering him on.

Republicans hate mail-in voting for multiple reasons.

First, for people who’re paid by the hour, mail-in voting increases participation because they can fill out their ballots at the kitchen table after work. Republicans don’t want people to vote, and have introduced more than 400 pieces of legislation in the past three years nationwide to make voting more difficult.

Second, mail-in voting makes voters better informed and less vulnerable to sound-byte TV ads because, while perusing that ballot at the kitchen table, they can look up candidates on their laptops and get more detail and information. Republicans hate informed voters and rely heavily on often-dishonest advertisements to swing voters.

Third, mail-in ballots — because they arrive in the mail weeks before the election — give voters an early chance to discover if they’ve been the victim of Republican voter-roll purges, one of their favorite tactics to pre-rig elections.

Fourth, mail-in ballots end the GOP trick of understaffing and under-resourcing polling places in minority neighborhoods, leading to hours-long lines. Hispanic voters generally wait 150 percent longer than white voters, and Black voters must endure a 200 percent longer wait; mail-in ballots put an end to this favorite of the GOP’s voter suppression efforts.

Trump, knowing all this, couldn’t help himself yesterday, finally blurting out his real reason for wanting to end mail-in voting in America:

“We got to stop mail-in voting, and the Republicans have to lead the charge. The Democrats want it because they have horrible policy. If you [don’t] have mail-in voting, you’re not gonna have many Democrats get elected. That’s bigger than anything having to do with redistricting, believe me.”

Once again, Trump is ignoring the law and the Constitution, which explicitly delegates the administration of elections to the states and Congress, not presidential executive orders.

That’s not some vague norm or debatable tradition: it’s written into the very DNA of our system of government. States set the rules, unless Congress — not the president — overrides them. States decide how their citizens vote, as the Constitution’s Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 dictates:

“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”

Yet here we have a president declaring that he alone will dictate the terms of elections nationwide, in direct violation of two centuries of law and precedent. This is not only unconstitutional, it’s tyrannical.

When a president asserts powers he does not have, with the full knowledge that they aren’t his to wield, he’s announcing to the country that the rule of law no longer constrains him. That’s the definition of dictatorship.

And what makes this even more obscene is the source of Trump’s inspiration. According to multiple reports, Trump’s sudden rant on mail-in ballots followed a private conversation with Putin, who reportedly told Trump that mail-in voting was the reason he lost in 2020.

The man occupying the Oval Office is now taking advice about how to rig American elections from the very dictator who has spent his career poisoning journalists, jailing opponents, and staging sham referendums to annex entire countries.

It’s bad enough that Trump has always been Putin’s toady, but now we see the Kremlin effectively writing U.S. election law. If Jefferson, Madison, or Lincoln were alive to hear this, they would spit.

Mail-in voting is not a scam. It’s not a trick. It’s how tens of millions of Americans — Republicans, Democrats, independents — exercise their right to vote.

Seniors rely on it. People with disabilities rely on it. Military service members overseas rely on it. Hourly workers who can’t take a day off rely on it. Parents with young children rely on it. Rural voters, who often live miles from polling places, rely on it.

And every study, every audit, every bipartisan commission has found mail-in voting to be secure, safe, and reliable. Five states do it exclusively; we’ve had it more than two decades here in Oregon with nary a single scandal or problem. To call it fraudulent is a lie. To ban it is voter suppression on a scale this country has never seen.

And voting machines? Trump is openly declaring that he’ll return us to mind-numbingly slow hand-counting of ballots, a tactic straight from the authoritarian playbook designed to create chaos, delays, and endless opportunities to dispute the results in 2026 and 2028.

I’ve had concerns about voting machines and Windows-based tabulators for decades, but my solution isn’t to end them. Instead, we should use machines owned by the government itself, generating paper ballots and operating transparently on open-source software with every election subject to sample audits.

Instead of trying to make elections more secure, Trump’s laying the groundwork for election theft in plain sight. This isn’t subtle: it’s the loud declaration of a man preparing to overturn the will of the voters, with the blessing of a foreign adversary, and with a Republican Party too craven to object.

If Trump succeeds in outlawing mail-in ballots and voting machines, millions of Americans will simply not be able to vote. Seniors in nursing homes, service members abroad, people with disabilities, single parents, rural citizens: they will all be disenfranchised overnight. And make no mistake: that’s the point.

This is not about integrity. This is not about security. This is about shrinking the electorate to a size that Republicans believe will guarantee them victory forever.

Republicans know they can’t win free and fair elections in much of America. They know their policies are unpopular. They know their agenda is toxic.

So they cheat. They gerrymander districts into grotesque shapes that make a mockery of representative government. They purge voters from the rolls. They criminalize voter registration drives. They intimidate voters at the polls.

And now, at Trump’s command and Putin’s urging, they want to ban the very methods by which millions of Americans vote. This is not politics as usual. This is the slow-motion strangulation of democracy.

Every American who believes in self-government must rise up against this. Governors must prepare to defy such an executive order in court and in practice. State legislatures must assert their constitutional authority.

Attorneys general must be ready to sue. And ordinary citizens must take to the streets, the phones, the ballot box, and every civic space available to declare that this will not stand. Because if it does, we’ll have surrendered the very essence of the American experiment.

We’ve been here before in spirit if not in form.

Ronald Reagan’s campaign cut a deal with the Iranian Ayatollahs to hang onto the hostages until after the election. Richard Nixon tried to sabotage our democracy by killing Lyndon Johnson's peace negotiations with Vietnam and followed-up with burglaries and cover-ups when he thought Democrats were onto him. He was forced to resign. George W. Bush and the GOP stopped the counting of votes in Florida and handed the presidency to themselves. That assault has scarred our politics for decades.

But never — not once in 250 years — has a president openly declared that he will strip states of their constitutional right to run elections, end mail-in voting, and ban voting machines altogether. This is unprecedented, authoritarian, and it must be stopped.

It’s also just one in a broad spectrum of attacks Republicans have launched against your right to vote, with the SAVE Act — which will prevent women from voting if their birth certificate and drivers’ license have different names on them and they’ve never had an official change-of-name in the courts — teed up in the US Senate. All while millions are being purged from the voting rolls as you read these words.

This is the moment when the American people must decide whether they still believe in democracy. If we shrug, if we accept this as just more noise from a corrupt and broken con man, we will lose it. If we wait for someone else to act, we will lose it. If we tell ourselves the courts will save us, we may be bitterly disappointed.

The survival of democracy has never been guaranteed. It has always required vigilance, courage, and action. Now it requires all three from each of us.

Trump’s promised executive order is not just a legal maneuver. It’s a declaration of war against the American people. It’s the dream of every tyrant: to control who votes and who does not, to dictate the rules of elections so that the outcome is predetermined.

What Putin and Trump are proposing is not democracy. It’s not freedom. It’s not America.

