Barackface: 15: India

Kalkiism: The Economic And Spiritual Blueprint For An Age Of Abundance
The Last Age: Lord Kalki, Prophecy, and the Final War for Peace
The Protocol of Greatness (novel)
A Reorganized UN: Built From Ground Up
The Drum Report: Markets, Tariffs, and the Man in the Basement (novel)
World War III Is Unnecessary
Grounded Greatness: The Case For Smart Surface Transit In Future Cities
The Garden Of Last Debates (novel)
Deported (novel)
Empty Country (novel)
Trump’s Default: The Mist Of Empire (novel)

The 20% Growth Revolution: Nepal’s Path to Prosperity Through Kalkiism
Rethinking Trade: A Blueprint for a Just and Thriving Global Economy
The $500 Billion Pivot: How the India-US Alliance Can Reshape Global Trade
Trump’s Trade War
Peace For Taiwan Is Possible
Formula For Peace In Ukraine
A 2T Cut
Are We Frozen in Time?: Tech Progress, Social Stagnation
The Last Age of War, The First Age of Peace: Lord Kalki, Prophecies, and the Path to Global Redemption
AOC 2028: : The Future of American Progressivism

Put up or shut up, match Trump's India sanctions on Russia oil: Bessent to Europe "They keep saying, 'Oh, the US should do this, the US should do that.' President Trump has imposed secondary sanctions, or secondary tariffs, on India because of their consumption of Russian oil, and the Europeans haven't done that yet." Bessent said........... Bessent accused European nations of continuing to buy refined products from Indian refineries that process Russian crude -- a move Bessent says undermines the West's united front. ......... "We've put secondary tariffs on Indians for buying Russian oil. And I could see, if things don't go well, then sanctions or secondary tariffs could go up," Scott Bessent told Bloomberg TV. ......... US President Donald Trump suggested that tariffs imposed on India may have played a role in Russian President Vladimir Putin agreeing to meet him in Alaska this week to discuss the war in Ukraine. ........... The US imposed a sweeping 50% tariff on India accusing New Delhi of indirectly funding Moscow's war in Ukraine.

DC traffic stop reporting on illegal immigrants a ‘great step,' Trump says — other blue cities could be next

The GOP plot to gain 40 seats without winning any more votes With Republicans and Democrats embroiled in a fight over redistricting around the country, GOP operatives are beginning to openly discuss their plan to leverage institutional power — from statehouses to the Supreme Court — to

usher in a near-unbreakable House majority.

