CURRENT EVENTS

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nycfan said:


“… A pocket rescission is a request that’s presented to Congress so late in the fiscal year — which ends Sept. 30 — that it’s made regardless of whether Congress acts.

The clawback includes $3.2 billion in United States Agency for International Development (USAID) development assistance, $322 million from the USAID-State Department Democracy Fund, $521 million in State Department contributions to international organizations, $393 million in State Department contributions to peacekeeping activities and $445 million in separately budgeted peacekeeping aid.

The spending had been destined for a wide variety of nonprofits and foreign governments and was paused earlier this year by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and then stuck in legal limbo due to an ensuing lawsuit filed by the Global Health Council.

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday lifted an injunction in the case, opening the door for Trump to proceed with the first attempted pocket rescission since 1977.…”
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and China applauds and says more room for us to expand our soft power. XI says Trump is the gift that keeps on giving.
 
nycfan said:

Pentagon Orders Reinstallation of Robert E. Lee Portrait, Complete With Slave​


www.mediaite.com

Pentagon Orders Reinstallation of Robert E. Lee Portrait, Complete With Slave

The Pentagon is ordering the reinstallation of a portrait of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that was taken down at the U.S. Military Academy three years ago.
www.mediaite.com www.mediaite.com





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Of the many historical myths perpetuated by conservatives, one of the most persistent has got to be the veneration afforded to Robert E. Lee. For generations after the war he was presented as virtually a Southern saint, a man without any real personal flaws and the perfect Christian gentleman, and someone who, despite supposedly being opposed to both slavery and secession, managed to fight fiercely and to the bitter end for four long and bloody years for both causes.

While he did make some statements opposing both slavery and secession to some extent (and there are contradictory statements from him about slavery and secession, which were mostly ignored after the war), a better clue can be found in his treatment of his father-in-law's slaves after his FIL passed away before the war. Although his FIL's will decreed that the slaves be freed as soon as possible, Lee refused and had them farmed out for hard labor to pay off his FIL's debts, which caused deep resentment as the slaves knew they were to be freed after Lee's FIL died. He broke up most of the slave families on the plantation, including some which had been together since George Washington's time. Lee had several slaves who escaped captured and kept in jail as punishment, and may have had them whipped. When Union forces threatened his FIL's Arlington plantation at the start of the war Lee, instead of freeing them, moved them south to other plantations closer to Richmond, and kept them working as slaves. He petitioned Confederate courts to allow him to keep and work the slaves beyond the five-year limit allotted by his father-in-law's will to free them, but when Confederate courts ruled against him he finally freed them on the last day he could legally keep them.

And that doesn't include Lee's Army rounding up black people in his two invasions of the North in the fall of 1862 and summer of 1863 and sending them South back into slavery, including some blacks who had lived in free states all their life and never been slaves. And that after the war Lee opposed black voting rights and told a US Congressional Committee that blacks were basically lazy and lacked the "intellectual capacity" to vote and hold public office. He also told the committee that he hoped that Virginia would simply get rid of blacks by making them move somewhere else.

Some hero.
 


“…Former presidents receive Secret Service protection for life. Harris, as a former vice president, received six months of protection after leaving office, according to federal law. That period ended on July 21. However, her protection had been extended for an additional year via a directive – not made public until now – signed by then-President Joe Biden shortly before leaving office, according to multiple people familiar with the undisclosed arrangement.

That is the order Trump canceled in his letter, titled “Memorandum for the Secretary of Homeland Security” and dated Thursday.

… But what will now disappear is not just the agents assigned to guard her in person, 24-7: Secret Service protection includes constant analysis of threat intelligence and covering in-person situations, emails, texts and social media. With her detail canceled, Harris aides are worried they will lose the same access to threat warnings, the people familiar with her security operations said. Her home, in the middle of Los Angeles, will also stop being protected by federal agents.…”
 
nycfan said:


www.whitehouse.gov

Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Purpose.
www.whitehouse.gov www.whitehouse.gov
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en.wikipedia.org

Nazi architecture - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Hitler was fascinated by the Roman empire and its architecture, which he imitated with a stripped-down style called "starved neo-Classicism." In 1934, he put Albert Speer in charge of building construction and began an ambitious program to create massive public buildings, including a Führermuseum in Linz, Austria. Hitler had a long-standing vision for a monumental Volkshalle or Grosse Halle, and Speer created a design for a building that would dwarf any structure in existence at the time, with a seating capacity of 180,000 and a dome 16 times larger than that of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The building was meant to inspire awe and emphasize the power of the Nazi state, rather than any spiritual or religious sentiment unlike Roman or Greek buildings.
 