And the Republicans who are enabling this treachery are as guilty as Trump himself. They’re betraying their oaths, their constituents, and our country. History will remember them not as conservatives or patriots, but as the gravediggers of our Republic.

This is the line. This is the moment. We cannot let Trump and his cronies bulldoze democracy into the ground at Putin’s command. Every patriot, every progressive, every independent, every honest conservative who still believes in the Constitution must join together and say no.

No to dictatorship. No to disenfranchisement. No to treason.

If we fail now, there may not be another chance.

Trump just crossed a line no other president ever dared to | Opinion

Denne artikkelen er bare en av mange som er i eteren; dette i seg selv betyr at en blodig borgerkrig er uunngåelig om republikanerne skulle annullere det amerikanske demokratiet selv om et stort flertall ikke ønsket dette. Disse tillot dette fordi de lider av ekstrem mistro mot det politiske systemet som hadde feilfungert i flere tiår, men i grov uforstand nektet å fatte alvoret omkring et parti som egentlig består av rasister og antiliberale krefter som vil ha en retur til rasehegemoniet i datidens USA. 

Obama ser ut til å ha begynte med å gjøre noe, han bifalle nå demokratenes gerrymanderingsstrategi og Newsoms Trump-Copy kampanje, dette kan tyder på at "the Old Guard" av eks-presidenter og andre som muligens også involvere republikanske eks-politikere - ikke lenge kan bare stå og se på. Demokratene som sett omkring Texas er i kaos pga. mangel på ledelse - så det er ikke rart at Obama er på vei inn om det skulle bli alvor. 

'This has got to change now': Ex-GOP lawmaker issues big 'wake up call' to his new party

Og det er ikke rart; noe er så grunnleggende galt, demokratene mister nå stemmegivere for hver dag, at det måtte reageres - som en eks-republikaner; 

"This is during the age of Trump — an insurrectionist, a fascist, a pathological liar," Walsh said. "Somebody who is cruel and ignorant and un-American is the leader of the political party that gained voters, according to voter registration in all 30 of these states. And Democrats lost voters in every single one of those states."

Wilson recently registered as a Democrat, but he said not nearly enough other people were joining him.

"My new political party, the Democratic Party, for the last four to five years has been living in some MSNBC studio, utterly out of touch with where regular folks are," he wrote. "Big-tent progressives: we’re all together, but the national party has been too far-left — or been perceived to be too far-left. They’ve ceded the middle to an authoritarian-embracing cult. They’ve ceded the middle to the Republican Party."

he newly minted Democrat offered some advice to party leaders.

"Democrats must fight," Walsh wrote. "They must get off of their high horse and out of their ivory towers and out of their MSNBC studio and get with regular folk. Listen to and talk about what regular folk care about. And doggone it, you can’t be so freaking far-left and win nationally."

"This is a wake-up call," he added. "And if this doesn’t wake up the Democratic Party, nothing will. In every single state, Democrats have lost voters. Republicans have gained voters over the last four to five years."

Er enig med ham, men å gå til høyre har vist seg lite produktivt, fordi det er en verdikamp hvor fordommer som demokratene er en antikraft mot, piskes opp og brukes som identitetsmarkør for republikanerne - samtidig som stemmeregistreringskontorene finner ut at det bli flere og flere som vil ikke registrere seg til venstre eller til høyre, forbli helt selvstendig. Hva demokratene trenger er å komme i kontakt med vanlig folk - og som sett i New York omkring en muslim, ikke er så konservativ at de ikke takket nei til sosialisme.

Problemet er at demokratene hadde i altfor lang tid vært sett som et riksmannsparti som var "for snilt" mot et parti som stadig jukser hele tiden uten å bli straffet, som fremdeles er preget av "Hard Hat"-opptøyene som skapt en splittelse mellom utdannede og arbeidere. Mange arbeidere i USA villig støtte tollkrig og restriksjoner mot varetilgang fra utenlandet uten å fatte at de lever i fortiden. Så når demokratene vil snakke fornuft med dem, lytte de ikke på dem, men på åpen og virkelighetsfjern retorikk fra løgnere og maktranere. Dette er bare et av mange eksempler på at folk demobiliseres inntil punktet at åpen krig ikke kan utelukkes.

Det som gjør at demokratene taper stort er fordi de hadde gjort samme feil som Høyre i Norge; tviholdt på noe som skulle ha blitt kastet ut tidsnok. Det var en enorm tabbe å ikke presse Biden til å gi seg før det var for sent, og en enda større tabbe å la hans arroganse ødela alt for dem, slik at de mistet mye tillit fordi de hadde skjulte Bidens kognitive tilstand. Nå er det slikt at hver gang Biden åpner hans kjeft, blir han regelrett steinet av rasende demokrater - og er ut av offentligheten. Mange ser derfor mot Obama, som tross alt er populær i folkedybden. 

En eksplosjon har kommet - men ikke med vold, men med enda verre; stupiditet. 

[JK22]

Den andre amerikansk-meksikanske krigen kan starte allerede i midten av september 2025, for det meldes at Trump er meget fast besluttet på å angripe kartellene i Mexico, selv om en samlet politisk ledelse i Mexico City vil ikke akseptere dette. 

Report: Trump Administration Ready to Move on Mexico

While senior military officials acknowledge deeper intelligence and cooperation with Mexico than ever before, there's no sign that Mexico would endorse US strikes. Instead, the stage is being set for operations resembling targeted attacks used in the Middle East, raising the prospect of a new, controversial phase in the US response to cartel violence. Per the New York Times, such unilateral action "would be a marked escalation" in the drug trafficking battle, "putting US forces in a lead role on the front lines against often well-armed and well-financed organizations."

I verste fall kan dette lede til at den meksikanske regjeringen vil reagere ved å halte all samarbeid med USA og mobilisere sine styrker for å avskrekke angrep over grensen, dvs. en militarisering som ikke har vært sett på under ett hundre år helt siden slutten på den meksikanske borgerkrigen. 

Maddow Blog | Trump threatens Colorado with ‘harsh measures’ unless it frees a convicted felon

Alle er kjent med Trumps ulovlige bruk av toll mot Brasil for å tvinge gjennom en løslatelse av Bolsonaro i strid med alle gjeldende regler, men denne saken er derimot lite kjent; hvor han nylig kom med trusler mot den amerikanske delstaten Colorado omkring en dømt forbryter, Tina Peters, som var arrestert og dømt etter de delstatlige lovene for organisert valgjuks under presidentvalget i november 2020. 

An American president publicly threatened to impose “harsh measures” unless an American state releases a convicted felon the president likes.

Dette til tross for at det er snakk om en delstats suverenitet som medlem av den amerikanske Unionen fordi alle delstater har egne lover og dermed er helt uavhengig fra alle andre delstater som føderasjonen omkring oppfølgning av egne lov og straffmåling mot disse som forbrøt seg mot loven. 

