Part of the bigoted MAGA authoritarian package is to reassure white men that they are in charge and things will get back to normal real soon. Signs of this are starting to become public. For example, Darren Beattie has been appointed as the acting Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs by DJT's administration. He posted this on X:
His implication is that only white men are competent. So MAGA picks people because they are a certain race and gender? That sounds like DEI!!
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The Kentucky Lantern reports on a case seeking to overturn the right to same-sex marriage has reached the federal court of appeals in the 6th circuit:
CINCINNATI — A lawyer for former Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis argued before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday in a case he hopes will help overturn federal same-sex marriage protections.
The oral arguments focused on the question of whether Davis should pay $100,000 to David Ermold and David Moore for denying their marriage license a decade ago.
After the hearing, Davis’ lawyer, Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver, told the Lantern that his team’s goal is for the appeal to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. The case would provide the justices an opportunity to re-evaluate the decision that guaranteed gay couples equal marriage rights on the same grounds that the court in 2022 used to overturn the federal right to abortion, Staver said.
Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 decision that guaranteed same-sex couples marriage rights, is “on the same shifting sand” that doomed Roe v. Wade, said Staver.
“I think … it’s not a matter of ‘if,’ it’s a matter of ‘when’ Obergefell will be overturned,” Staver told the Lantern. “I have no doubt that Obergefell will be overturned, and the issue will be returned back to the states as it was before 2015.”
This could be the case that kills same-sex marriage. Once it gets to the USSC, probably in May or June of 2025, he USSC could take the case up. However, it might not decide it until sometime before the end of the 2026-2027 term in June 2027. My guess is that the USSC would overturn same-sex marriage, but wait until after the 2026 mid-terms to minimize political damage to MAGA and American Christian authoritarianism generally.
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Actually, the main conflict is facts vs lies,
but let's not quibble
The AP reports about what USAID (US Agency for International Development) does, MAGA's efforts to get rid of it and what Americans think about foreign aid generally:
Over the last two weeks, President Donald Trump’s administration has made significant changes to the U.S. agency charged with delivering humanitarian assistance overseas that has left aid organizations agonizing over whether they can continue with programs such as nutritional assistance for malnourished infants and children.
President Kennedy created USAID at the height of the United States’ Cold War struggle with the Soviet Union. He wanted a more efficient way to counter Soviet influence abroad through foreign assistance and saw the State Department as frustratingly bureaucratic at doing that.
Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act and Kennedy set up USAID as an independent agency in 1961.
Critics say the programs are wasteful and promote a liberal agenda.On his first day in office Jan. 20, Trump implemented a 90-day freeze on foreign assistance. Four days later, Peter Marocco — a returning political appointee from Trump’s first term — drafted a tougher than expected interpretation of that order, a move that shut down thousands of programs around the world and forced furloughs and layoffs.Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, has launched a sweeping effort empowered by Trump to fire government workers and cut trillions in government spending. USAID is one of his prime targets. Musk alleges USAID funding been used to launch deadly programs and called it a “criminal organization.”
About 6 in 10 U.S. adults said the U.S. government was spending “too much” overall on foreign aid, according to a March 2023 AP-NORC poll. Asked about specific costs, roughly 7 in 10 U.S. adults said the U.S. government was putting too much money toward assistance to other countries. About 9 in 10 Republicans and 55% of Democrats agreed that the country was overspending on foreign aid. At the time, about 6 in 10 U.S. adults said the government was spending “too little” on domestic issues that included education, health care, infrastructure, Social Security and Medicare.
Polling has shown that U.S. adults tend to overestimate the share of the federal budget that is spent on foreign aid. Surveys from KFF have found that on average, Americans say spending on foreign aid makes up 31% of the federal budget rather than closer to 1% or less [it amounted to ~0.65% in 2023].
Once again, one see mass public ignorance. The public's ignorance void is filled, as usual in the US these days, with radical right authoritarian lies intended to undermine good government and democracy. My guess is that the benefits to the US outweigh the cost of foreign aid, but that is a point that critics never mention or reject by calling it wasteful. Having a US public that falsely believing that about 31% of all government spending is foreign aid greatly helps to kill US foreign aid and the benefits that flow from it.
Arguments that supporters of foreign aid spending don't seem to resonate much. That includes (i) spreading American influence and enhancing the US's reputation and good will abroad, an intangible but real benefit, and (ii) building markets in countries like South Korea that were once recipients of U.S. aid, but are now significant trading partners, which contributes to the U.S. economy. Guess that's too complicated.