Emil Bove Continued to Work at Justice Dept. After Judicial Confirmation​

The code of conduct for federal judges does not appear to apply to Mr. Bove, who has yet to be sworn in. But his continued presence at the department has raised eyebrows.

www.nytimes.com

Emil Bove Continued to Work at Trump’s Justice Dept, Even After Judicial Confirmation

The code of conduct for federal judges does not appear to apply to Mr. Bove, who has yet to be sworn in. But his continued presence at the department has raised eyebrows.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

“… The code of conduct for federal judges does not appear to apply to Mr. Bove, who court records show has yet to be sworn in. But the fact that he has remained at the Justice Department has raised eyebrows. Some legal experts said that working for the administration after being confirmed could undermine faith in the court system. Others expressed worry that Mr. Bove could expose himself to potential conflicts, advising Justice Department officials on matters that may eventually land before him as a federal judge.…”

——
I mean, it’s not like he has shown any indication that he will be concerned about conflicts. He made it pretty clear politics trumps the law, so why would he observe any customs about conflicts?
 
lawtig02 said:
en.wikipedia.org

Nazi architecture - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Hitler was fascinated by the Roman empire and its architecture, which he imitated with a stripped-down style called "starved neo-Classicism." In 1934, he put Albert Speer in charge of building construction and began an ambitious program to create massive public buildings, including a Führermuseum in Linz, Austria. Hitler had a long-standing vision for a monumental Volkshalle or Grosse Halle, and Speer created a design for a building that would dwarf any structure in existence at the time, with a seating capacity of 180,000 and a dome 16 times larger than that of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The building was meant to inspire awe and emphasize the power of the Nazi state, rather than any spiritual or religious sentiment unlike Roman or Greek buildings.
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Of greater relevance is our Founders' love of classical architecture (Roman and Greek) and their belief that classical designs were an inspiration for the new American Republic and connected it to antiquity by embodying principles like civic virtue, order and noble simplicity.

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson intentionally modeled key buildings in DC on the classical architecture of ancient Athens and Rome. The US Capitol is based on a Roman Temple.
 
Ramrouser said:
Of greater relevance is our Founders' love of classical architecture (Roman and Greek) and their belief that classical designs were an inspiration for the new American Republic and connected it to antiquity by embodying principles like civic virtue, order and noble simplicity.

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson intentionally modeled key buildings in DC on the classical architecture of ancient Athens and Rome. The US Capitol is based on a Roman Temple.
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So should we start teaching Spartan virtues like having children taught to steal ,lie and form sexual alliances with pedophiles? How about abandoning handicapped children to the elements because they wouldn't ever be warriors. Your fantasies of the past are essentially lies you and yours tell yourself to mask your mental and intellectual stagnation.

Neither your party or president knows jack about civic virtue, order and damned sure nothing about noble simplicity. Have you even looked at the New Orleans whorehouse gaudiness that Trump's turning the White House into? What's noble, simple or tasteful about any of that?
 
Ramrouser said:
Of greater relevance is our Founders' love of classical architecture (Roman and Greek) and their belief that classical designs were an inspiration for the new American Republic and connected it to antiquity by embodying principles like civic virtue, order and noble simplicity.

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson intentionally modeled key buildings in DC on the classical architecture of ancient Athens and Rome. The US Capitol is based on a Roman Temple.
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Yes, good point. The architectural preferences of a bunch of people who lived 300+ years ago and who created a constitutional order MAGA is eviscerating are clearly more inspiring to Trump than the architectural preferences of a man who lived 80 years ago, whose seminal book Trump kept on his nightstand, and whose ideology and historical path Trump and MAGA are replicating with increasing precision by the day. Glad you pointed that out.
 
finesse said:
So should we start teaching Spartan virtues like having children taught to steal ,lie and form sexual alliances with pedophiles? How about abandoning handicapped children to the elements because they wouldn't ever be warriors. Your fantasies of the past are essentially lies you and yours tell yourself to mask your mental and intellectual stagnation.

Neither your party or president knows jack about civic virtue, order and damned sure nothing about noble simplicity. Have you even looked at the New Orleans whorehouse gaudiness that Trump's turning the White House into? What's noble, simple or tasteful about any of that?
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I'm on record as not a big fan of Trump's Versailles-like interior design. I am a fan of "classical and traditional" architecture for federal buildings.
 
Yesterday tump issued an executive order eliminating additional union representation under the guise that the departments losing union representation have "as a primary function...national security work." This is laughable for many of the departments being targeted. My department is one of those effected by this. It's bizarre because all of my work expectations and compensation are specifically defined within a collective bargaining agreement that is void, according to this EO. I expected there to be a flurry of messages at work this morning, but it's been totally silent. Very strange.

federalnewsnetwork.com

Trump orders more agencies to nix collective bargaining agreements

In a new executive order, Trump added more federal agencies to his list slated for collective bargaining cancellations “to enhance national security.”
federalnewsnetwork.com federalnewsnetwork.com
 
lawtig02 said:
en.wikipedia.org

Nazi architecture - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Hitler was fascinated by the Roman empire and its architecture, which he imitated with a stripped-down style called "starved neo-Classicism."
Click to expand...
Authoritarians love classical form. Stalin was just as anti-modernist as Hitler. Almost everywhere there is oppression, there are also Corinthian columns. Well, that's a bit exaggerated (and occasionally there are weirdo oppressors like the Khmer Rouge, who wanted to smash everything), but it's generally true.

The authoritarian personality is marked by low openness to experience. Any art that questions the way we think is automatically rejected, in favor of the conventional wisdom usually drilled in during childhood.

When was the last time you ran into an authoritarian jazz musician?
 
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