But Trump apparently finds that unsatisfying. He wants to free his conspiratorial ally anyway, and so he’s now threatening a state in his own country with unspecified “harsh measures.”

I won’t pretend to know what, if anything, will come of this, but for all of the hysterical and baseless Republican conspiracy theories during Joe Biden’s presidency about “weaponized” prosecutions and a “two-tiered” justice system, Trump and his team are creating the very conditions the GOP condemned. The incumbent president — through his scandalous pardons, his intervention in cases such as Peters’ and his willingness to sic prosecutors on his perceived political enemies — is going out of his way to make clear that his allies will be held to different legal standards than everyone else.

The brazenness is so plainly ridiculous, the Trump administration is hardly even trying to keep up appearances — and there’s every reason to believe this will get worse in the coming days, weeks, months and years.

'This is going to end us': Florida growers warn Trump he's 'killing farming'

Denne artikkelen er en av mange om krisetilstand i den rurale USA som er spesielt hardt rammet av Trumps "økonomipolitikk", denne om deportasjon av illegale og legale migranter som arbeidskraft for landsbruken, som nå er meget hardt rammet fordi millioner utebli, mange har flyttet eller sluttet å komme på arbeid, slik at bøndene er i mangel på arbeidskraft. Det vist seg som i Norge under epidemien at arbeidet er for hardt for innfødte menn i deres yngre alder. 

One strawberry farmer claimed the loss of manpower, due to the immigrant round-ups, is crippling his ability to make a living.

"The government is killing farming. This is going to end us,” he lamented before adding, "I'm drastically cutting down production next year to 35% of what I usually do."

Jeb Smith, president of the Florida Farm Bureau Federation agreed and stated consumers should be alarmed.

"I think the American consumer ought to be concerned about food being a national security issue. Any time that there is a threat to not getting a safe, affordable and abundant food supply, it should be concerning to the American public. We do not want to be dependent on foreign countries for our food. That could be a very devastating reality,” he stated before warning, “That is a dangerous thing to dabble with."

Effektene har omsider kommet. Ingen klarer å fatte dette, men markedet hadde i sommeren gjort et mirakel ved å dempe sjokkvirkningene av Trumps nedkuttingene i statsadministrasjonen - som nå vil merkes godt - og økonomipolitikk gjennom toll og trusler - slik at mange merket ikke dette helt til midten av august. 

[JK22]

Texas’s New Map Is Racial Division by Another Name

I represent the people of El Paso, Texas in the state legislature, a west Texas district that is a 14-hour drive away from the Louisiana border. Yet, data from the Texas Legislative Council indicates that the congressional lines Republicans are rushing through Austin manages to somehow knit 90% of the state’s white voting power across that entire expanse—while slicing Latino and Black communities into pieces so small they have little power to choose their own representatives.

Fueled by rapid Latino population growth, Texas has amassed new congressional seats. But these gains have not strengthened the political voice of the communities driving that growth. Instead, Texas Republicans have, in my view, used racial engineering to make sure Texans of color cannot meaningfully influence elections for Congress or the state legislature.

Latinos now make up a larger share of Texas’s 31 million population than in California, the state often considered the Latino capital of America. Texas also has more Black residents than Georgia, despite Georgia’s reputation as a center of Black political power. Nearly 60% of Texans are people of color, and 95% of the state’s population growth in the past decade has come from those communities. 

Despite this reality, Texas’s new congressional lines position white voters to decide at least 26 of the state’s 38 congressional seats—putting power in the hands of white voters by design, not accident. In another three districts, a “Latino majority” exists only on paper: map-drawers split cohesive barrios, added high-turnout Anglo precincts, and minimized the share of voting-age Latino citizens, handing the keys to white voters in these districts as well. Together, the racially-engineered 26 white-majority seats—plus the three manufactured “Latino” seats—is how the federal and state government openly conspired to gain additional Republican congressional seats. But the Trump Administration’s ambitions come at the expense of Latino and Black Texans.  

Here’s the blunt math on the Texas Republican proposal: under this map, my team and I estimate it would take roughly 445,000 white residents to secure one member of Congress, but about 1.4 million Latino residents and 2 million Black residents to secure the same. In effect, the political “worth” of a Latino Texan is cut to one‑third of a white Texan’s, and for Black Texans, to one‑fifth. On paper the districts are equal in population; in practice the map assigns unequal electoral weight across racial lines. This means that the value of one Latino resident’s vote is worth just one-third the value of one white resident, and a black resident is one-fifth; it would take three Latino Texans, or five Black Texans, to equal the voting power of a single white Texan.

Republicans insist this is just politics. But Texas has a long, well‑documented history of crossing the line from hardball politics to what I would define as unlawful racial engineering. In 2006, the Supreme Court threw out a South Texas district for unlawfully diluting Latino voting strength after a mid‑decade redraw. Federal courts found problems with parts of the state’s 2011 maps, too. Texas operated under federal “preclearance” for decades because of past discrimination. When Shelby County v. Holder in 2013 removed that guardrail, it invited states like Texas to test the limits—passing racially engineered maps that can stand for years while litigation drags on, yielding short-term gains of up to five additional U.S. House seats.

Courts have recently required more Black opportunity districts in Alabama and allowed a second Black district to stand for now in Louisiana, underscoring that the Voting Rights Act still means something when states overreach. Texas, meanwhile, is moving in the opposite direction.

Some Republicans argue that growing GOP support among a subset of Latino voters in Texas justifies these lines. But even if you accept their premise, the Voting Rights Act is about opportunity, not partisan outcomes—ensuring communities of color can form districts where they have a realistic chance to elect their preferred candidates, regardless of party. Here, the state is doing the opposite: cracking and packing Latino and Black neighborhoods to reduce the number of such districts. This potential racial engineering sidelines communities of color and ensures they cannot meaningfully influence elections for Congress or the state legislature.

If this plan passes, Texas Latinos could become the most underrepresented racial or ethnic group in all 50 states. The level of under-representation in Texas’s proposal far exceeds the disparities that courts already forced Alabama and Louisiana to correct.

Maps like this do not merely entrench a party; they entrench a racial hierarchy. By cracking Latino barrios and Black neighborhoods, dismantling multi-racial districts, and fine-tuning the citizen-voting-age share to keep those communities just below the thresholds where they can elect their candidates of choice, the lines ensure white voting blocs remain decisive—even inside districts labeled “Latino.” That is racial vote dilution: it denies Latino and Black Texans an equal opportunity to translate population into seats, and it teaches a generation that their ballots carry less electoral weight because of race, not ideas.

A government that is not accountable to Latino and Black Texans teaches children early that their voices don’t count. Their families, who pay taxes, work hard, and build this state, are told their votes will be discounted by design and that representation can be rationed by color. When districts are drawn to dilute their votes, the message is that citizenship is conditional and equal protection negotiable. That is the very struggle the civil rights movement sought to end: government may not target voters based on race and then claim neutrality at the ballot box.

