Saturday, November 30, 2024

30: DOGE



How Native Americans guarded their societies against tyranny When the founders of the United States designed the Constitution, they were learning from history that democracy was likely to fail – to find someone who would fool the people into giving him complete power and then end the democracy. ......... Twelfth-century Cahokia, on the banks of the Mississippi River, had a central city about the size of London at the time. ....... The American Colonists and founders thought Native American societies were simple and primitive – but they were not. ........ Native American communities were elaborate consensus democracies, many of which had survived for generations because of careful attention to checking and balancing power. .......... As they formed these new and more dispersed societies, the people who had overthrown or fled the great cities and their too powerful leaders sought to avoid mesmerizing leaders who made tempting promises in difficult times. So they designed complex political structures to discourage centralization, hierarchy and inequality and encourage shared decision-making........... the oral history of the Osage Nation records that it once had one great chief who was a military leader, but its council of elder spiritual leaders, known as the “Little Old Men,” decided to balance that chief’s authority with that of another hereditary chief, who would be responsible for keeping peace. .......... Another way some societies balanced power was through family-based clans. Clans communicated and cooperated across multiple towns. They could work together to balance the power of town-based chiefs and councils. ........... Many of these societies required convening all of the people – men, women and children – for major political, military, diplomatic and land-use decisions. Hundreds or even thousands might show up, depending on how momentous the decision was. .......... In some societies, it was customary for the losing side to quietly leave the meeting if they couldn’t bring themselves to agree with the others. ........... Leaders generally governed by facilitating decision-making in council meetings and public gatherings. They gave gifts to encourage cooperation. They heard disputes between neighbors over land and resources and helped to resolve them. Power and prestige came to lie not in amassing wealth but in assuring that the wealth was shared wisely. Leaders earned support in part by being good providers. .......... The Native American democracy that the U.S. founders were most likely to know about was the Iroquois Confederacy. They call themselves the Haudenosaunee, the “people of the longhouse,” because the nations of the confederacy have to get along like multiple families in a longhouse. ........... In their carefully balanced system, women ran the clans, which were responsible for local decisions about land use and town planning. Men were the representatives of their clans and nations in the Haudenosaunee council, which made decisions for the confederacy as a whole. Each council member, called a royaner, was chosen by a clan mother. .............. The Haudenosaunee Great Law holds a royaner to a high standard: “The thickness of their skin shall be seven spans – which is to say that they shall be proof against anger, offensive actions and criticism. Their hearts shall be full of peace and good will.” In council, “all their words and actions shall be marked by calm deliberation.” ............. The law said the ideal royaner should always “look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground – the unborn of the future Nation.” ............. Of course, people do not always live up to their values, but the laws and traditions of Native nations encouraged peaceful discussion and broad-mindedness. Many Europeans were struck by the difference. The French explorer La Salle in 1678 noted with admiration of the Haudenosaunee that “in important meetings, they discuss without raising their voices and without getting angry.” ......... Leaders looked ahead and sought to protect the well-being of every person, even those not yet born. The people, in exchange, had a responsibility to not enmesh their royaners in less serious matters, which the Haudenosaunee Great Law called “trivial affairs.”

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Thursday, November 28, 2024

28: India

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28: Adani

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Wednesday, November 27, 2024

27: India

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Sunday, November 24, 2024

24: Bollywood

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24: DOGE

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Saturday, November 23, 2024

23: Maharashtra

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Kriti Sanon, Diljit Dosanjh

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23: India

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Friday, November 22, 2024

22: Hakeem Jeffries



Elon Musk Gets a Crash Course in How Trumpworld Works The world’s richest person, not known for his humility, is still learning the cutthroat courtier politics of Donald Trump’s inner circle — and his ultimate influence remains an open question. .......... For the first 53 years of his life, Elon Musk barely spent any time with Donald J. Trump. Then, beginning on the night of Nov. 5, he spent basically no time without him. .......... For the world’s richest person — not known for his humility or patience — it is a social engineering challenge far trickier and less familiar than heavy manufacturing or rocket science. ......... What he brings instead are his 200 million followers on X and the roughly $200 million he spent to help elect Mr. Trump. Both of those have greatly impressed the president-elect. Mr. Trump, gobsmacked by Mr. Musk’s willingness to lay off 80 percent of the staff at X, has said the tech billionaire will help lead a Department of Government Efficiency alongside Vivek Ramaswamy. ......... In private meetings at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Musk shows little familiarity with policy or the potential staff members being discussed, but he returns repeatedly to a central point: What is required, he says, is “radical reform” of government and “reformers” who are capable of executing radical changes, according to two people briefed on the meetings, who insisted on anonymity to describe the internal conversations. .......... Across Silicon Valley, interest in serving in the Department of Government Efficiency is high. Brian Armstrong, the chief executive of Coinbase, described that work on social media this week as “a once in a lifetime opportunity to increase economic freedom in the U.S. and cut the size of government back to health.” ............ And Mr. Musk was a vociferous defender of former Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, who on Thursday withdrew as Mr. Trump’s pick for attorney general.

What ‘Mass Deportation’ Actually Means The constraints on a mass deportation operation are logistical more than legal. Deporting one million people a year would cost an annual average of $88 billion, and a one-time effort to deport the full unauthorized population of 11 million would cost many times that — and it’s difficult to imagine how long it would take. ..... ......... In fiscal year 2024, Congress gave ICE the money for 41,500 detention beds. This is insufficient for anything that would constitute mass deportation. Extra holding facilities can be spun up as needed, but not immediately — and at higher cost (because of, say, noncompetitive contractor bids) than building a detention facility the usual way. ........... The only people who can be both easily rounded up and deported without a court hearing are those who have already been ordered removed from the United States but are allowed to stay if they come in for regular check-ins. ........ People who have a form of legal status that has lapsed, or legal protections that the Trump administration might try to strip, such as Temporary Protected Status, may be easy to find but won’t be quick to remove. ............... the logistical realities: beds in detention, seats on planes. .......... There are two previous occasions in which the U.S. federal government can be said to have engaged in mass deportation — around the 1930s and the 1950s. Both entailed horrific conditions for those caught and deported, and the tearing apart of families with claims to both the United States and other countries. But in both cases, the federal government ultimately took credit for “deporting” some people it never actually laid hands on — those who had been pressured or terrorized into leaving. .......... making people afraid enough to deport themselves is a convenient and low-cost way to do it. ......... The government will do things that hurt people. It will do things that look scary

China’s Hacking Reached Deep Into U.S. Telecoms The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said hackers listened to phone calls and read texts by exploiting aging equipment and seams in the networks that connect systems..

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Thursday, November 21, 2024

21: Nicholas De Santo

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21: Adani

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21: Donald Trump

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21: DOGE



Musk, Ramaswamy lay out plans for ‘mass’ federal layoffs, rule rollbacks under Trump Tech entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy said Wednesday that their brand-new government efficiency panel will identify “thousands” of regulations for President-elect Trump to eliminate, which they argue will justify “mass head-count reductions” across government. ...... “The two of us will advise DOGE at every step to pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings,” they wrote. “We will focus particularly on driving change through executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws.” .......... Slashing regulations should allow for “at least” proportional cuts to the government workforce .......... “A drastic reduction in federal regulations provides sound industrial logic for mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy” .......... “Not only are fewer employees required to enforce fewer regulations, but the agency would produce fewer regulations once its scope of authority is properly limited” ............ Musk and Ramaswamy pointed to several recent Supreme Court decisions that have taken aim at the power of the administrative state, arguing that a “plethora of current federal regulations” exceed agency authority and could be on the chopping block. ............

“A drastic reduction in federal regulations provides sound industrial logic for mass head-count reductions across the federal bureaucracy”

........... “Not only are fewer employees required to enforce fewer regulations, but the agency would produce fewer regulations once its scope of authority is properly limited” ........... Musk and Ramaswamy preemptively addressed arguments about civil service protections that could potentially block Trump from firing federal workers. ......... “The purpose of these protections is to protect employees from political retaliation,” they wrote. “But the statute allows for ‘reductions in force’ that don’t target specific employees. The statute further empowers the president to ‘prescribe rules governing the competitive service.’ That power is broad.” ........ “With this authority, Mr. Trump can implement any number of ‘rules governing the competitive service’ that would curtail administrative overgrowth, from large-scale firings to relocation of federal agencies out of the Washington area” ........... Government workers are already mobilizing in the face of potential mass cuts, reportedly hiring lawyers and preparing public campaigns while also hoping Congress will step in ........... Musk has spent much of his time at the Palm Beach, Fla., resort over the past two weeks, reportedly weighing in on Trump’s Cabinet picks and attending meetings, including those with world leaders. ........ He also hosted Trump in Texas to observe the launch of a SpaceX rocket Tuesday afternoon.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy: The DOGE Plan to Reform Government Following the Supreme Court’s guidance, we’ll reverse a decadeslong executive power grab. ....... Most legal edicts aren’t laws enacted by Congress but “rules and regulations” promulgated by unelected bureaucrats—tens of thousands of them each year. Most government enforcement decisions and discretionary expenditures aren’t made by the democratically elected president or even his political appointees but by millions of unelected, unappointed civil servants within government agencies who view themselves as immune from firing thanks to civil-service protections. ........... On Nov. 5, voters decisively elected Donald Trump with a mandate for sweeping change, and they deserve to get it. .......... The entrenched and ever-growing bureaucracy represents an existential threat to our republic .......... We are entrepreneurs, not politicians. We will serve as outside volunteers, not federal officials or employees. Unlike government commissions or advisory committees, we won’t just write reports or cut ribbons. We’ll cut costs. .......... We are assisting the Trump transition team to identify and hire a lean team of small-government crusaders, including some of the sharpest technical and legal minds in America. This team will work in the new administration closely with the White House Office of Management and Budget. The two of us will advise DOGE at every step to pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings. We will focus particularly on driving change through executive action based on existing legislation rather than by passing new laws. Our North Star for reform will be the U.S. Constitution, with a focus on two critical Supreme Court rulings issued during President Biden’s tenure.

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