Tuesday, December 31, 2024

Tuesday, December 31, 2024. Look what left outlet is trying to say Kamala and Joe were as bad on immigration as Trump's about to be (and here's the kicker, they're doing that crap while begging you to give them money), MAGA's war with Chump continues, and so much more.

THE NEW REPUBLIC notes MAGA's war with Donald The Chump continues as Laura Loomer joined Steve Bannon to dish that Elon Musk is "a welfare queen." Stephen Collinson (CNN) reports:

Donald Trump’s siding with Elon Musk over visas for high-tech workers is the most significant example yet of the president-elect favoring powerful elements in his new MAGA coalition over his base’s anti-immigrant DNA that he twice tapped in his rise to power.

The boiling holiday feud over H-1B visas exposed new fissures across Trump’s broadened support base and reflected the contradictions between his populist ideology and the self-interests of many of the key players in his refashioned inner circle.

After several days of silence over the controversy, the president-elect stepped in, making clear he supported Musk’s argument for recruitment flexibility for the tech industry.

Musk, the richest man in the world, made his case in a series of outspoken posts on X. “The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B,” he wrote to one critic on the platform that he owns. “I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.”

The visa issue erupted into a full-blown storm following comments by Vivek Ramaswamy, Musk’s co-chair of the Department of Government Efficiency, which Trump has set up to slash the size of federal operations. The former GOP presidential candidate criticized American culture, education standards and children’s TV that he said “venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.” The comments came perilously close to an elitist’s disdain for millions of Americans and their culture that Republicans have long accused Democrats of promoting.

Last night on MSNBC, Chris Hayes addressed this ongoing war.

This is not making for a cheerful lead up to inauguration. Add to that, the fact that we're in the F**k Around and Find Out Stage, as people slowly begin to realize just how stupid they were.

For examples, workers who thought the Chump would rescue them.

Four years? It's going to be like serving time and those of us who got our votes right in 20204 have every reason to laugh during the next awful years at the idiots who didn't know how to save themselves and stupidly thought that a convicted felon with no accomplishments to brag about after his first term would suddenly develop skill and wisdom. Nope, The Convicted Felon didn't change, some voters just got more stupid. Erik De La Garza (RAW STORY) reports:

President-elect Donald Trump’s long-held promise to pardon his supporters who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is drawing fresh scrutiny from a government ethics group.

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, issued a terse statement Monday calling out Trump and his repeated signals that he is willing to grant clemency to those who breached the Capitol as Congress worked to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.

“Some things are fights worth having,” CREW wrote in a social media post on X. “Not allowing Donald Trump to pardon January 6th insurrectionists is one of those things. Two-thirds of the country is with us on this.”

And groups like Latinos for Chump who thought they were the good ones and would be spared.

As we noted repeatedly last year, to target immigrants, you have to target potential immigrants. You have to racially profile. That means, for example, since the US shares a southern border with Mexico, those seen as Latino -- immigrants, citizens, what have you -- would be harassed and stopped more often than those people who appear to be White European. So to those Latinos for Trump, you were always idiots to support the man planning to depot immigrants.

You may have thought you were one with Trump's Anglo White supporters but you were a deeply stupid fool. Edward Helmore (GUARDIAN) reports:

Law enforcement officials in Lincoln county, Oregon, have condemned an anonymous letter encouraging residents to track down and report “brown people” in the Pacific coast community, particularly those believed to be undocumented.

The letter, titled brown round-up part 1, told recipients to write down the license plate numbers of cars driven by people of color in order to identify people who might not have permanent legal status, the New York Times reported. It instructed readers to send that information to the Department of Homeland Security after Donald Trump’s inauguration.

“This type of behavior is harmful, divisive, and inconsistent with the values we uphold as public servants and community members,” Curtis Landers said in a statement about the letter. “Targeting individuals in this manner erodes trust and undermines the sense of safety and inclusion that we strive to maintain in Lincoln County.”

[. . .]

The letter comes as Trump has vowed an unprecedented crackdown on illegal immigration, including “the largest deportation operation in American history”.

Trump’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, said last week he projects needing at least 100,000 beds in immigration detention centers.