....... In Texas, Republicans are pushing forward a plan to create five new GOP House seats, which alone could be enough to prevent Democrats from retaking the House in the 2026 midterms. The new Texas maps are part of a larger redistricting play, in which Republicans think they can squeeze out a dozen new GOP seats from states such as Texas, Florida, Missouri and Indiana. ......... If successful, that effort could see Republicans pick up more than 40 seats without having to win any more support from voters, according to GOP operatives. ......... the emerging plan on Steve Bannon’s “War Room,” outlining three changes that Republicans are counting on to bail them out of potential democratic accountability: partisan gerrymandering; a Supreme Court ruling that guts the Voting Rights Act; and an unprecedented and unconstitutional mid-decade Census. ............ “Back of the envelope map this morning — when I woke up with a smile — was Democrats could lose 42 seats.” ........ Potentially the most important part of this plan hangs on the fate of Section Two of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This section of the landmark civil rights law generally bans race-based discrimination in voting laws, and has been an important part of the legal framework that currently guarantees House districts where the majority of the voters are a minority group. This then allows members of that minority group the ability to elect their chosen representative. ............ Republicans, however, are hoping the Supreme Court will issue a maximalist ruling that would allow their party to dilute minority voters in the South, effectively eliminating Black representation in Congress in swaths of the country. This would also, in effect, eliminate many Democratic seats across the South. .......... The Republican dominated Supreme Court has steadily dismantled the Voting Rights Act in recent decades, with Shelby County v. Holder in 2013 allowing some states, mostly concentrated in the South, to change the rules and procedures around voting without a federal review. ............ The potential gains for Republicans here are huge. In 2024, there were 141 majority-minority House districts;119 of these districts elected Democrats to represent them. ............ it’s clear Republicans are hoping to be given a free hand to eliminate majority-minority districts altogether. ........... Stephen Miller, Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff, signaled at the purpose of Trump’s mid-decade Census plan when he claimed on Fox News that “Democrats rigged the 2020 Census by including illegal aliens.” Miller made these claims despite the fact that Trump was president and in charge of the 2020 Census. ........... For context, non-citizens have been counted in every Census since 1790, and the framers of the Constitution explicitly included non-citizens in the Census by stating in Article One that it shall count the “whole number of persons in each state.” For the 2020 Census, Trump also pushed to have a question about citizenship included in the Census, acknowledging that the Census was meant to count all persons in the United States, including noncitizens. ........ Miller went on to reveal the goal of Trump’s mid-decade Census plan, saying that “20 to 30 House Democrat seats wouldn’t exist but for illegal aliens.” ......... Charlie Kirk, the right-wing activist who maintains a personal line of communication with Trump, indicated in an interview with the Daily Caller that the Census scheme would also help to lock Democrats out of the presidency and “potentially subtract 20 electoral votes from Democrats in the electoral college system, as congressional seat appropriation is directly correlated with Electoral College totals.” Kirk is a co-founder of Turning Point USA, an organization dedicated to indoctrinating high school and college-age students in conservative ideology. The organization was also among the groups Trump’s 2024 campaign delegated get-out-the-vote efforts to. .......... The GOP’s Census plan will almost certainly be challenged in court. Federal law holds that a mid-decade Census can be conducted, but not used for apportionment. And, since the country’s founding, the U.S. has conducted a Census once a decade for the purposes of apportionment. ........... Democrats in Texas say that this current push from the Republicans — to totally reconfigure American elections to retain power — should be a wake-up call. ........... “We have to continue to overperform to at least get back the majority and be ready for an electoral fight when that happens, because we’ve already seen what happens when this president, or even this Congress, doesn’t get what they want,” Jones said. “They don’t always play by the rules. They just change the rules to make it benefit them.”

Putin enters Trump talks from a position of strength which will see him set foot on American soil for the first time in a decade. ........ Trump has warned there will be “very severe consequences” unless he agrees to stop the war and said Friday that Putin is “not going to mess around with me.” But for the Russian leader, the one-on-one sit down with Trump may already feel like a victory. ......... Elena Ionova, a soloist with Moscow’s Operetta Theatre, also said it was “good that this meeting is happening,” but that she didn’t “trust people on the other side.” She added that she was “worried about Putin’s fate.” .......... A recent survey by independent pollster Levada Center showed that the level of support for the Russian armed forces in Ukraine remained high at 75%, but that nearly two thirds of respondents supported peace talks. ......... Putin hinted that a nuclear arms control treaty may also be discussed. ......... Stanovaya added that she thought Putin intended to “propose to Trump that the war be brought to an end, and will press the point that he genuinely wishes it to stop.” ......... “His main objective is to persuade Trump that Europe and the current Ukrainian leadership are the obstacles to ending the conflict, and that a cessation of hostilities is possible if there are guarantees that Ukraine will not use any pause to rearm,” she said on X, adding that the Russian president “will strongly promote the idea that the U.S. and Russia are two great nations that should maintain good relations regardless of local conflicts.”