We have seen this before, from literacy tests to poll taxes—different tools, same result, keeping power just out of reach. A true democracy demands maps that make our government accountable to all of its people, not just the ones it prefers.

 Texas har sluttet å fungere som en demokratisk stat fra den 20. august 2025 og blitt den første rasefascistiske staten i Vestens historie ved å ha et rasebestemt styresystem etter fascistiske kriterier for hender på et parti som nesten bare består av hvite, medregnet disse peninsular latinos med 100 % europeisk herkomst og hvit hud som senator Ted Cruz. Her har et parti bestemt seg for å stenge ut 60 % av befolkningen i Texas til fordel for de hvite som utgjør 39 % av befolkningen. 

I verste fall kan dette lede til splittelse og katastrofe, for det virker som republikanerne ikke maktet å ense at distriktene med fleste demokratiske stemmer og minoritetsamerikanerne er konsentrert langs grensen og den søndre sentrale Texas samt søndre kyststrøk helt opp til Galveston. Delstatshovedstaden, Houston, har bare 21 % av befolkningen som hvite. Denne storbyen er senteren for delstatens energiøkonomi, hvor arbeidere stort sett ikke er hvite, men minoritetsfolk. 

Følgene av dette kan bli snakk om total katastrofe - som i verste fall, om USA skulle kollapse i fremtiden, ser delstaten Texas returnere helt tilbake til utgangspunktet i 1820-tallet, da delstaten var en meksikansk provins. 

[JK22]

Vidunderlig. Om det ikke er nok... 4,000 amerikanske soldater og en flotilje på et dusin krigsskip deriblant tre destroyere og tre landingsskip sendes til kysten utenfor Venezuela. Det mumles i Colombia om dette er krigsforberedelse for å fjerne Maduro-regimet som tross alt er sterkt upopulært.

Maduro Throws A Fit As US Warships Reportedly Set To Deploy Off Venezuelan Coast

China Reacts To U.S. Deployment Of Troops Off Venezuela's Coast, Says It 'Opposes The Use Of Force Or Threats In International Relations'

Colombian President Petro Says U.S. Claim Of Maduro Leading The 'Cartel de los Soles' Is a 'Lie Like Iraq's Weapons Of Mass Destruction'

[sedsberg]

Ingen fare! Trump avslutter kriger. Han starter dem ikke. Det vet jo alle!

[xRun]

I går kunne Trump avsløre at ingen vet mer enn ham om gress. Han vet mer om gress enn noe annet menneske!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-grass-dc-photo-op-b2812223.html

 

Fra tidligere vet vi også at ingen vet mer enn Trump om:
Campaign finance, TV ratings, ISIS, Social media, Courts, Lawsuits, Politicians, The visa system, Trade, The U.S. government system, Renewable energy, Taxes, Debt, Money, Infrastructure, Sen. Cory Booker, Borders, Democrats, Construction, The economy, Technology, Drones, Drone technology.

Forøvrig skal grunnen til at han er så klok og smart være at hans onkel var professor ved MIT, og han kan derfor heller ikke lide av demens.

Ifølge Trump selv, selvsagt.

 

Endret 22. august av xRun

[linux-fan]

https://www.nrk.no/nyheter/dommer-beordrer-at-_alligator-alcatraz_-stenges-1.17537298

Dommer beordrer at «Alligator Alcatraz» stenges

...

Dommer Kathleen M. Williams ved den føderale distriktsdomstolen i Miami fant at delstats- og føderale myndigheter hadde brutt en føderal lov som krever en miljøgjennomgang før store føderale byggeprosjekter.

...

[sedsberg]

https://www.vg.no/nyheter/i/xmL4JX/new-york-post-fbi-agenter-til-aksjon-mot-john-boltons-hus

Quote

— INGEN er hevet over loven. FBI-agenter på oppdrag, skriver Patel på X, fredag.

Bortsett fra Doиald Tяump da, selvsagt.

Edit: Går ut i fra John Bolton nå er historie.

Endret fredag kl 14:07 av sedsberg

[Casey]

Russerne angrep amerikansk fabrikk. Zelensky regerer. Trump reagerer ikke.... Noen som tviler på at Trump er i lomma på Putin?

https://www.nettavisen.no/nyheter/russland-angrep-amerikansk-fabrikk-zelenskyj-reagerer/s/5-95-2580003

[JK22]

Etter den siste høyesterettsavgjørelsen hvor Roberts merkelig nok sluttet seg til de liberale, er det oppdaget en konflikt mellom dommerne, akkurat hva Roberts hadde i mange måneder prøvd å forhindre. De fleste dommerne som ikke kom fra FedSec, har tydelig brutt med den føderale høyesterettens autoritet som har blitt sterkt svekket av konstitusjonsstridige avgjørelser som kan ansees som meget seriøse konstitusjonsbrudd. Vi ser fremdeles dommerne som prøver å stoppe Trump og republikanerne, og disse lot til å utgjøre et flertall mot FedSec dommere som mer og mer har satt seg dels utenfor med deres tydelige partiske holdninger. 

Justice Gorsuch Is Fed Up With Lower Courts Repeatedly Defying SCOTUS

Dette er et tegn på at dommerstanden demobiliseres slik at domstolene ikke lenge kan fungere, ettersom FedSec dommere er fast besluttet på å tvinge gjennom sine ambisjoner om å sabotere det konstitusjonelle systemet, som har dels helt stoppet opp fordi republikanerne nekte å stoppe Trump eller sine ulovlige handlinger. Mange dommere som tidlig var opptatt av å opprettholde autoritetsrespekt, har nådd punktet hvor det ikke lenge er mulig å respektere en høyesterett som er kommet i hender på reaksjonære krefter. 

Opinion: Once again, Democrats have proven how useless they are

Og demokratene sliter svært kraftig. Det vist seg at de demokratiske folkevalgte simpelt ikke har "kampånd" som sett omkring de texanske demokratene som gjort det rette ved å forlate delstaten for å hindre ødeleggelsen av det demokratiske styret, men de valgt å retirere etter bare to uker "fordi de kan ikke vente i måneder". Det vist seg at altfor mange folkevalgte hadde så dyre vaner samtidig som disse ikke fikk finansiell støtte, så disse fant seg i kostbare hotell, luksusboliger og bolig som ikke falt i disses smak. Dette gjør mange meget sint og helt oppgitt. 

Så nå er Texas blitt ikke-demokratisk - og når texanerne innser at de i øyne på resten av verden ikke lenge er innbyggere i en demokratisk stat, kan det bli veldig interessant. Republikanerne nektet og atter nektet å innse hva de driver med, fatte ikke at de er blitt demokratifiendtlige. 

Opinion: MAGA is destroying Madisonian democracy

I have previously attributed the troubling rise of national political polarization to the erosion of the middle class — a deep concern of thinkers as far removed in time and space as Aristotle and James Madison.  But what about the link between the rise of polarization and the concentration of power in the person of the president?

