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December 28, 2024

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Face-eating leopards, deploy!

The MAGA-DOGE fight definitely calls for laying in a stock of popcorn. As lj says, couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. On both sides.

I suspect the resolution will come down to quantity vs. quality. As Trump defines quality -- which is, approximately, rich. Would he rather have rallies with hordes adoring fans? Or fawning by a handful of billionaires? I'd guess the latter, provided they are willing to keep the bribes flowing.

But the real fun should be in January. Next week, the newly elected Congressmen and Senators arrive in Washington. First order of business: get themselves organized.

That's also the first excitement. The House must first elect a Speaker. Which, if past is prologue, could take a while. Especially with an even narrower majority than last time. And, since the Speaker is the one who swears them in, until they elect a Speaker, they can do absolutely nothing. In fact, they aren't even in office yet.

Including, come January 6, certifying the election of the new President and Vice President. The date isn't rigid, so that's merely embarrassing initially. But suppose, not impossible and actually not that improbable, they still haven't gotten their act together by January 20.

On January 20, President Biden's term expires, so he's no longer President. Ditto VP Harris. But we've got to have a President. Normally, the newly elected President would be sworn in. But the Congress hasn't met and certified the election results, the President-elect isn't automatically it. In fact, he's still just another private citizen. Oops.

Lacking that, per the Constitution, the Presidency devolves on the Speaker of the House. But one hasn't been elected yet. So, we go to the President Pro Tem of the Senate. I think that's Senator Grassley of Iowa, but I'm not an expert in the rules of the Senate.

So Senator Grassley gets sworn in as President. NOT "acting-President" or something. He's now President. And his term runs until 20 January 2029. The Congress can elect a new Vice President, when they eventually get around to electing a Speaker. They could elect Trump as VP**, and then President Grassley could resign. But would they? And would he?

Fun times!

** Making him the first to serve as VP after serving as President.

Face-eating leopards, deploy!

Ritornello...

I think that's Senator Grassley of Iowa, but I'm not an expert in the rules of the Senate.

President pro tempore of the Senate is elected by a majority of the Senate members, usually by unanimous consent. Historically, it's the longest-serving member from the majority party, but that's not required. Top four Senators by seniority are Grassley (R-IA), McConnell (R-KY), Murray (D-WA), and Wyden (D-Oregon).

This is a side show, mostly. Look who's opposing Musk and Ramaswami: Loomer, Coulter, a bunch of wannabes. The MAGA movement adores Trump, but do you think they have influence over him? This is all a bunch of trash talk before the match, a cry for attention from the powerless remora in Trump's wake. Other than the lunatics in the House, they have no power.

Cheez Whiz, that is a very interesting observation. A lot of it depends on who gets access to Trump and I'm not sure if Musk and Vivek can seal Trump off in that way.

Also, it seems that this appointment
https://www.axios.com/2024/12/27/sriram-krishnan-maga-civil-war-backlash
preceded the blowup, which had Loomer slam that appointment, and that seems like the trigger for Vivek's nerds are better than jocks tweet, which was followed by Musk's wading into the fray. You also have David Sacks defending Krishnan

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/global-trends/sriram-krishnan-trumps-ai-advisor-faces-backlash-david-sacks-ro-khanna-defend-him-hi1b-visa-immigration-policy-laura-loomer/articleshow/116657169.cms

The Indian press is all over this because of the racism to Indians angle, but I think that is just epiphenomenal. What I wonder is if the tech bros supporting Trump have enough cohesiveness and organization to come out on top. Meanwhile, Musk wrote in support of the AdF, the German right wing party
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/28/elon-musk-germany-afd-party

Was wondering if Hartmut could say what things are like on the ground?

The AfD leadership is of course delighted (they are much more restrained about the support they get from Putin, I wonder why).
Mainstream politicians express their anger about it but also get criticised for lack of cool, i.e. they get accused of weakness for letting it get under their skin.
As far as the general politicial situation goes, I am as clueless what will happen in the coming year.
It's more or less a given that the Social Democrats will lose the coming election and that the Free Democrats will have completely miscalculated that stabbing the coalition and Scholz in the back would be their ticket to become the junior party in the next ruling coalition run by the Christian Democrats. They will almost certainly lose so badly that they will miss getting into federal parliament at all.
What's completely unclear is how strong the AfD will become and whether the BSW (also great fans of Putin and beneficaries of his support) will win or lose votes. The Green Party will probably be about as strong as they are now but not be part of the next federal government (since the CDU will not yet join forces with them federally while being open to it locally). The general prediction is that the mainstream parties in sum will lose but not yet to a degree as in late Weimar where the extreme left and right together could block anything while unable to form a majority government by themselves.
Putin is quite successful in undermining the population's support of Ukraine. It's not that people switch to his side but they think that the support is getting too expensive and see a danger that Germany could come under direct attack. The repeated cutting of communication and electric cables in the Baltic Sea supports that impression. That could mean growing support for a Munich 2.0 with us in the position of the Western Allies and Putin as AH. Next step: Molotov-Ribbentropp with His Orangeness taking the part of Uncle Joe?
I am not optimistic at all.