“I’m telling you, at the minimum we need 100,000 beds because we’ve got a big population to look for ... 700,000 criminals alone,” Homan told CNN. Homan said the deportation plans will require help from around the government, including the Department of Defense.

“The landing teams have just started working with the agencies and departments. We’ll be gathering information, a lot of information in the next couple weeks, which will help me in my planning process,” Homan said.

On this issue of targeting people, Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) adds:

Adding to alarm over U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's immigration plans, his "border czar" toldThe Washington Post in an interview published Thursday that the administration plans to return to detaining migrant families with children.

Tom Homan, who served as acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Trump's first term, said that ICE "will look to hold parents with children in 'soft-sided' tent structures similar to those used by U.S. border officials to handle immigration surges," the Post summarized. "The government will not hesitate to deport parents who are in the country illegally, even if they have young U.S.-born children, he added, leaving it to those families to decide whether to exit together or be split up."

Since Trump beat Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris last month, migrant rights advocates have reiterated concerns about the Republican's first-term policies—such as forced separation of families—and his 2024 campaign pledges, from mass deportations to attempting to end birthright citizenship, despite the guarantees of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Homan—who oversaw the so-called "zero tolerance" policy that separated thousands of migrant kids from their parents—said: "Here's the issue... You knew you were in the country illegally and chose to have a child. So you put your family in that position."

Chump and Tom Homan are a threat to American families. Some are only now beginning to realize that. Some still can't face reality -- but will have to in 2025. Some opinions on BLUESKY.

Tom Homan wants to take children Who are US citizens And either deport them Or put them into the same type of detention centers where kids victimized by Trump’s family separation policy Which was implemented by Homan Were abused and killed Children Who are US citizens The cruelty is the point

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— Adam Cohen (@axidentaliberal.bsky.social) December 28, 2024 at 10:16 PM

But, of course Tom Homan will profit from his government job of being a dick to immigrants.

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— Freedah Kaylow (@freedahkaylow.bsky.social) December 31, 2024 at 6:14 AM

Last night, Mike noted

When Convicted Felon Donald Trump got re-elected last month, did he announce that for all his appointees "ONLY CROOKS NEED APPLY"? It certainly seems that way Naomi LaChance (ROLLING STONE) reports:

Donald Trump's incoming "border czar" Tom Homan has led a consulting firm that openly brags about helping private companies secure federal contracts. Asked about this work, Homan says he has recused himself "from any involvement, discussion, input, or decision of any future government contracts."

Homan, who previously directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during the first Trump administration, has also led a conservative nonprofit group, Border911, alongside an executive for a major federal contractor.

Homan is notorious for orchestrating the first Trump administration's family separation policy, when migrant children and parents were torn apart at the border. According to a Department of Homeland Security report, as of April 2024, there were still about 1,400 children who were not confirmed to have been reunited with their families.

Last week, Homan made headlines for once again publicly pitching the idea of family separation - this time, with a twist. Homan said he would present families with children born in the U.S. with an impossible choice: separate, or leave America together.

We didn't spend a lot of time on it -- maybe a day and a half -- but we did learn about Teapot Dome in high school. Did those people just go along with it? Because it seems like Chump's setting up something far worse and people are just going along with it.

And Ruth noted Theron Mohamed (BUSINESS INSIDER) reporting on what economists are saying regardin Chump's plan to deport:

. Paul Krugman, a Nobel Memorial Prize laureate and economics professor at CUNY's Graduate Center, in a Substack post

"For the most part, immigrants are complements, not substitutes, for native-born workers."
"So original MAGA is wrong to claim that immigration is impoverishing 'real Americans' in general. But tech-bro MAGA is wrong as well as offensive in saying that we need foreign workers because Americans are stupid or lazy. Furthermore, the availability of less expensive foreign tech workers does reduce the incentive of tech firms to train a home-grown work force and undermines the political incentive to improve our education system.
I'd still argue that something like H-1B makes America richer and stronger, especially given the spillovers generated by a successful technology sector. But Muskaswamy and friends aren't helping their case by insulting Americans' culture and intelligence."
2. Robert Reich, a former US labor secretary and member of President Bill Clinton's National Economic Council, in a Substack post
"Allowing many more skilled workers into the United States reduces any incentives on American business to invest in the American workforce.
Allowing many more skilled workers into the US also reduces the bargaining power of skilled workers already in America — and thereby reduces any incentive operating on other Americans to gain the skills for such jobs.
And opening America to skilled workers also reduces the incentive on foreign nations to educate and nurture their own skilled workforces. Why should they, when their own skilled workers can easily migrate to America?
The major beneficiaries in the US of opening the nation to skilled workers from abroad are CEOs and venture capitalists like Musk and [David Sacks], whose profits and wealth would be even higher if they could siphon off cheaper skilled workers from abroad."