James Madison feared both. In a famous phrase from The Federalist Papers, he warned that “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands . . . may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”  

He concluded that “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition” — that each branch of government must have “the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others.” 

Were he still alive, Madison would no doubt be dismayed at Congress’s dereliction in this regard — and this 119th Congress has been startlingly passive. Republican majority members, fearful of being primaried, refuse to assert their constitutional powers or even carry out basic obligations to vet President Trump’s nominees. 

Madison saw “faction” — that is, rivalry between elected officials across political parties — as anathema to good government. But he saw rivalry between branches of government as essential. 

He feared majoritarian tyranny if one political party, representing a set of narrow interests or ideologies, achieved dominance. He also feared that such tyranny was far more likely when the various branches of government became too chummy, failing to defend their own constitutionally assigned powers. So he aimed at a hybrid and multi-layered political structure that would preclude concentration of power in any one person, institution or interest group. 

The Marshall Plan is a shining example of Madison’s vision: sound policy emerging from cooperation across parties and competition across branches. A Democratic president, Harry Truman, initiated the massive European aid scheme in 1947 — and it could never have been legislated without considerable support from congressional Republicans, who controlled both houses. But the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the one-time isolationist Arthur Vandenberg, was no rubber stamp. He insisted on the plan requiring annual appropriations, strong market mechanisms to ensure productive use of aid, an independent body to administer it and military backing to prevent Soviet subversion of it.

Today, we have the opposite. Few congressional Republicans would ever have dreamed of levying massive global tariffs and changing their rates at whim. Yet virtually none have stood up to assert Congress’s prerogatives and oppose this. Even when Trump endangers national security by reinstating high-end chip exports to China, Republicans stay silent. 

They have further been complicit in ensuring that there are precious few competent and independent voices in the White House by confirming unquestioning Trump loyalists to positions for which they are unqualified, ranging from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy.

On deck now is the Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner nominee, and Trump supporter, E.J. Antoni, whose elevation threatens to undermine the integrity of the nation’s most important and consequential jobs and inflation statistics. It is hard to imagine any of these performance artists passing Congressional muster under earlier administrations. 

Outside Washington, electoral gerrymandering, once pursued with a courtly disingenuity, is now being pursued with an oafish partisan gusto. The president himself says his party is “entitled to five more [House] seats” in Texas. 

In an astounding 80 percent of our states, a single party already controls the House, Senate and governor’s office — a so-called trifecta — or has enough power to block gubernatorial vetoes from the other party. With further redistricting, this figure could hit 90 percent before the end of Trump’s term.  

The upshot is that Americans are increasingly living in airtight partisan state and local political bubbles, while being governed nationally by a single individual openly hostile to the interests of half the population.

From a Madisonian perspective, American democracy is at present spiraling headlong in the wrong direction. In the words of famed Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt, Trump has established and demonstrated his position as “sovereign” by repeatedly “deciding” unilaterally on “exceptions” to the constitutional order, then designating for punishment political “enemies” he sees as obstacles to the exercise of his sovereign will. 

He has singled out former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, former CIA director John Brennan, former FBI director James Comey, Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and New York Attorney General Letitia James for legal retribution — even declaring some of them guilty of “treason.” He has shaken down law firms and universities and even refuses to rule out pursuing a constitutionally prohibited third term. 

Abroad, he has declared outlandishly bogus “emergencies” under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to threaten or impose massive import tariffs — tariffs such as those targeted at Brazil for its judicial prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro. He has even threatened to annex Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal.  

Schmitt, who only died in 1985, would no doubt consider Trump the clearest possible evidence that Madisonian liberal democracy had always been living on borrowed time. If it crumbles further, it may be tragically impossible to recreate. Power is rarely restored to a legislature when arrogated by an executive — particularly when enabled by a partisan judiciary.

Should Democrats regain both Congress and the White House in 2028, payback will likely take priority over reestablishing constitutionalism. Performative conflict will take priority over good-faith cross-party bargaining on policy and personnel.

The burden of saving our system therefore rests with MAGA Republicans, who must slam on the brakes before the road ends.

Vegen vil ende med USAs kollaps. Schmitt kritiserte veldig sterkt "det madisonianske systemet" for manglende evne for å hindre partidominans fra maktakkumulasjon og regelrett sabotasje gjennom misbruk av "checks and balanses"-systemet som likestilte presidenten, kongressen og høyesteretten uten et formelt makthierarki og strukturplan fastslått i konstitusjonen som simpelt glattet over det meste. Allerede i Madisons levetid - han døde i 1836 - hadde presidenter, kongress og høyesterett i tretti år demonstrert de innbygde svakheter uten at det var tatt affære. Men han tolererte dette fordi han ville ha et "valgbart oligarki" hvor oligarkiet skulle dominere alle tre institusjoner - "ambisjon bestrides med ambisjon" - og nektet å fatte at hans motvilje mot å erkjenne partipolitikk åpner for partidominans i senere tid. 

Trump Suggests Chicago Will Get National Guard Next—Here’s Why It Would Be Harder To Do Than DC

Som varslet vil Trump nå sende militære til andre byer, Chicago i første rekke. 

National Guard to be deployed in 19 states to support ICE operations — see if yours is impacted

Og som varslet annetsteds; nå skal militære deltar i deportasjonsoperasjonene sammen med ICE i minst 19 delstater. Det er mulig å se en plan bak Trumps ønsker om å sende nasjonalgardister ut, han vil underligge disse total føderal kontroll, dvs. hans egen kontroll, i strid med loven. 

Om dette fortsette vil det ikke lenge være noe som kan mobilisere lokale militære for å bryte seg ut av Unionen eller gjør motstand mot føderasjonen. 

[AtterEnBruker]

JK22 skrev (11 minutter siden):

Republikanerne nektet og atter nektet å innse hva de driver med, fatte ikke at de er blitt demokratifiendtlige. 

 

Jeg mistenker at de faktisk fatter det veldig godt. De vil ikke ha demokrati, de vil ha hierarki. Hierarki og demokrati er ikke så veldig kompatible, så selvfølgelig må de rydde demokratiet av veien for at deres kristofascistiske, patriarkalske, hvit-overlegne hierarki skal blomstre.

De vil ha et system hvor kun en klasse dominerer over alle andre. "If conservatives become convinced they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." - David Frum.

Dette er hvorfor oligarker som Peter Thiel sier rett ut at de ikke tror på demokrati. Rett og slett fordi det betyr at de må dele på godene. Og oligarker er for høy på sine materielle goder til å dele på godene.

 

[JK22]

AtterEnBruker skrev (5 minutter siden):

Jeg mistenker at de faktisk fatter det veldig godt. De vil ikke ha demokrati, de vil ha hierarki. Hierarki og demokrati er ikke så veldig kompatible, så selvfølgelig må de rydde demokratiet av veien for at deres kristofascistiske, patriarkalske, hvit-overlegne hierarki skal blomstre.