Interesting that Krishnan is advocating for more green cards, not just for more H1-b visas.

Hartmut, over Christmas I (somewhat lazily perhaps) referred to the AfD as "nazi adjacent", while bad-mouthing Elon Musk, and was brought up short by someone (admittedly UK rightwing, but on the whole well-informed) challenging it and demanding to know my reasons. It's ironic, considering how long I fought e.g. sapient on calling Trump and the GOP of those days fascist, but I wonder whether you think it was a fair description of the AfD? I admit my language on such things has got a bit looser these days, particularly given that a liberal with Dutch connections told me recently that Geert Wilders was "not really rightwing, or even racist, except about Muslims of course"!!!

It is common knowledge that Trump (and Musk) cannot be *true* fascists, since they do not come from the Fascist Regions of Yurp.

They are merely sparkling authoritarians.

It's all about the terroir, or something that sounds like that.

RIP Jimmy Carter

Just in time, so it will not be His Orangeness who presides over the official send-off.
I assume there will be something of a state funeral.

---

As for the AfD, there is the Flügel (wing) that more or less openly courts Nazi sentiments bordering on and sometimes crossing into actual violations of laws against use of Nazy symbolism (both material and in speech). The original main body of the party that tried to be (or present itself as) 'just' a national conservative and populist party tried to distance itself from the Flügel buth that failed. Some of the founding members were essentially sidelined or outright left. The state considers the party leadership to be RW extremist but it's not easy to actually prove that in court (innocent until proven guilty although obviously guilty like His Orangeness).
As for their voters, xenophobia is an important part and the party siphoned off many from the PEGIDA movement (our version of the 'great replacement' guys just without blaming the Jews for the alleged invasion of Muslims with the intent to turn Europe into Iran or Afghanistan). Eastern Germany is a particularly strong recruiting ground. As in other Eastern European countries the decades long hypocritical communist antifascism bred a RW counterreaction. I think a majority is still more falling for the populism, being disappointed with the mainstream parties, than having actual Nazi sympathies. But those running the show are working on that. And of course Putin is a great help.
In the past rising RW parties sooner or later shook themselves apart and became marginal again. The AfD, I fear, has reached a critical mass.
The question is how long it will take for the traditional conservatives to put their own desire for power over principles and to break the taboo against trying to build a coalition with these guys. They will obviously never learn that this is not the way to win back their voters but to lose even more to them. Our Texas GOP (the Bavarian CSU) long had the iron principle of 'no democrats to the right of us' in order to keep their stranglehold on power (i.e. having a RW going so far that in case of need they could outflank any potential rivals). But since they lost their traditional absolute majority in Bavaria they have become more and more open to the idea of collaboration with RW extremists as long as they put up a facade of respectability. And they begin to infect their federal sister party, the CDU. It's not yet 1932 again but if there is a major crisis, we could get there. And it will be the heirs of those who got us into the mess then who will be responsible next time.
I am not an optimist.

R.I.P. James Earl Carter Jr., at age 100.

The most decent person to hold the office of POTUS in my lifetime. Maybe ever.

A wonderful man, and indeed the most decent POTUS. I am only sorry he lived to see the result of the 2024 election.

May flights of angels sing him to his rest.

Carter’s death, less than 30 days before President-elect Donald Trump’s swearing-in, means the American flag will fly half-staff on Inauguration Day, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

How fitting.

A German expat details the recent events in the German government, the politicians, and political parties.

"On Monday, the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost the confidence vote in the federal parliament paving the way for early elections. But what does this mean exactly? And what happened since my last video about the German government crisis? The answer is: A LOT! Let me fill you in!"
UPDATE on GERMANY’S GOVERNMENT CRISIS - Was it all staged? | Feli from Germany (YouTube)

What's My Line? (Blyden): 1973 episode with former Governor and President Jimmy Carter!

GftNC: I think using terms like "nazi" and "fascist", as tempting as it is, is ultimately a self-defeating strategy, because it allows the opponent to play a game of semantics with the historical precedent. Until they actually exterminate their enemies in droves and start invading other countries, the AfD will be "better than the nazis". (It's the same with "genocide"). I think it might be more helpful to put the opponent on the spot and ask them why they support or tolerate concrete policies and rhetoric of the AfD. Then they can't hide.

