Trump stuff; Billionaires wait for huge USSC decision

One source summarized it like this: Florida Man Facing 91 Criminal Counts Wins Iowa Caucuses

But it wasn't a big blowout for the IFM (indicted Florida man), which is rather good news.

Another source commented: Trump poised to win 98 out of 99 Iowa counties

The AP commented: In his closing pitch to Iowa Republicans, Trump says their votes can help him punish his enemies

Germaine’s learned analysis: The GOP is what it is, pro-corrupt dictatorship, and what it is really sucks.

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Lots of sources are reporting that tomorrow, America's authoritarian radical right USSC will hear arguments in two related cases brought by fishermen unhappy about fishing quotas the federal government imposed to keep fish stocks from collapsing due to overfishing. The cases are Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, and Relentless v. Department of Commerce. 

What this is really about is gutting the power of essentially all federal agencies to make and enforce regulations. Billionaires and elite brass knuckles capitalists desperately want this case to be a win for the fishermen. That would be a gigantic win for regulation-free power and the access to more wealth that power brings to the elites. 

The NYT writes:

A Potentially Huge Supreme Court Case Has a Hidden Conservative Backer

The case, to be argued by lawyers linked to the petrochemicals billionaire Charles Koch, could sharply curtail the government’s regulatory authority

The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on Wednesday that, on paper, are about a group of commercial fishermen who oppose a government fee that they consider unreasonable. But the lawyers who have helped to propel their case to the nation’s highest court have a far more powerful backer: the petrochemicals billionaire Charles Koch.

The case is one of the most consequential to come before the justices in years. A victory for the fishermen would do far more than push aside the monitoring fee, part of a system meant to prevent overfishing, that they objected to. It would very likely sharply limit the power of many federal agencies to regulate not only fisheries and the environment, but also health care, finance, telecommunications and other activities, legal experts say.

“It might all sound very innocuous,” said Jody Freeman, founder and director of the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program and a former Obama White House official. “But it’s connected to a much larger agenda, which is essentially to disable and dismantle federal regulation.”

The lawyers who represent the New Jersey-based fishermen, are working pro bono and belong to a public-interest law firm, Cause of Action, that discloses no donors and reports having no employees. However, court records show that the lawyers work for Americans for Prosperity, a group funded by Mr. Koch, the chairman of Koch Industries and a champion of anti-regulatory causes.  

The law firm’s board of directors includes a top lawyer at the firm that has represented Koch Industries in a range of cases, like the company’s past defense against lawsuits linked to its handling of petroleum coke, a byproduct of oil refining, and in its opposition to stronger regulations on the substance.

The lawyer also represents Koch Industries in an ongoing lawsuit filed by the Minnesota attorney general that accuses the company of deceptive practices related to climate change.

As usual, corrupt billionaires and big corporations operate in as much secrecy as they can to hide their clearly authoritarian, government-hating wealth and power agenda. The capitalists (like Christian theocrats) want and mostly seem to get effective plausible deniability for the criticism they are corrupt plutocrats (or theocrats) with no social conscience. 

A decision in these two cases could easily gut the much of the power of federal agencies, which are already vehemently hated by the authoritarian radical right Republican Party (ARRRP). In essence, this case could wind up killing the mythical “socialist deep state”, causing a massive flow of power from citizens and the government to elite radical authoritarian plutocrats and Christian theocrats.

So even if DJT does not win the White House in the 2024 elections, the anti-democratic ARRRP monster has a life and vitality of its own. As I have warned many times here, the radicalized, authoritarian USSC is a major part of the radical right’s democracy-hating monster and it operated independently from the corrupt dictator DJT. In the end, one will probably eat the other. Right now, I don’t know which beast will eat and which will be eaten.

TIME TO PANIC!

 NO! NOT because Trump won the Iowa caucus. THAT was expected. BUT because of............

Germany is preparing for Putin attack against NATO in 2025: Leaked secret plans reveal step-by-step how Russia will escalate conflict to all-out war in 18 months

Germany is preparing for Vladimir Putin's forces to attack NATO in 2025, according to leaked secret plans. 

Secret documents from the German Ministry of Defence reveal a step-by-step doomsday guide on how Russia will escalate the conflict in Ukraine to an all-out war in just 18 months.

The leaked plans, published by German newspaper Bild, reveal in detail the path to a Third World War with Putin using Belarus as a launching pad for an invasion - as he did in February 2022 for his war in Ukraine. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12964575/Germany-preparing-Putin-attack-against-NATO-2025-Leaked-secret-plans-reveal-step-step-Russia-escalate-conflict-war-18-months.html

Whatchathink?

Either a .............

OR..................

US Grant's prescient 1875 speech

The American Presidency Project has Grant's 1875 speech in Des Moines, Iowa. It strongly resonates today.

September 29, 1875

COMRADES:—It always affords me much gratification to meet my old comrades-in-arms of ten to fourteen years ago, and to live over again the trials and hardships of those days, hardships imposed for the preservation and perpetuation of our free institutions. We believed then, and believe now, that we had a government worth fighting for, and if need be, dying for.

I do not bring into this assemblage politics, certainly not partisan politics, but it is a fair subject for soldiers in their deliberations to consider what may be necessary to secure the prize for which they battled in a republic like ours. Where the citizen is sovereign and the official the servant, where no power is exercised except by the will of the people, it is important that the sovereign — the people — should possess intelligence.

The free school is the promoter of that intelligence which is to preserve us as a free nation. If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's, but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition, and ignorance on the other.

Now in this centennial year of our national existence, I believe it a good time to begin the work of strengthening the foundation of the house commenced by our patriotic forefathers one hundred years ago, at Concord and Lexington. Let us all labor to add all needful guarantees for the more perfect security of free thought, free speech, and free press, pure morals, unfettered religious sentiments, and of equal rights and privileges to all men, irrespective of nationality, color, or religion.

Encourage free schools, and resolve that not one dollar of money appropriated to their support, no matter how raised, shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school. Resolve that the State or Nation, or both combined, shall furnish to every child growing up in the land, the means of acquiring a good common-school education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistic tenets. Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate. With these safeguards, I believe the battles which created the Army of the Tennessee will not have been fought in vain.

AI impact on jobs; Billionaires' shameless hypocrisy; Trump stuff

The BBC reports that an IMF analysis indicates AI will have a major impact on jobs:

AI to hit 40% of jobs and worsen inequality, IMF says

Artificial intelligence is set to affect nearly 40% of all jobs, according to a new analysis by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

IMF's managing director Kristalina Georgieva says "in most scenarios, AI will likely worsen overall inequality".

Ms Georgieva adds that policymakers should address the "troubling trend" to "prevent the technology from further stoking social tensions". 

The IMF projects that the technology will affect just 26% of jobs in low-income countries. .... Ms Georgieva said "many of these countries don't have the infrastructure or skilled workforces to harness the benefits of AI, raising the risk that over time the technology could worsen inequality among nations".

Given American political dysfunction and authoritarian radical right ideology dead set against government trying to do anything about problems that any society faces in any country, we can expect little to no domestic or international movement on this developing matter. 

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One outspoken critic of former Harvard president Claudine Gay was billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman. Ackman ripped Gay for alleged plagiarism that was found in her PhD dissertation thesis (and for her inadequate response to questions about anti-Semitism at Harvard before a congressional committee). Gay failed to cite the source of several passages in her thesis. 

Ackman’s outspokenness drew some attention to him, and then his wife Neri Oxman. Business Insider (BI) published allegations that Oxman had plagiarised parts of her PhD dissertation. The WaPo commented on the kerfuffle:

Early this month, Business Insider published two stories that alleged that Neri Oxman, a former MIT professor, had plagiarized some of her work, such as by taking information from Wikipedia articles to write her dissertation. The stories came after her husband, the hedge fund manager Ackman, pushed Harvard University to oust then-President Claudine Gay over concerns that she had mishandled student protests and committed plagiarism in her career. Gay resigned on Jan. 2.

Ackman flew into a snit but, unlike the way other billionaires express their displeasure about inconvenient reporting, he publicly said what he did to try to force BI to retract the stories about his wife’s plagiarism. Axios reported:

Bill Ackman, a hard-charging hedge fund manager, is typical in terms of how he behaves about publication of stories they don’t like. Where he’s not typical is in his willingness to be open about what he did:

When the "Neri Oxman admits to plagiarism story" broke, I reached out to a board member I knew at BI, and to its controlling shareholders, the co-ceos of KKR, and to Mathias Döpfner, the Chairman and CEO of [parent company] Axel Springer. I assumed that with a call or two, I would be able to convince BI or AS to suspend the stories.