De vil ha et system hvor kun en klasse dominerer over alle andre. "If conservatives become convinced they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy." - David Frum.

Dette er hvorfor oligarker som Peter Thiel sier rett ut at de ikke tror på demokrati. Rett og slett fordi det betyr at de må dele på godene. Og oligarker er for høy på sine materielle goder til å dele på godene.

 

Ikke bare vil det utløse tyranni og borgerkrig, det kan også i det lange løpet leder til massehenrettelser og innføring av kommunisme i løpet av de neste tiårene. Den franske revolusjonen og de etterfølgende revolusjonene i 1789-1871 hadde fått oligarkene til å realisere at de måtte inngå kompromiss med resten av folket - ikke minst når de ble taplidende i slutten. Mange oligarker hadde dessuten oppdaget at det ikke nødvendig var en god ide; i Putins Russland lever de under ekstrem stress med uforklarlige dødsfall, utpressing og maktløshet - i Xis Kina har de tapt så massivt ved å måtte akseptere direktestyre med umulige betingelser som med overproduksjon og overambisjoner (en bro nylig kollapset pga. forhastede arbeid), at de har blitt "treller".

Intel responds after Donald Trump says US is getting a 10 percent stake

Vi ser nemlig liknende tendenser i Trumps politikk. Da han ville ha eksportavgifter på brikker som eksporteres til Kina i strid med konstitusjonen og amerikansk sikkerhet, var dette et inngrep som aldri tidlig var sett - og nå meldes det at 10 % av aksjene i Intel skal - uten å betale en rød øre - underligges statlig kontroll, noe som fikk mange i MAGA til å eksplodere ved å erklære at dette er kommunisme. 

Hva mange oligarkene ikke villet realisere, som disse burde ha innsett pga. lærdom fra den fascistiske perioden 1930-1945, er at statlig maktmonopol vil innbar betydelige restriksjoner og redusert selvstendighet for oligarkene og disses konserner som muligheter - disse føydaliseres gjennom statlig inngrep. Det er hvorfor oligarker klok av skade hadde tradisjonelt satset på folkestyre og demokratiske verdier helt siden disse innså viktighet av stabilitet og politisk uavhengighet - men dette blir helt glemt i de siste tretti år, spesielt av menn som Murdoch som nektet å realisere inntil det var for sent, at man underminere seg selv og sine interesser. Trump vil nå gripe inn i alle konserner over hele USA, og han er i full gang med å tilrane seg enorm finansiell makt, ettersom hans kontroll over statsapparatet og republikanernes galskap gjør det helt umulig for oligarker å sette seg i motstand.

De ser at Trump er sprøytende gal, som villig smadre alt om han ikke få det han vil ha. Hans siste påfunn om toll på møbler uten å fatte at møbelindustrien i USA er avhengig av patenter og import er bare et eksempel på at han ikke bryr seg; selv om effektene nå merkes for folk flest i USA, som innså etter hvert at det står dårligere til enn antatt omkring egenkapasitet. De hadde prøvd å påvirke republikanerne bare for å oppdage at de har mistet makten til ekstremister i deres midte, som utmanøvrert dem ved å gamble på antidemokrati. 

Frum har rett i det med at disse "konservative" som må bedømmes som høyreekstremister er villig til å gi avkall på demokrati - fordi de vil ha et rasebestemt og finansbestemt hierarki basert på nazistiske ideer. 

[JK22]

Is Trump a socialist?

For decades, a core part of the Republican Party’s identity was the whole-hearted embrace of free-market capitalism. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” of the market was understood to be infinitely preferable to government meddling.

Lately, though, President Donald Trump has been having second thoughts. Forget the invisible hand — what about, uh, Trump’s hand?

The second Trump administration has cut a revenue-sharing agreement with Nvidia, it’s taken partial control of US Steel, it’s considering taking a stake in Intel, and it’s created a loyalty ranking system for US companies. And did we mention that Trump has taken to brow-beating companies into not raising their prices in response to tariffs? 

All this adds up to unprecedented intervention into the market, and pushes America toward a “state capitalism” model practiced by countries like Russia, India, and China. The Wall Street Journal’s chief economics commentator, Greg Ip, calls it “state capitalism with American characteristics,” a nod to the Chinese Communist Party’s “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” 

Free-market fans aren’t happy. Neither are most Democrats. There is one small but vocal faction in US politics that has historically been more open to this kind of intervention, so Today, Explained gave a prominent member of that group a call to get his thoughts.

“Obviously, as a socialist, I start from the principle that private industry should be subject to more democratic control and oversight,” Bhaskar Sunkara, president of The Nation magazine and founding editor of Jacobin, told Today, Explained co-host Noel King.

Sunkara talked to King about how the history of state capitalism doesn’t neatly map onto current political divides, why he respects Trump for putting tariffs back on the table, and why he’s skeptical Trump’s latest interventions will do anything for the working class.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

Is capitalism dead? Is it in trouble?

You know, I wish it was dead for a variety of reasons. I think it’s perfectly legitimate for the state to intervene in private enterprise. In the US, we often frame the free market as a conservative ideal and state intervention as a socialist ideal. But history shows it is a lot more complicated than that. 

In the 20th century, right-wing authoritarian governments in places like South Korea and Taiwan used really heavy state direction. They used tariffs, subsidies, and credit allocation to build out globally competitive industries and lift their countries out of poverty. They did a lot of horrible things against political rights and labor rights and so on, but they did that, to their credit. In the US we sometimes just knee-jerk react: More state intervention means more socialism. For me, the real question is: Is what we’re doing coherent? Does it make sense?

My worry with Trump’s approach is that it looks more like ad hoc favoritism and punishing some industries and subsidizing other industries on a whim, and less like a long-term plan.

Where do you stand on the tariffs?

I have a lot of the same concerns. I think that there’s a place for tariffs in the toolkit of creating a viable economy. I think there’s a place for protecting certain industries as part of a wider plan. I really appreciate that Trump in his first term put on the table the toolkit of tariffs and talked about industrial policy. 

I didn’t agree with how he executed those tariffs in his first term, but I think it paved the way for Joe Biden to be much more successful in industrial policy. 

At a time when countries like Germany were losing hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs, the US was gaining hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs. But in this particular case, I just can’t see the long-term plan behind Trump’s use of tariffs, and I really worry that it will make the US, in the long run, a poorer country, and that won’t be good for any sort of egalitarian politics.

The thing Joe Biden was never willing to do was to call companies and say, don’t you dare raise prices on Americans. This is one of those things that, again, with Trump, if you are working-class and you hear that the president has called a corporation or telegraphed to a corporation, the tariffs may be pushing up the cost of goods, but you are not going to raise them on American citizens. It’s appealing. It’s a little strongman, but it’s appealing, right?

