#politico

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Energy Dept. adds ‘climate change’ and ‘emissions’ to banned words list

It is the latest in a series of Trump administration efforts to dispute, silence or downplay climate change.

[d0esery]

I found this online!

White House scheduled to meet with groups on AI and kids’ safety bills - Live Updates - POLITICO

⭐️🇺🇸THEY ARE HAVING A MEETING TODAY ABOUT THESE ONLINE SAFETY BILLS/AI PACKAGE!🇺🇸⭐️

Quote from the article:

"The White House scheduled a meeting Thursday afternoon to discuss legislation regarding kids’ online safety and preemption of state artificial intelligence laws, according to two people granted anonymity to share details of the private briefing and an invitation obtained by POLITICO."

Yeah, so they are REALLY TRYING to fast forward these bills ironing out the details through these meetings!

✊️⚔️CONTACT YOUR REPS! SIGN PETITIONS AND PROTEST!!!⚔️✊️

(Thank you, @devildog452 , for the article :) 💕🙏)!

[contemplatingoutlander]

Trump reverses Army base names in latest DEI purge

The announcement comes just four days before the Army’s multimillion dollar parade in Washington.

President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he plans to restore the names of seven Army bases that once honored Confederate leaders, relabeling them after soldiers who share the same last names.

“We are also going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort A.P. Hill and Fort Robert E. Lee,” Trump said. “We won a lot of battles out of those forts, it’s no time to change.” [...] A congressional aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about closed-door policy talks, said Trump was using a “thinly veiled attempt” to get around the law that directed the Pentagon to remove the Confederate names by finding veterans who “just so happen” to have the same names as the Civil War leaders. The Senate overrode the president’s attempted 2020 veto of the law at the end of Trump’s first term.

The Trump administration insisted this year’s redesignations were in line with laws that prevent the Pentagon from naming bases after Confederate leaders or battles. But Ty Seidule, a retired Army brigadier general who was the vice chair of the Congressional Naming Commission — tasked with relabeling bases and U.S. military assets — said that Trump’s decision went against the spirit of the new rule enacted after the George Floyd protests in 2020.

“The bottom line is he’s choosing surname over service,” said Seidule, who’s now a visiting professor at Hamilton College. “It is breaking the spirit of a law that was created by the will of the American people through their elected representatives.”

Seidule said that the commission, which was made up of three Republicans, one Democrat and four retired flag officers, spent 20 months seeking input from the public and got 33,000 responses to change the names of Army bases and other installations and assets named after Confederates, including Navy ships.

This is just despicable. It would be like the Germans renaming military bases with the names of German soldiers who just happened to have the same names as prominent Nazis.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Trump Will Overplay His Hand. Here’s How to Be Ready.

I lived through the rise of authoritarianism in Turkey. Here’s what I learned.

Aslı Aydıntaşbaş for Politico Magazine:

American democracy is about to undergo a serious stress test. I know how it feels, in part because I lived through the slow and steady march of state capture as a journalist working in Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey. Over a decade as a high-profile journalist, I covered Turkey’s descent into illiberalism, having to engage in the daily push and pull with the government. I know how self-censorship starts in small ways but then creeps into operations on a daily basis. I am familiar with the rhythms of the battle to reshape the media, state institutions and the judiciary. Having lived through it, and having gathered some lessons in hindsight, I believe that there are strategies that can help Democrats and Trump critics not only survive the coming four years, but come out stronger. Here are six of them.

1. Don’t Panic — Autocracy Takes Time

President-elect Donald Trump’s return to power is unnerving but, as I have argued previously, America will not turn into a dictatorship overnight — or in four years. Even the most determined strongmen face internal hurdles, from the bureaucracy to the media and the courts. It took Erdoğan well over a decade to fully consolidate his power. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Poland’s Law and Justice Party needed years to erode democratic norms and fortify their grip on state institutions.

I am not suggesting that the United States is immune to these patterns, but it’s important to remember that its decentralized system of governance — the network of state and local governments — offers enormous resilience. Federal judges serve lifetime appointments, states and governors have specific powers separate from those granted federally, there are local legislatures, and the media has the First Amendment as a shield, reinforced by over a century of legal precedents. Sure, there are dangers, including by a Supreme Court that might grant great deference to the president. But in the end, Donald Trump really only has two years to try to execute state capture. Legal battles, congressional pushback, market forces, midterm elections in 2026 and internal Republican dissent will slow him down and restrain him. The bottom line is that the U.S. is too decentralized in its governance system for a complete takeover. The Orbánization of America is not an imminent threat.

2. Don’t Disengage — Stay Connected

[...]

Nothing is more meaningful than being part of a struggle for democracy. That’s why millions of Turks turned out to the polls and gave the opposition a historic victory in local governments across Turkey earlier this year. That’s how the Poles organized a winning coalition to vote out the conservative Law and Justice Party last year. It can happen here, too. The answer to political defeat is not to disconnect, but to organize. You can take a couple of days or weeks off, commiserate with friends and mute Elon Musk on X — or erase the app altogether. But in the end, the best way to develop emotional resilience is greater engagement.

[...]

4. Charismatic Leadership Is a Non-Negotiable

One lesson from Turkey and Hungary is clear: You will lose if you don’t find a captivating leader, as was the case in 2023 general elections in Turkey and in 2022 in Hungary. Coalition-building or economic messaging is necessary and good. But it is not enough. You need charisma to mobilize social dissent. [...]

Last year’s elections in Poland and Turkey showcased how populist incumbents can be defeated (or not defeated, as in general elections in Turkey in 2023) depending on the opposition’s ability to unite around compelling candidates who resonate with voters. Voters seek authenticity and a connection — give it to them.

5. Skip the Protests and Identity Politics

Soon, Trump opponents will shake off the doldrums and start organizing an opposition campaign. But how they do it matters. For the longest time in Turkey, the opposition made the mistake of relying too much on holding street demonstrations and promoting secularism, Turkey’s version of identity politics, which speaks to the urban professional and middle class but not beyond. [...]

6. Have Hope

Nothing lasts forever and the U.S. is not the only part of the world that faces threats to democracy — and Americans are no different than the French, the Turks or Hungarians when it comes to the appeal of the far right. But in a country with a strong, decentralized system of government and with a long-standing tradition of free speech, the rule of law should be far more resilient than anywhere in the world. Trump’s return to power certainly poses challenges to U.S. democracy. But he will make mistakes and overplay his hand — at home and abroad. America will survive the next four years if Democrats pick themselves up and start learning from the successes of opponents of autocracy across the globe.

Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, who had first-hand experience with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarianism in her native Turkey as a journalist, wrote in Politico Magazine on how to effectively fight Donald Trump’s authoritarian impulses.

[saywhat-politics]

Politico Drops Fact-Check on Trump Smack in Middle of New Interview as He Attacks Them

Politico dropped a fact-check of Trump smack in the middle of their interview transcript after the president lashed out at the publication w

Politico dropped a fact-check of President Donald Trump smack in the middle of their interview transcript after the president lashed out at the publication with a false aside.

Politico White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns dropped a new interview with Trump on Monday morning that was heavily focused on foreign policy, but also covered other topics.

In one exchange, Burns pressed Trump about the potential for military action in Venezuela, and Trump hit back with a crack about the Obama administration keeping Politico “afloat”

The transcript of the interview included an editor’s note that read “Editor’s note: Trump appears to be referring to POLITICO Pro subscriptions that the Trump administration canceled earlier this year as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s effort to trim government spending. POLITICO received no government grants or subsidies.”

[beauty-funny-trippy]

By withholding a quarter of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget, Congress is trying to force him to release the unedited videos of boat strikes against suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea and the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Trump has said he would have “no problem” doing that. Specifically, lawmakers want to look into a controversial follow-up strike on Sept. 2 that killed two survivors of an initial attack, an action some experts warn amounts to a war crime. However Hegseth has publicly backed the decision to kill the survivors who were in the water clinging to the wreckage. Last week top lawmakers on national security committees were shown the unedited footage of the operation. But the Congressmembers disagree about what the video revealed. Some top Republicans contend it vindicates the administration’s position. But House Armed Services ranking member Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said “If they release the video, then everything that the Republicans are saying will clearly be portrayed to be completely false.” The military has killed at least 87 people in the anti-smuggling operation since September — without releasing any evidence that a crime had been committed. Background: The U.S. Coast Guard has a long history of stopping, boarding, and arresting people on suspected drug smuggling boats, which has been its standard procedure for decades. The recent actions by the Trump administration of using military force to kill all those on board without a trial, is a significant departure from the traditional U.S. role of law enforcement in international waters. The 34x convicted criminal is acting criminally. No one could have seen this coming.

[viejospellejos]

Político medio moviéndose entre sus votantes