Opinion: Note to critics of the Trump tariffs: This is not the 1930s You could practically hear the cheering on Thursday as critics of President Trump finally got what they’ve waited months for — some indication that tariffs might (finally!) drive prices higher. ......... There has never been a country that dominated the global economy as the U.S. now does ......... Today, unlike then, the U.S. is the essential nation for producers of consumer goods. Americans spent $20 trillion last year, compared to $10 trillion by residents of the European Union and $8 trillion by Chinese citizens. .......... The Smoot-Hawley tariffs averaged 59.1 percent on some 20,000 different categories of goods. .......... Three-quarters of Canada’s exports are to the U.S., and exports account for a hefty 34 percent of the country’s GDP. A recent threat to slap U.S. tech companies with a heavy new tax vanished as Canadian officials tread carefully, hoping to eliminate the 35 percent tariff on Canadian imports not covered by the USMCA trade agreement, as well as a 50 percent tax on aluminum and steel imported from Canada. ........... China is the most obvious hold-out to Trump’s tariff regimen. Because of its grip on rare earths that are essential to U.S. manufacturers, and because it supplies a huge amount of cheap goods to American consumers, Beijing has serious leverage over the United States. Like Trump, they are willing to use it. ......... “Between 1929 and 1933,” the Foundation for Economic Education continues, “U.S. imports collapsed by 66 per cent. Exports plummeted by 61 per cent. Total global trade fell by a similar amount.” Some consider the global depression responsible for much of the drop; others blame tariffs. Many economists and analysts today say that history should serve as a warning against the measures being enacted by Trump. ........... o far, most have been wrong. For months they predicted that tariffs placed on imports would drive inflation higher; they haven’t. They predicted that the duties placed on imports would crush growth and lead to a recession. With consumer spending steadily advancing, according to credit card data, those dark days have yet to appear. ........... Bloomberg, MSNBC et the others have enthusiastically promoted the direst of predictions month after month, anticipating each new release of inflation data with the eagerness of kids waiting for Santa Claus. ......... tariffs will almost surely boost prices, but the impact should be modest (after all, imports are only about 11 percent of our economy). ....... The end game for Trump is bringing more manufacturing to the U.S., beefing up industries essential to our security — like steel — and earning significant revenues as a valuable byproduct.

I tested Tesla and Waymo's robotaxis in Austin. Only one felt ready for the future. So far, the service is limited to invite-only and includes a human safety monitor in every car. Musk said in an X post on Sunday that the service will be "open access" by September. ....... My experience with Tesla's Robotaxi shows how far the company has come with its FSD technology since it debuted in 2020. Still, I ran into issues with Tesla's Robotaxi that made me feel it is not yet ready for the masses. ........ Austin's Waymo fleet consists of retrofitted Jaguar I-PACE SUVs. It has five lidar sensors, six radars, and 29 cameras. Tesla's Robotaxis have eight external cameras. ......... the Model Y Robotaxis have some modifications, including self-cleaning cameras and a telecommunications unit that connects with remote operators. ........... One notable moment was when the Waymo was trying to pull out of a parking lot by making a left turn against oncoming cars coming from my left. It was during rush hour, and traffic was packed. A bus to my right had stopped, so oncoming cars to my left had started to form a line. ......... The Waymo decided to squeeze through the space it had and carefully inched forward — almost as if it was telling the other cars, "I'm going to make my left turn, darn it." ....... I took multiple Waymo rides from early morning hours to Austin's 5 p.m. peak traffic time. The average price across eight rides was $10.69. The average pick-up time was about seven minutes. ......... I've hailed Teslas through Uber and Lyft that were driven by humans. During those rides, I almost always got carsick. When riding in Tesla's Robotaxi, I did not get carsick at all (reaffirming a personal theory: Some human drivers don't know how to drive a Tesla). ........ . As we were heading down Fruth Street, Tesla's Robotaxi began to approach a road clearly marked with two "Do Not Enter" signs. ........ it didn't quite feel like the well-oiled service that Waymo delivers. ......... That's not to suggest Waymo is perfect. Even after one hundred million autonomously driven miles, Waymo still makes mistakes. ......... A previous Business Insider analysis of Waymo's progress in California found that between January and March 2025, when it provided more than 1.8 million rides in the Golden State, Waymo saw 7 collisions per 100,000 rides. .......... the company has published data showing a significant safety advantage over the average human driver. ........ Musk said Tesla's ramp-up will be faster — a thousand robotaxis in Austin by the end of the year.

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Friday, August 15, 2025

15: India

usher in a near-unbreakable House majority.

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