Project 2025: How to Start a Fascist Takeover in 180 Days!

[Raw Shark]

Reminds me of Graham's Number, so large that the observable universe is far too small to contain an ordinary digital representation of the number, assuming that each digit occupies one Planck volume, but even the number of digits in this digital representation of Graham's number would itself be a number so large that its digital representation cannot be represented in the observable universe. Nor even can the number of digits of that number—and so forth, for a number of times far exceeding the total number of Planck volumes in the observable universe.

It's turtles, all the way down.

[Raw Shark]

To be fair, some regions in this great land of ours have tougher gun laws than others. Good luck getting a permit in Hawai'i or my region of origin, Soviet Massholistan, for example. But in Colorado, it's kind of a running joke that it's like, "Welcome to Colorado. Here's your gun. Are you a 9mm guy? You look like a 9mm guy. Let us know if you need a little more oomph in your *poomph!* and we'll work with you on this."

[Tribble]

Can’t be a good fascist without wanting some Lebensraum:

Trump Says US Should Take Ownership Of Greenland And Threatens Panama Canal Takeover

TOPLINE President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday said the U.S. should seek to gain control of Greenland for national security reasons and threatened to take over the Panama Canal by force, marking the latest in a series of controversial foreign policy remarks Trump has made about allied nations.

KEY FACTS

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump announced he had picked Paypal co-founder Ken Howery to serve as the next U.S. Ambassador to Denmark and wrote: “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”

The Danish government has yet to react to Trump’s comments and Howery has simply said he looks forward to working with the teams at the “U.S. Embassy Copenhagen and U.S. Consulate Nuuk in Greenland to deepen the bonds between our countries.”

While speaking at a Turning Point USA event in Phoenix on Sunday, Trump reiterated his complaints about “highly unfair” fees being charged by Panama for ships passing through the Panama Canal and said the U.S. was being “ripped off.”

The canal was under U.S. control until 1977, before it was handed over to Panama, but Trump said he would demand the “Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, quickly and without question,” unless the Panamanian government met its “moral and legal” requirements.

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino dismissed the suggestion in a video message, saying: “Every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent area belong to PANAMA, and will continue to be.”

Trump responded on Truth Social: “We’ll see about that,” and posted a photo of the U.S. flag over the canal with the text “Welcome to the United States Canal!”

WHAT HAS TRUMP SAID ABOUT THE PANAMA CANAL RECENTLY?

In a couple of posts over the weekend, Trump lashed out at the “exorbitant prices and rates of passage” placed on U.S. Naval and merchant vessels passing through the Panama Canal. Trump then mocked former President Jimmy Carter for “foolishly” giving away the canal to Panama for “One Dollar” during his term in office before accusing the Panamanian government of allowing China to manage it. Trump said the U.S. has a “vested interest in the secure, efficient, and reliable operation of the Panama Canal” and would “NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!”

WHAT HAS TRUMP SAID ABOUT GREENLAND IN THE PAST?

During his first term, Trump reportedly pushed the idea of buying Greenland from the Danish government. According to a 2019 report by the Wall Street Journal, Trump brought up the proposal with “varying degrees of seriousness” with his advisers. He would also listen with great interest whenever Greenland’s natural resources and geopolitical importance were brought up. At the time, Trump’s purported interest was dismissed by Danish authorities, with the country’s former prime minister and current foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen tweeting: “It must be an April Fool’s Day joke … but totally out of season.”

CRUCIAL QUOTE

“The Canal has no control, direct or indirect, neither from China, nor from the European Community, nor from the United States or any other power. As a Panamanian, I strongly reject any manifestation that distorts this reality. And it will continue to be in Panamanian hands as the inalienable heritage of our Nation and guaranteeing its use for the peaceful and uninterrupted transit of ships of all nations, as established by our Constitution and the Neutrality Treaty,” Mulino’s statement added.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityar ... ama-canal/

This is on top of the threats made to Canada (annex as 51st state) and Mexico (how much should the US invade it?).

With friends like the USA, who needs enemies? Canadians may come to regret scrapping our military and refusing to build a nuclear deterrent in the vain hopes that everyone would just hold our hands and sing kumbaya.

[Broomstick]

Hold the fucking phone...Speaker of the House of Representatives, which thanks to the Presidential line of succession is first in line if Trump and Vance go kablam-o, doesn't have to be an elected person at all?

At this point I remind you that Gerald Ford, 38th President of the United States, was not elected to that office.

1) Spiro Agnew, Nixon's VP, resigned due to tax problems
2) Nixon appointed Ford as VP
3) Nixon resigned, making Ford PotUS.

The hitch here is that, because Elon Musk is a naturalized US citizen and was not born a citizen he is ineligible to be PotUS (baring a constitutional amendment which would almost certainly take years and years to pass). Even if he was Speaker of the House and Something Dire happened the succession would pass over him to the next eligible person in line.

How in the flying fuck does that work? You Yanks seem to have fetishised elections to the point you elect law enforcement officers and the fucking judiciary, but a non-elected person can be Speaker (and, again, 2nd in the line of succession)?