I’m not impressed because I don’t think it’s sustainable. 

And also I think Trump was able to get away with this stuff, or has been able to, partially because he is a right-wing president who came in with a lot of goodwill from business. At least initially, he delivered huge tax cuts for the wealthy, and capital at least until recently, I think, trusted him. I don’t think the markets would’ve been nearly as tolerant if it was President Bernie Sanders trying the same thing.

And it’s very clear to people that he’s trying to rig the game to reward friends and punish enemies. And because of that, CEOs like Apple’s Tim Cook feel like they have to play along and stay on his good side. And that’s behind the very awkward and kind of embarrassingly gauche gift-giving. If you visit the sovereigns, you better come with a big, gaudy gift.

The irony is that a lot of the American right has spent decades railing against left-wing, in their mind, strongmen leaders governing in this fashion. And yet Trump is really mimicking the worst of that style. 

I imagine you have rubbed your hands in glee looking at the polling that shows us that Americans are frustrated with capitalism. Young people in particular are giving up on it. Whether you like him or not, President Trump is doing uncapitalism. Zohran Mamdani would like to do uncapitalism. Do you think we’re at a point where the left and the right are converging on America with socialist characteristics?

I love being contrarian. I would love to tell you that Trump’s action is bringing us closer to being a socialist country, but I honestly believe that Trump is taking us further away from my vision of a good society, and further away from any vision of a socialist society. 

I think in part because he’s deploying legitimate tools of economic policy, like tariffs and industrial policy, in such a chaotic, self-serving way. I think he’s going to create a backlash that makes it harder for the left to use those tools in the future.

'Not what I voted for': MAGA decries Trump's latest move as 'socialism'

On Friday, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. government was now a part-owner of a major publicly traded tech company. The reaction among his base was less than enthusiastic.

Trump announced via his Truth Social platform that as of Friday the U.S. is a multibillion-dollar shareholder in Intel as part of an agreement with CEO Lip-Bu Tan — with the U.S. supposedly paying nothing for its new stake. The announcement notably came roughly two weeks after Trump's angry social media tirade against Tan, in which he demanded that Tan "resign immediately" from his role due to his investments in Chinese tech companies.

"It is my Great Honor to report that the United States of America now fully owns and controls 10% of INTEL, a Great American Company that has an even more incredible future," Trump wrote in his signature style of oddly placed capital letters. "I negotiated this Deal with Lip-Bu Tan, the Highly Respected Chief Executive Officer of the Company. The United States paid nothing for these Shares, and the Shares are now valued at approximately $11 Billion Dollars. This is a great Deal for America and, also, a great Deal for INTEL. Building leading edge Semiconductors and Chips, which is what INTEL does, is fundamental to the future of our Nation. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Thank you for your attention to this matter."

While some of the responses to the Trump administration's post on X announcing the news were complimentary, many replies were deeply critical of the government taking ownership of a private company. One user who described themselves in their bio as a "Constitutional Conservative" wrote: "Not what I voted for. I voted against this specifically." Conservative podcast host @amandatalks_ tweeted: "ngl [not gonna lie] don't love this guys."

" I'm a Republican but I do not agree with this," another user posted. "Government and privately owned businesses should not mix."

"Governments shouldn't own private business," tweeted retired Naval officer Mike Rodman.

Aerospace engineer Michael Heil also weighed in, responding to the White House's post by writing: "Not good. Even partial government ownership of private industry is socialism."

Enda mer om den voksende kritikken mot Trumps åpenbare korrupte innblanding i privatmarkedet gjennom misbruk av statsapparatet for å true til seg lukrative godser på bekostning av oligarker og andre som valgt å gi opp fordi Roberts hadde saboterte domstolenes evne for å stanse maktmisbruk mens republikanerne ivret sterkt for sine ideologiske målsetninger som er snakk om å erstatte staten med enmannsregime. 

Republikanerne hadde lenge sagt at de var mot "the Big Government", men nå ser alle at dette er løgn, den føderale staten mer og mer bruker sin makt enn før, samtidig som det er latt merke til at delstatlige republikanerne er i ferd med å sammenføye ulike delstaters lover og praksis slik at de delstatlige forskjellene kan forsvinne - og Trump har innført en "Big Government" som aldri tidligere var sett i historien, med en villighet til å tilsidesette enhver og alt for egeninteresse. Trump har grepet inn på en måte som aldri tidligere var bevitnet i USAs historie, selv ikke i den engelske historien var liknende sett helt siden Stuartene - Karl 2. som ble halshogd var en Stuart. 

Dette kommer til å ende katastrofalt. 

[obygda]

JK22 skrev (6 minutter siden):

Is Trump a socialist?

For decades, a core part of the Republican Party’s identity was the whole-hearted embrace of free-market capitalism. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” of the market was understood to be infinitely preferable to government meddling.

Lately, though, President Donald Trump has been having second thoughts. Forget the invisible hand — what about, uh, Trump’s hand?

The second Trump administration has cut a revenue-sharing agreement with Nvidia, it’s taken partial control of US Steel, it’s considering taking a stake in Intel, and it’s created a loyalty ranking system for US companies. And did we mention that Trump has taken to brow-beating companies into not raising their prices in response to tariffs? 

All this adds up to unprecedented intervention into the market, and pushes America toward a “state capitalism” model practiced by countries like Russia, India, and China. The Wall Street Journal’s chief economics commentator, Greg Ip, calls it “state capitalism with American characteristics,” a nod to the Chinese Communist Party’s “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” 

Free-market fans aren’t happy. Neither are most Democrats. There is one small but vocal faction in US politics that has historically been more open to this kind of intervention, so Today, Explained gave a prominent member of that group a call to get his thoughts.

“Obviously, as a socialist, I start from the principle that private industry should be subject to more democratic control and oversight,” Bhaskar Sunkara, president of The Nation magazine and founding editor of Jacobin, told Today, Explained co-host Noel King.

Sunkara talked to King about how the history of state capitalism doesn’t neatly map onto current political divides, why he respects Trump for putting tariffs back on the table, and why he’s skeptical Trump’s latest interventions will do anything for the working class.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

Is capitalism dead? Is it in trouble?

You know, I wish it was dead for a variety of reasons. I think it’s perfectly legitimate for the state to intervene in private enterprise. In the US, we often frame the free market as a conservative ideal and state intervention as a socialist ideal. But history shows it is a lot more complicated than that. 

In the 20th century, right-wing authoritarian governments in places like South Korea and Taiwan used really heavy state direction. They used tariffs, subsidies, and credit allocation to build out globally competitive industries and lift their countries out of poverty. They did a lot of horrible things against political rights and labor rights and so on, but they did that, to their credit. In the US we sometimes just knee-jerk react: More state intervention means more socialism. For me, the real question is: Is what we’re doing coherent? Does it make sense?

My worry with Trump’s approach is that it looks more like ad hoc favoritism and punishing some industries and subsidizing other industries on a whim, and less like a long-term plan.

Where do you stand on the tariffs?

I have a lot of the same concerns. I think that there’s a place for tariffs in the toolkit of creating a viable economy. I think there’s a place for protecting certain industries as part of a wider plan. I really appreciate that Trump in his first term put on the table the toolkit of tariffs and talked about industrial policy. 

I didn’t agree with how he executed those tariffs in his first term, but I think it paved the way for Joe Biden to be much more successful in industrial policy. 

At a time when countries like Germany were losing hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs, the US was gaining hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs. But in this particular case, I just can’t see the long-term plan behind Trump’s use of tariffs, and I really worry that it will make the US, in the long run, a poorer country, and that won’t be good for any sort of egalitarian politics.

The thing Joe Biden was never willing to do was to call companies and say, don’t you dare raise prices on Americans. This is one of those things that, again, with Trump, if you are working-class and you hear that the president has called a corporation or telegraphed to a corporation, the tariffs may be pushing up the cost of goods, but you are not going to raise them on American citizens. It’s appealing. It’s a little strongman, but it’s appealing, right?

I’m not impressed because I don’t think it’s sustainable. 

And also I think Trump was able to get away with this stuff, or has been able to, partially because he is a right-wing president who came in with a lot of goodwill from business. At least initially, he delivered huge tax cuts for the wealthy, and capital at least until recently, I think, trusted him. I don’t think the markets would’ve been nearly as tolerant if it was President Bernie Sanders trying the same thing.

And it’s very clear to people that he’s trying to rig the game to reward friends and punish enemies. And because of that, CEOs like Apple’s Tim Cook feel like they have to play along and stay on his good side. And that’s behind the very awkward and kind of embarrassingly gauche gift-giving. If you visit the sovereigns, you better come with a big, gaudy gift.

The irony is that a lot of the American right has spent decades railing against left-wing, in their mind, strongmen leaders governing in this fashion. And yet Trump is really mimicking the worst of that style. 

I imagine you have rubbed your hands in glee looking at the polling that shows us that Americans are frustrated with capitalism. Young people in particular are giving up on it. Whether you like him or not, President Trump is doing uncapitalism. Zohran Mamdani would like to do uncapitalism. Do you think we’re at a point where the left and the right are converging on America with socialist characteristics?

I love being contrarian. I would love to tell you that Trump’s action is bringing us closer to being a socialist country, but I honestly believe that Trump is taking us further away from my vision of a good society, and further away from any vision of a socialist society. 

I think in part because he’s deploying legitimate tools of economic policy, like tariffs and industrial policy, in such a chaotic, self-serving way. I think he’s going to create a backlash that makes it harder for the left to use those tools in the future.

'Not what I voted for': MAGA decries Trump's latest move as 'socialism'

On Friday, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. government was now a part-owner of a major publicly traded tech company. The reaction among his base was less than enthusiastic.

Trump announced via his Truth Social platform that as of Friday the U.S. is a multibillion-dollar shareholder in Intel as part of an agreement with CEO Lip-Bu Tan — with the U.S. supposedly paying nothing for its new stake. The announcement notably came roughly two weeks after Trump's angry social media tirade against Tan, in which he demanded that Tan "resign immediately" from his role due to his investments in Chinese tech companies.

"It is my Great Honor to report that the United States of America now fully owns and controls 10% of INTEL, a Great American Company that has an even more incredible future," Trump wrote in his signature style of oddly placed capital letters. "I negotiated this Deal with Lip-Bu Tan, the Highly Respected Chief Executive Officer of the Company. The United States paid nothing for these Shares, and the Shares are now valued at approximately $11 Billion Dollars. This is a great Deal for America and, also, a great Deal for INTEL. Building leading edge Semiconductors and Chips, which is what INTEL does, is fundamental to the future of our Nation. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Thank you for your attention to this matter."

While some of the responses to the Trump administration's post on X announcing the news were complimentary, many replies were deeply critical of the government taking ownership of a private company. One user who described themselves in their bio as a "Constitutional Conservative" wrote: "Not what I voted for. I voted against this specifically." Conservative podcast host @amandatalks_ tweeted: "ngl [not gonna lie] don't love this guys."

" I'm a Republican but I do not agree with this," another user posted. "Government and privately owned businesses should not mix."

"Governments shouldn't own private business," tweeted retired Naval officer Mike Rodman.

Aerospace engineer Michael Heil also weighed in, responding to the White House's post by writing: "Not good. Even partial government ownership of private industry is socialism."

Enda mer om den voksende kritikken mot Trumps åpenbare korrupte innblanding i privatmarkedet gjennom misbruk av statsapparatet for å true til seg lukrative godser på bekostning av oligarker og andre som valgt å gi opp fordi Roberts hadde saboterte domstolenes evne for å stanse maktmisbruk mens republikanerne ivret sterkt for sine ideologiske målsetninger som er snakk om å erstatte staten med enmannsregime. 

Republikanerne hadde lenge sagt at de var mot "the Big Government", men nå ser alle at dette er løgn, den føderale staten mer og mer bruker sin makt enn før, samtidig som det er latt merke til at delstatlige republikanerne er i ferd med å sammenføye ulike delstaters lover og praksis slik at de delstatlige forskjellene kan forsvinne - og Trump har innført en "Big Government" som aldri tidligere var sett i historien, med en villighet til å tilsidesette enhver og alt for egeninteresse. Trump har grepet inn på en måte som aldri tidligere var bevitnet i USAs historie, selv ikke i den engelske historien var liknende sett helt siden Stuartene - Karl 2. som ble halshogd var en Stuart. 

Dette kommer til å ende katastrofalt. 

Skriv gjerne kortere innlegg - splitt dem gjerne opp....

Ellers enig at Trump bare er opptatt av seg og sine. De beriker seg selv...Dette er som så se kommunismen etablere seg der de rikeste i praksis bare karret til seg fordelene. USA er ikke USA lenger.........det er blitt noe helt annet..

 

[Dragavon]

JK22 skrev (23 minutter siden):

Republikanerne hadde lenge sagt at de var mot "the Big Government", men nå ser alle at dette er løgn,

Republikanerene er berre i mot "big government" når det hjelper folket. Når dei kan bruke "big government" til å gjere seg sjølve rikare er dei 100% for.

[Boing_80]

Kan ikke noen snart fortelle keiseren at han er kliss naken?

Trump hevder han har stanset seks kriger

https://www.vg.no/nyheter/i/lwdd0y/trump-hevder-han-har-stanset-seks-kriger

[Zork]

1 hour ago, Boing_80 said:

Trump hevder han har stanset seks kriger
 

Seks og en halv. Da han møtte Zelensky sist forklarte han at bombingen av Iran sine atomanlegg var det samme som å stanse en halv krig, så det teller naturligvis.