Let's note this.

Some people -- like Tabitha -- told you the truth ahead of the election. Some people flat out lied to you. Might be a good time to note COMMON DREAMS. They're fundraising right now. And if you donate to them, you can support both-sides b.s. Yeah, in August, September and the first half of October, they assisted Donald Chump by repeatedly attacking Kamala Harris every day -- multiple times a day. I have given them credit for finally stopping that b.s.

But?

That Jessica Corbett story above? Read after where we cut her off and you'll find that she's a Trumper because only a Trumper -- faced with Donald's planned round ups -- would then try to both sides it by attacking Kamala and Joe on immigration.

That's right, give them your money so that the kind of center-right garbage that you get on the Sunday chat and chews can reign supreme online as well.

The following sites updated:

REPUBLICANS make absurd claims about TRANSGENDER people.

Lindsey Graham Just Backed into Trump's Little Secret Surprise!

Trump BETRAYS MAGA Base and KNEELS to Musk

Stacey Abrams honors Jimmy Carter: He ‘remade Democratic politics’

Part 5 - Why The Civil Rights Act Is Still Relevant Today For African Am...

Monday, December 30, 2024

Trump Strategy Exposed by Ex-Congressman Who KNOWS HIS Games

No I’m NOT Having a Beer With MAGA

GPMI MONTHLY MEMBERSHIP MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT

The Green Party of Michigan invites you to our Monthly General Membership Meeting!

January 11, 2025

This is a reminder to please attend our Green Party of Michigan working group meeting January 11, 2025 at 11 a.m. Follow the link to register on our website migreenparty.org.
At our December meeting we spoke briefly about petition ideas and several key policy targets of interest. Please join us and bring your individual ideas and suggestions.

Meeting Link

Proposed Agenda

February 8, 2025

We also want to invite you to the Statewide membership meeting February 8, 2025 for our biannual officer elections for the state central committee. The Green Party of Michigan needs ambitious individuals who are passionate about grassroots organization and willing to offer their time and service so Michiganders might have a viable alternative. Committee positions are filled by volunteers like you and are elected by the membership. If you would like to help us move this party forward, please join us to vote, to nominate someone, or to volunteer your own services. We appreciate all that you do and hope to see you there.

The Green Party of Michigan is constantly searching for new and innovative ways to continue serving Michiganders, keeping candidates on the ballot, and to move our party forward without corporate money which invites corruption.

We need the support of the people like you. Consider making a donation today (or become a monthly donor in the amount of your choice!) to help sustain our fight for Green politics and against our broken two-party system.

DONATE!

Discord

Contact GPMI for questions

Email: meetings@migreenparty.org

Sponsoring Group: Green Party of Michigan

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Iraq snapshot

Monday, December 30, 2024. MAGA rumbles with their billionaire bosses.

David McAfee (RAW STORY) reports:

Elon Musk on Sunday asked for "more positive" content to be posted to the social media network he owns, resulting in some reminders about his own negative attitude at times.

Musk, the richest man in the world and an appointee of President-elect Donald Trump, took to X to say, "Please post a bit more positive, beautiful or informative content on this platform."

As the war on the right that he started continues, Elon now tries to offer a new spin to his remarks as he prays to himself that he can fool and control MAGA again:

Elon Musk admitted that the H1-B visas are “broken” and floated a potential fix as he sought to cool a raging civil war within the MAGA base over the immigration program for highly skilled foreign workers.