Regarding Carter, I think his legacy is, naturally, a mixed bag if you look closer, but better than that of most presidents and his heart seemed to be in the right place.

I know a few Iranians who will always despise him for bungling the situation in 1979 and they have a point (though he was misled by Rockefeller and Kissinger).

He was one of the few people in power who realized the importance of limiting co2 emissions (well, the oil industry actually realized that too at the time, but they decided to bury this information and undermine any attempts to do so), but was of course not successful in doing much about it.

'Fascist' as an isolated term has become completely devalued by inflationary use from the Left (both the communist states and the left flank in democratic countries not necesarily aligned with the former).
To retain any actual explanatory value it has to be refined. E.g. the 'mainstream' political far Right in the US is imo near textbook austrofascist lacking some important elements of classical (Italian) fascism and German Nazism. In particular it lacks the strong emphasis on militarism*. The original fascist movements were dominated by soldiers and former soldiers who made that a core of their identity. I can't see that in either the leadership of the US Right (a number of 'stolen valor' guys imo prove the point) nor of the German New Right (one of the lasting effects of WW2 is a genuine aversion against militarism and military service). Austrofascism was (afaict) the least militarized fascist movement, it was not a quintessential part of its identity.
Another major difference is the active hostility of the US Right against investment in infrastructure that benefits everyone. No fascist party of the past ran on 'tax cuts for the rich' (no matter how much they actually favored the rich elites). On social mobility the bag is mixed. The Nazis were generally in favor (being petit bourgeois in nature), Francist Spain and to a degree Italy were very much opposed. Austrofascism (and the US Right) made hostility to it a cornerstone of their ideology. And while most fascist movements (the Nazis again being the exception) sought to ally themselves with the dominant church of their country, for austrofascism it was fundamental. And the modern US Right is inextricably intertwined with a certain type of (militant) religion too.
The US far Right adopts certain symbols of past fascist movements (imitating Mussolini, copy-pasting of elements of (in)famous Nazi speeches) but those are superficial and serve to appeal to the rubes (including the actual swastika flag wavers) and do not constitute the core.
So, it can be classified as fascist in nature but only a very specific strand, the least 'popular' one (how many people even know the term 'austrofascist' and do not confuse it with Nazism run by a former Austrian?). Unfortunately the US edition does not look like it will be a belly-flop as the original that quickly toppled when the true baddy showed up. It has done and is going to do much more lasting harm than the ultimately pathetic Viennese reactionaries ever could.
Sorry for the lenghty rant.

*I know that certain members here will disagree on that

or lengthy. Oh that grammar nazis would be the worst kind there is!

Oh that grammar typo nazis would be the worst kind there is!

Fixed that for you. :-)

Now define the precise overlap of orthography and grammar. Or is that primarily a matter of intent on part of violators?
Btw, how bad has one to be in playing the viola to qualify as a violator?

Seems pretty open thready.

Happy New Year all!! I wish each of you your best health and happiness. God save us each and every one.

I think the word "fascist" should be avoided because people think it means "Nazi" and then they simply discount it when applied to any contemporary Americans on the grounds that since they aren't Nazis, the people calling them fascists are wrong.

So I think we need to focus on the harm our fascists are doing.

I wish you all a good year too in your personal lives. I have no expectation that life in the broader since will do anything except get worse.

Happy New Year!

Hi Marty! Happy new year to you, and to everybody here.

The closer I get to 70, the further I get from midnight on NYE. Got my jammies on, getting ready to read for a bit, then will probably be out like a light by 11:00 or so.

Here's a fond wish for a good 2025 for all y'all, and for everyone else for that matter. It's probably gonna be weird, so let's do our best to look for the light wherever we can find it.

In that spirit, here's my favorite version of this old chestnut, courtesy of Susan McKeown and the remarkable Lindsay Horner. I probably posted this last year (and probably the year before that), but it's still a good one, so here ya go.

Stay safe our there, kids, and I'll see you on the flipside. May the year bring blessings, however grand or modest, to us all.

Thank you and a happy new year to you and everyone.


I still stay up every year and even went up the hill last night to get a good view of the London fireworks, but that was mainly at my daughter's request, who still finds all of this magical, which is very sweet - she has the passion and energy I sometimes lack, so that keeps us on our toes.

But I'm sure in ten years things will look a bit differently...

Anyway, to quote John and Yoko:

A very Merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

Wonderful version, thanks russell! It does what all great versions of anything do: make you listen as if you're hearing them for the first time.

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