Well... technically he would be elected by Congress I suppose. But yeah, he would not have been elected in a general election where the citizens are voting.

I knew the US had some bonkers elements of it's political system but seriously?

Pretty sure the guys who wrote the US constitution 200+ years ago did not anticipate our current situation...

[Batman]

Your current situation was predictable enough they made a movie about it in 2006 but I agree the Founding Fathers probably didn't expect something this immeasurably stupid.

[Ralin]

Hold the fucking phone...Speaker of the House of Representatives, which thanks to the Presidential line of succession is first in line if Trump and Vance go kablam-o, doesn't have to be an elected person at all?

How in the flying fuck does that work? You Yanks seem to have fetishised elections to the point you elect law enforcement officers and the fucking judiciary, but a non-elected person can be Speaker (and, again, 2nd in the line of succession)?

I mean...yeah? Further down on the list are people like the head of the Department of Agriculture. Past a certain point there isn't way to not have unelected people in the line of succession unless we just decide to hold a lottery and appoint whichever senator wins.

You might say that second in line is earlier than that point should be, but that's only true in one or two really weird edge cases that have never happened. It's not exactly a big deal.

[bilateralrope]

Federal Officials Resorting To In-Person Meetings With Trump Transition Team, Since They Insist On Using Easily Hacked Private Email

from the but-their-emails dept
Mon, Dec 23rd 2024 01:01pm - Tim Cushing

There’s usually only one reason government officials use personal email accounts: to dodge FOIA requests. The excuses offered by those caught doing it are never credible. And those who do opt for personal email — especially at the federal level — are putting themselves in peril. There are also practical security reasons for using government email addresses.

A lot of Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign focused on his opponent’s use of a personal email server to handle official State Department business. The FBI even looked into this before deciding (twice!) Hillary Clinton’s personal email server was careless and stupid, but probably not criminal.

When Trump first took office, he shamelessly did the same thing. Many members of his staff continued to use personal email addresses to conduct government business, both increasing their chances of being compromised by foreign hackers and decreasing the chances that the public could gain access to these communications via FOIA requests.

The trend continues with Trump’s second term. No lessons have been learned during his four years away from the office of president. Or, perhaps, the only lessons Trump and his team desired to learn — that using private email is a pretty good opacity option — have been taken to heart.

Unfortunately for those having to (also unfortunately) welcome him back to office, he and his team’s insistence on using personal email accounts has created security risks that can’t be mitigated without pretty much forgoing electronic communications altogether, as Alice Ollstein reports for Politico:

Federal officials say they’re worried about sharing documents via email with Donald Trump’s transition team because the incoming officials are eschewing government devices, email addresses and cybersecurity support, raising fears that they could potentially expose sensitive government data.

The private emails have agency employees considering insisting on in-person meetings and document exchanges that they otherwise would have conducted electronically, according to two federal officials granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation. Their anxiety is particularly high in light of recent hacking attempts from China and Iran that targeted Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and other top officials.

If nothing else, this is going to slow down the transition. But more than that, it shows Trump and his hand-picked team are still unwilling to abide by the normal transfer-of-power flow that had pretty much gone uninterrupted until Donald Trump refused to accept the results of the previous election.

Granted, Trump is not officially president yet and his staffers are not yet official government employees. But for the sake of the nation, it would make sense to operate within the normally accepted confines, if for no other reason than doing so decreases the attack surface that can be exploited by hostile nations and their state-sanctioned hacking attempts.

Proving yet again he only cares about anti-Biden optics and maintaining as much direct control of his sycophants, Trump and his team have decided to handle this transition by utilizing an all-you-can-eat buffet of easily-compromised accounts and devices.

Trump — who attacked his then-opponent Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server for official business during his first presidential run — is overseeing a fully privatized transition that communicates from an array of @transition47.com, @trumpvancetransition.com and @djtfp24.com accounts rather than anything ending in .gov, and uses private servers, laptops and cell phones instead of government-issued devices.

All hail the returning Commander-in-Chief, a man so self-absorbed he’s willing to threaten the security of the nation during his transition back into public office. Not that any of this will matter to him, his team, or his millions of supporters. If nothing else, they’ll present this as another form of “owning the libs” and nail themselves to the nearest cross the moment malicious hackers access anything they’ve deliberately left unprotected. It’s win-win for Trump. But it’s an undeniable loss for the nation and an insult to the long-held expectation that people assuming the office of Leader of the Free World will act respectfully and responsibly when being handed this exorbitant amount of power.

Even Trump's incoming administration is causing delays for itself.

[Zaune]

I mean...yeah? Further down on the list are people like the head of the Department of Agriculture. Past a certain point there isn't way to not have unelected people in the line of succession unless we just decide to hold a lottery and appoint whichever senator wins.

Or do what we do and require the secretary of each government department be an elected member of Congress as well, I suppose. Which has its own disadvantages but at least offers additional pathways for getting shot of particularly stupid, corrupt or otherwise unpleasant ones without changing the entire government.