BI is Business Insider, a publication that reported accurately that Ackman’s wife, Neri Oxman (an Israeli), admitted to instances of plagiarism in her doctoral dissertation (she failed to put quote marks around several copied passages). KKR is a major shareholder in Axel Springer (AS), which owns BI. Ackman’s assumption was that because Springer owns BI, he could bully them into taking down the story, overriding BI’s editor-in-chief. Oxman’s mea culpa:

Oops, forgot the quote marks,

my bad

Reality check: While it’s true that hedge fund managers often find it easier to talk to CEOs than to editors, it’s incredibly rare for a CEO to override an editor.

Tom Glocer, a former CEO of Thomson Reuters, tells Axios that “I was contacted multiple times (by disgruntled hedge fund managers in particular) when Reuters wrote something less than the adoring hagiography they sought.”

“My standard playbook was to refer the complaint directly to the editor in chief, to let the EIC call the complainant directly, and to remind that person of our separation of church and state.”

The bottom line: Ackman was not being realistic in his assumptions. But he had something of a tailwind because he's Jewish; he was accusing BI of anti-Semitism; and Springer is strongly and explicitly pro-Israel.

Arrogant billionaires like Ackman are the ones often calling the shots about all kinds of things. They buy congress and candidates who will serve them, usually at our expense. Hypocrisy does not faze them any more than corruption does. Getting their way and telling their version of often fake reality is what they expect, demand and often get. Axios implicitly posits billionaire influence on reporting as it being incredibly rare for a CEO to override an editor.

I’m not sure it is incredibly rare for billionaires to influence reporting. Look at Faux News and the rest of the authoritarian radical right propaganda and slanders Leviathan. I suspect elite influence on reporting happens quote a lot. Maybe EICs don’t see a lot of elite complaints because elite political and economic pressure can be exerted in many ways. Maybe the rule is billionaires influence reporting more often than they don’t.

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As commented on here yesterday, various sources are reporting about DJT lying to the court: 

Trump called a judge a 'bad person' for not allowing him to travel for a funeral. His calendar says he’s got a campaign event that day. .... Donald Trump requested the trial date for E. Jean Carroll's defamation trial be postponed. He said he would be traveling on Wednesday to attend his mother-in-law’s funeral. His campaign website shows he’ll be in New Hampshire at a campaign rally that evening.

Bad judge, bad, bad judge! That’ll teach that judge a thing or two. /s

But who knows, maybe DJT will blow the court off and go to the funeral to prove he wasn’t lying about planning to attend. But even if he did that, it’s still not believable as anything other than a forced change in his political theater agenda. The controlling rule of thumb:

Known chronic liars don’t get any credibility or benefit of any doubt.

Vote for DJT damnit, even if it kills you: The Hill reports on DJT’s inspiring call to arms in Iowa today:

Former President Trump encouraged his Iowa supporters to caucus for him at any cost, joking that due to extreme winter weather, “even if you vote and then pass away, it’s worth it.”

Meteorologists warned of “life-threatening” conditions in Iowa for the weekend as the state prepares to caucus. Trump canceled three of his four in-person Iowa events Sunday due to the freezing cold and snow.  

“You can’t sit home. If you’re sick as a dog, you say, ‘Darling, I gotta make it,’” Trump said at an Indianola rally on Sunday. “Even if you vote and then pass away, it’s worth it, remember.”

That speaks for itself. And, he wasn't joking. Remember the rule of thumb stated above.

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From the Feisty Republican Politicians Files:

MLK Was An Inferior Pastor And ‘Communist,’ 

Said Top GOP Candidate For N.C. Governor

In unearthed Facebook posts, Mark Robinson also called the civil rights movement “crap” and vowed to work on MLK Day because he’s “not a leach.”

Martin Luther King Jr. was just an “ersatz pastor” and a “communist,” and the 1960s civil rights movement was “crap,” according to a series of Facebook posts by Mark Robinson, the leading Republican candidate to be North Carolina’s next governor.

Robinson, who is currently the state’s lieutenant governor, regularly criticized King and the civil rights movement for years on Facebook ― specifically on MLK Day ― HuffPost found amid a review of his posts. The Black politician also downplayed slavery, rejected the idea that he’s part of the African American community, and attacked the late congressman and civil rights icon, John Lewis.

There we have it civil liberties fans. At least some elite authoritarian, radical right GOP leaches think that civil rights are crap and working on MLK Day prevents one from being a leach. What a bunch of feisty, slandering parasite hypocrites.