Just a day after vowing to “go to war on this issue” and telling detractors to “F— yourself,” Musk, the world’s richest man, acknowledged some of the criticisms of the program getting abused and argued that the US should make it more costly to hire foreigners.

“Easily fixed by raising the minimum salary significantly and adding a yearly cost for maintaining the H1B, making it materially more expensive to hire from overseas than domestically,” Musk wrote on X late Saturday in response to a thread claiming H1-B visas were being used to hire low-wage programmers and developers.

If you rested over the weekend and avoided the news, this may be new to you. Here's some commentary that took place on the topic.

Friday night, Ruth expalined "The Chump has hit the fan:"

Did you notice? We are still over 24 days or so before Convicted Felon Donald Chump is sworn in and reoccupies the White House and he is floundering, staggering around like a dying corpse. Chump's betrothed Elon Musk and maid of honor Vivek Ramaswamy have been in the news for their insulting attacks on American workers and insisting that immigrants need to be brought into this country because American workers do not have the skills (Mr. Musk) and they watch the wrong T.V. programs (Miss Ramaswamy). They are now being savaged by many MAGA voters. Brad Reed (RAW STORY) reports:

MAGA influencer Laura Loomer appeared on Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast on Friday to warn President-elect Donald Trump against letting X owner Elon Musk into his administration.

In an interview with Bannon, Loomer charged that Musk had major conflicts of interest and said that it could turn into a major scandal if Trump keeps him in his inner circle.

"I am simply trying to warn the Trump administration about something that is going to blow up in their face," she said. "And it actually has the risked of getting President Trump impeached in his second term if the Democrats take back the House and are able to spin and create a narrative that... they are enriching themselves in the Trump administration. I'm trying to warn them about a serious issue on the horizon."

Monica Sager (NEWSWEEK) adds:

In a stream of posts on the alt-tech social platform Gettr, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon warned that billionaire Elon Musk's "true colors" are showing with the ongoing debate about the H-1B visa program.

"True Colors Shining Through," Bannon captioned a post that included an Axios article about how a "MAGA Civil War" has broken out "over race, immigration and billionaires versus the working class."

[. . .]

Bannon has previously called Musk a "stone-cold liar" and said "his paymasters" are from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), referencing the billionaire's extensive business ties to the East Asian nation.

Bannon had also said that Tesla was Musk's only thing "of real value," adding that Musk "uses it for margin loans." Those criticisms came in 2023 before Musk was publicly a leading Trump supporter.

Former U.S. House Representative Joe Walsh has weighed in, "And you are right -- Musk & Ramaswamy are being eaten right now by an intolerant, nationalistic mob that they played a large role in helping to create. They both deserve to be eaten by their mob." So that is a non-MAGA Republican take.

Musk exploded and raged on Twitter. Then someone emerged on Twitter to defend him -- someone most believe was Musk himself trying to pretend to be someone else. Most who believe that it was really Elon includes Elon's daughter Vivian Wilson.

Elon's daughter thinks Elon is definitely Adrian Dittmann. Personally i have listened to him and he sometimes sound like Elon Musk sometimes not, but if you are to create an alternative personality for sure you will be a bit different.

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— KamallaDreams (@kamalladreams.bsky.social) December 29, 2024 at 7:14 PM

As for Vivek, Ann noted:

What makes someone trash? Maybe insulting their own country. Take this:

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, a close Donald Trump ally tasked with helping to dismantle the federal government, is facing scorn from both sides of the aisle for saying America has a culture problem — it focuses on prom queens and sports over math and science — and that's why tech companies hire more people from India and China.

Don't remember hearing that kind of talk from him when he was trying to get the Republican Party's presidential nomination. He lost. Now he's going to let the country know what he really thinks of it.

He's upset, it turns out, because in the 90s America watched Saved By The Bell. Huh?

No, it doesn't make sense but what also doesn't make sense is that I never watched Saved By The Bell and I'm not the only one who didn't watch. It was probably a popular show but it did not grip me.

He's angry because -- look at him -- he can't do a single push up but America, he insists, glorifies cheerleaders and football players.

Poor little nerd. Someone gave him an atomic wedgie and it traumatized him for life.

Vivek Ramaswamy's stupidity saves him to a degree. It's hard to rage against a hate merchant when they're also offering bad pop cultural references that don't mean -- even on the most basic level -- what they claim. Or does no one get that Ross was the Urkel of FRIENDS and Ross got Rachel and well as good paying jobs?

As the war on the right that Elon started continues, Elon now tries to offer a new spin to his remarks as he prays to himself that he can fool and control MAGA again:

Elon has created a nightmare for Donald Chump. It's harming the brand, the message and the cohesion. It's even left the professional liars at FOX "NEWS" scrambling.Corbin Bolies (THE DAILY BEAST) notes:

The Fox & Friends Weekend hosts tried their best on Sunday to make sense of the MAGA mess over H-1B visas last week, but even they admitted Donald Trump’s flip-flop on the program “left a lot of people confused.”

Hosts Rachel Campos-Duffy, Charlie Hurt, and Will Cain reflected on the online meltdown over the visas, which are backed by close Trump allies Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. The issues, they said, were in abuses of the system that prioritized cheaper labor over Musk-type prodigies.

Even they couldn't make sense of him. But who could? The man who brought hate merchants back to Twitter and allowed Tweets endorsing the lynching of Black people and Tweets calling for the murder of gay people and Tweets where Maga's proclaimed that they were going to go into Target and shoot it up, this man or 'man' couldn't then handle when he was on the receiving end of what he'd done to others. And did you notice? His pep squad -- Matt Taibi, Glenneth Greenwald and the others -- didn't object. It was censorship, they insisted, pre-Musk when Twitter banned people for hate speech. Over the weekend as Musk banned people for being critical, the fake asses said nothing. Not one word.

The MAGA meltdown comes at a bad time for Donald Chump. Tom Boggioni (RAW STORY) observes:

At a time when Donald Trump's inner circle should be working on getting his Cabinet nominees primed for getting Senate approval, now time is being spent tamping down on a foreign worker controversy that has riled the president-elect's base forcing him to have to weigh in.

At the center of the controversy are comments made by Trump advisors Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk about America needing more H-1B foreign specialty workers which has erupted into a war with Trump's MAGA base that had been promised "America First" policies.

He's not even sworn in and already Chump has to address one brewing scandal after the other. Let's wind down with this from Michael Albert (ZNET):

Donald, the idiot, the madman, the consummate cowardly thug is preparing to unleash shock and awe to paint his agenda onto the American and the world stage such as we have never seen before. Day one, two, three…infinity. He will attempt to unleash the hounds of horror. Why?

To impose his horrendous agenda—of course. But what’s his rush? To embrace MAGA ever more intimately and to draw those who inhabit its fringes to its center. To instill well beyond MAGA’s fringes futility so debilitating that we either shut up and hunker down to protect ourselves or we kiss up and hope for a few goodies while others suffer. You doubt this prognosis? Okay, suppose we get oil madness, high waters rising, storms beyond measure, deportations beyond counting, gilded billionaire enrichment, intensified austerity, gutted regulations, fascist retooling of government, international mayhem, and vengeful repressive violence not by shock and awe but by slow boiling in a monstrous kettle. How different is that in the end?

What’s the alternative? Resistance. And what is that? It is saying no by every effective means one can employ. It is no longer laughing and winking. No longer denying what this thug is all about. No longer shrugging it off. It is telling the truth to all in range, so all souls can hear it, openly, loudly, no sugar coating—and trying to act on it.

When someone with the steering wheel of a gargantuan tank revs the motor and hollers I am going to drive this wonderful magnificent machine upside your head, does it make sense to assume that he doesn’t mean it? That he is just joking? Is it sensible to predict that he won’t be able to aim it? Is it wise to say that someone else, something else, is going to stop him? Or to suppose he is just going to run over a neighbor. For those reasons should we not read the news today and instead return to dressing this morning, and tomorrow morning, and the next and the next, preparing each day for familiar life and familiar life only as if there is no tank? There is no emergency? Does it make sense, even, to list reasons why others won’t resist and then proclaim that because they’re not going to resist you won’t either? Maybe it does make some limited kind of sense, but will it stop the tank?

The following sites updated: