Politics & Stuff

[Fulham Broadway 17,306]

2 hours ago, Vesper said:

London yesterday

Saw that 😃

Tesla shares have also dropped 9%

Sooner he fucks off to Mars the better

[Vesper 30,120]

"A woman is like a child": MAGA quickly turns its sights on stripping Republican women of power

Conservative women believe complicity will save them. But an emboldened far-right is gunning for their rights

https://www.salon.com/2025/02/26/a-woman-is-like-a-child-maga-quickly-turns-its-sights-on-stripping-women-of-power/

For decades, the anti-abortion movement has aggressively promoted women into visible leadership roles. It's for cynical reasons, namely, to bat off entirely accurate accusations that the movement is misogynist. Never mind that there have always been women who are eager to police the bodies and behavior of other women. Enough people are credulous or at least disingenuous enough to think that "I'm a woman, which means I can't hate other women" is an actual argument. For ambitious women who wanted to climb the ranks of Republican politics, anti-feminism has long been the steadiest of ladders. The propaganda value of their gender outweighed their party's larger hostility to women in leadership. 

But now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned and Donald Trump is back in the White House, many on the right feel they no longer need to hide the naked sexism fueling their movement or put up with the annoyance of women in even token leadership positions. As Kiera Butler at Mother Jones reports, the anti-abortion movement is embroiled in an escalating civil war right now over these issues. Male leaders of the Christian right have been swarming Kristan Hawkins, the 39-year-old head of a "student" anti-abortion group, demanding her ejection from the movement. It started after she objected to Republican legislators introducing bills to charge women who get abortions with murder, an extreme move she fears will backfire on the movement. But mostly it was about growing male anger on the Christian right that women are allowed leadership positions at all. 

"Removed [sic] this woman from public service," declared influential Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon, part of the "TheoBros" movement that includes the leadership of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's church. Soon other TheoBros jumped in, declaring "We need Christian men leading the fight against abortion," arguing that women's suffrage was a mistake, and accusing Hawkins of emasculating her husband by being "busy jet-setting."

Forty-five percent of female voters backed Trump in 2024, despite his overt misogyny. Most, no doubt, believed that complicity would protect them and that the attacks would be centered on other women. But while the GOP certainly wants to strip liberal and feminist women of their rights, male MAGA leaders are showing increasing interest in bringing Republican women to heel, both culturally and through the force of law. After all, they are more likely to live and work with Republican women. If they want to feel the full flowering of male domination, it's Republican women they need to see submitting. 

Webbon and the TheoBros have been clamoring more loudly in recent months about their wish to strip women, especially their own wives, of the right to vote. "You won't let women vote? Well, our society doesn't let five-year-olds vote," Webbon explained in a May podcast. He added that "a woman is like a child" and that "God has appointed men to protect them." As Sarah Stankorb at the New Republic documented, there has been growing support in Christian nationalist circles "for the repeal of the 19th Amendment and support a 'household vote' system in which men vote on behalf of their families." Hegseth's former sister-in-law reports she heard him echo similar sentiments. 

This isn't mere idle chatter, either. House Republicans passed a bill (which stalled in the Senate) this session to require citizens to have a passport or birth certificate matching their name to vote. This would be a back-door ban on voting for any woman who took her husband's last name and doesn't have a passport, an estimated 69 million women. It would also disproportionately affect Republican women, who are more likely to be married, more likely to have changed their name and less likely to have a passport. 

Similarly, there's been a slowly rising volume on the right of talk about banning no-fault divorce, fueled by Republicans like Vice President JD Vance saying it's too easy for women — even those in abusive marriages — to leave their marriages. Legislators in red states are filing more bills to do so, and while it's unlikely any will pass soon, the goal is to create more momentum for an eventual ban. This would affect Republican women more because, as with abortion bans, only red states would even consider such laws. It's also true that red states have higher divorce rates than blue states, because sexist cultural mores lead to more unhappy marriages. But rather than treating their wives better, MAGA men are looking at making it illegal for their wives to leave them. 

There have been recent visceral examples of how the increasingly bold sexism on the right is impacting women, especially in Republican circles. Last week, D.C. police opened an investigation into Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., over allegations he beat a 27-year-old woman, not his wife, he is allegedly dating. The police report indicates the woman said Mills "grabbed her, shoved her, and pushed her out of the door," and the officers saw "bruises on her arm, which appeared fresh." Police also report that the victim let them hear Mills on the phone "instruct her to lie about the origin of her bruises." He denies the allegation. 

The situation took a darker turn Tuesday, when NBC News reported that Trump-appointed U.S. attorney Ed Martin, who has mostly been focused on firing prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases, did not sign an arrest warrant for Mills. This could destroy the case, since federal involvement is usually required when suspects are members of Congress. Martin hasn't explained his reasoning, but it's also well-documented that his boss, Trump, has long argued that "fortunately" men of a certain class have enjoyed the right to commit violence against women. But it's a privilege Trump reserves only for his friends. When immigrants or working-class men of color are accused of such crimes — even if they are shown to be innocent — Trump calls for extreme punishment, including the death penalty. 

Less terrifying but still disturbing is the tabloid-esque drama regarding MAGA billionaire Elon Musk and women who have (or say they have, with evidence) children with him. Right-wing influencer Ashley St. Claire sued Musk this week for proof of paternity, citing text messages from him such as "I knock you up again," even though, she says, he barely bothers to visit with the existing child. Even more disturbing, Canadian singer Grimes — whose children with Musk have been legally acknowledged — took to X to beg him, "Plz respond about our child’s medical crisis. I am sorry to do this publicly but it is no longer acceptable to ignore this situation. This requires immediate attention.”

Feminist writer Moira Donegan wrote on Bluesky that the right-wing woman "believes that sexual and reproductive service to right wing men will earn her their protection, affection, and material support. She is wrong." Instead, Donegan wrote, "it is a core belief of the right wing man that no woman, however compliant, has any claim on him that he must respect."

To be sure, it's not just conservative women who are at risk at the hands of an increasingly misogynist MAGA movement. That much was illustrated in a distressing incident in Idaho, where three men accosted a woman who spoke out at a town hall, dragging her fighting out of the room while the local sheriff cheered them on. They were later revealed to be security guards, but it appears that wasn't clear at the time — and it's certainly questionable that violence was necessary because a woman was heckling Republican officials at a public event. Abortion, the Associated Press reported, appears to have played a triggering role in the display of violence. "One lawmaker mentioned legislation that he said protected doctors from 'being forced to do abortions,'" to which audience members shot back “women are dying" and "doctors are leaving our state!” 

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:f7pgoy3mor2635sjc7ka6qsa/post/3livlzjxxhc2u

That footage is viscerally shocking, but crucially, Republican women are fools if they think that treatment will only be reserved for Democratic women. On the contrary, because Republican women tend to be in closer proximity to Republican men, they're far more likely to be on the receiving end of anger over talkback or other perceived insubordination. 

[Vesper 30,120]

THIS is the level of batshit crazy that is infecting the US.

An American friend of mine's mother received this text from a Trumper MAGAt long-time friend of hers (verbatim, with the original typos):

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

“The future is going Tobe great and things are going to improve drasticallygor the better!

You are going To be amazed at the improvement that is going to happen with God leading and directing the uncovering of what has occurred over the years.

Uncovering stupid spending of billions of dollars and some people that are dead are still receiving social security benefits!

Ilnow your distatste for the conservative party but the media is leading you astray by spreading their lies. I do a lot of research.

My sister and my oldest daughter are NBC CBS and the other news media outlets and I am saddened.

God’s Word says “ my. people perish for lack of knowledge”.

I am going to boldly tell you something that you will reject but it is the truth and the prophets of today are 100% in agreement.

President Trump is God’s annointed one to lead this nation back to a Christian nation and respected by the other nations.

He has a cabinet that is appointed by God and all are on the same page and united. God also says “touch not my annointed”.

God is still on the throne and HE is in charge.

I will ask you one question to dwell on “why did Jesus shed HIS BLOOD on CALVERY’S CROSS”?

Jesus is Lord and King. HE is going to return to receive those that are HIS but not those that are not.

I am a born again and saved Jesus is my LORD and SSVIOUR.

I am through preaching but not testifying to my relationship with Jesus Christ and what happened at the CROSS and Jesus rise from the dead on the 3rd day. And how it has affected mankind.

I accepted Jesus as my Saviour and LORD many years ago and I can face each day because Jesus is ALIVE.

The Holy Spirit lives with in my heart. I am so blessed!!

I will always love you even if we have different views but I love Jesus more than anyone or anything.

Heaven is my Home when my life ends here on earth. Yes I am a Jesus “freak”but I share that label with many.

April will probably be our trip to Atascosa.

It should be spring weather by that time.

Yes life is going to change for the better with God at the helm - in spite of those attempting to stop HIS going forward. Satan is defeated!

Those interfering will be judged.

Just so you understand I am not above sinning - but repenting erases the sin.

All sin and come short of the Glory of God.

I am in that group.

❤️❤️🫂🫂🙏🙏”

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

[Fulham Broadway 17,306]

17 minutes ago, Vesper said:

THIS is the level of batshit crazy that is infecting the US.

An American friend of mine's mother received this text from a Trumper MAGAt long-time friend of hers (verbatim, with the original typos):

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

“The future is going Tobe great and things are going to improve drasticallygor the better!

You are going To be amazed at the improvement that is going to happen with God leading and directing the uncovering of what has occurred over the years.

Uncovering stupid spending of billions of dollars and some people that are dead are still receiving social security benefits!

Ilnow your distatste for the conservative party but the media is leading you astray by spreading their lies. I do a lot of research.

My sister and my oldest daughter are NBC CBS and the other news media outlets and I am saddened.

God’s Word says “ my. people perish for lack of knowledge”.

I am going to boldly tell you something that you will reject but it is the truth and the prophets of today are 100% in agreement.

President Trump is God’s annointed one to lead this nation back to a Christian nation and respected by the other nations.

He has a cabinet that is appointed by God and all are on the same page and united. God also says “touch not my annointed”.

God is still on the throne and HE is in charge.

I will ask you one question to dwell on “why did Jesus shed HIS BLOOD on CALVERY’S CROSS”?

Jesus is Lord and King. HE is going to return to receive those that are HIS but not those that are not.

I am a born again and saved Jesus is my LORD and SSVIOUR.

I am through preaching but not testifying to my relationship with Jesus Christ and what happened at the CROSS and Jesus rise from the dead on the 3rd day. And how it has affected mankind.

I accepted Jesus as my Saviour and LORD many years ago and I can face each day because Jesus is ALIVE.

The Holy Spirit lives with in my heart. I am so blessed!!

I will always love you even if we have different views but I love Jesus more than anyone or anything.

Heaven is my Home when my life ends here on earth. Yes I am a Jesus “freak”but I share that label with many.

April will probably be our trip to Atascosa.

It should be spring weather by that time.

Yes life is going to change for the better with God at the helm - in spite of those attempting to stop HIS going forward. Satan is defeated!

Those interfering will be judged.

Just so you understand I am not above sinning - but repenting erases the sin.

All sin and come short of the Glory of God.

I am in that group.

❤️❤️🫂🫂🙏🙏”

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

Mentalist. Remember when Trump said ''I love the uneducated'' ?

[Fulham Broadway 17,306]

22 hours ago, Vesper said:

"A woman is like a child": MAGA quickly turns its sights on stripping Republican women of power

Conservative women believe complicity will save them. But an emboldened far-right is gunning for their rights

https://www.salon.com/2025/02/26/a-woman-is-like-a-child-maga-quickly-turns-its-sights-on-stripping-women-of-power/

For decades, the anti-abortion movement has aggressively promoted women into visible leadership roles. It's for cynical reasons, namely, to bat off entirely accurate accusations that the movement is misogynist. Never mind that there have always been women who are eager to police the bodies and behavior of other women. Enough people are credulous or at least disingenuous enough to think that "I'm a woman, which means I can't hate other women" is an actual argument. For ambitious women who wanted to climb the ranks of Republican politics, anti-feminism has long been the steadiest of ladders. The propaganda value of their gender outweighed their party's larger hostility to women in leadership. 

But now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned and Donald Trump is back in the White House, many on the right feel they no longer need to hide the naked sexism fueling their movement or put up with the annoyance of women in even token leadership positions. As Kiera Butler at Mother Jones reports, the anti-abortion movement is embroiled in an escalating civil war right now over these issues. Male leaders of the Christian right have been swarming Kristan Hawkins, the 39-year-old head of a "student" anti-abortion group, demanding her ejection from the movement. It started after she objected to Republican legislators introducing bills to charge women who get abortions with murder, an extreme move she fears will backfire on the movement. But mostly it was about growing male anger on the Christian right that women are allowed leadership positions at all. 

"Removed [sic] this woman from public service," declared influential Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon, part of the "TheoBros" movement that includes the leadership of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's church. Soon other TheoBros jumped in, declaring "We need Christian men leading the fight against abortion," arguing that women's suffrage was a mistake, and accusing Hawkins of emasculating her husband by being "busy jet-setting."

Forty-five percent of female voters backed Trump in 2024, despite his overt misogyny. Most, no doubt, believed that complicity would protect them and that the attacks would be centered on other women. But while the GOP certainly wants to strip liberal and feminist women of their rights, male MAGA leaders are showing increasing interest in bringing Republican women to heel, both culturally and through the force of law. After all, they are more likely to live and work with Republican women. If they want to feel the full flowering of male domination, it's Republican women they need to see submitting. 

Webbon and the TheoBros have been clamoring more loudly in recent months about their wish to strip women, especially their own wives, of the right to vote. "You won't let women vote? Well, our society doesn't let five-year-olds vote," Webbon explained in a May podcast. He added that "a woman is like a child" and that "God has appointed men to protect them." As Sarah Stankorb at the New Republic documented, there has been growing support in Christian nationalist circles "for the repeal of the 19th Amendment and support a 'household vote' system in which men vote on behalf of their families." Hegseth's former sister-in-law reports she heard him echo similar sentiments. 

This isn't mere idle chatter, either. House Republicans passed a bill (which stalled in the Senate) this session to require citizens to have a passport or birth certificate matching their name to vote. This would be a back-door ban on voting for any woman who took her husband's last name and doesn't have a passport, an estimated 69 million women. It would also disproportionately affect Republican women, who are more likely to be married, more likely to have changed their name and less likely to have a passport. 

Similarly, there's been a slowly rising volume on the right of talk about banning no-fault divorce, fueled by Republicans like Vice President JD Vance saying it's too easy for women — even those in abusive marriages — to leave their marriages. Legislators in red states are filing more bills to do so, and while it's unlikely any will pass soon, the goal is to create more momentum for an eventual ban. This would affect Republican women more because, as with abortion bans, only red states would even consider such laws. It's also true that red states have higher divorce rates than blue states, because sexist cultural mores lead to more unhappy marriages. But rather than treating their wives better, MAGA men are looking at making it illegal for their wives to leave them. 

There have been recent visceral examples of how the increasingly bold sexism on the right is impacting women, especially in Republican circles. Last week, D.C. police opened an investigation into Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., over allegations he beat a 27-year-old woman, not his wife, he is allegedly dating. The police report indicates the woman said Mills "grabbed her, shoved her, and pushed her out of the door," and the officers saw "bruises on her arm, which appeared fresh." Police also report that the victim let them hear Mills on the phone "instruct her to lie about the origin of her bruises." He denies the allegation. 

The situation took a darker turn Tuesday, when NBC News reported that Trump-appointed U.S. attorney Ed Martin, who has mostly been focused on firing prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases, did not sign an arrest warrant for Mills. This could destroy the case, since federal involvement is usually required when suspects are members of Congress. Martin hasn't explained his reasoning, but it's also well-documented that his boss, Trump, has long argued that "fortunately" men of a certain class have enjoyed the right to commit violence against women. But it's a privilege Trump reserves only for his friends. When immigrants or working-class men of color are accused of such crimes — even if they are shown to be innocent — Trump calls for extreme punishment, including the death penalty. 

Less terrifying but still disturbing is the tabloid-esque drama regarding MAGA billionaire Elon Musk and women who have (or say they have, with evidence) children with him. Right-wing influencer Ashley St. Claire sued Musk this week for proof of paternity, citing text messages from him such as "I knock you up again," even though, she says, he barely bothers to visit with the existing child. Even more disturbing, Canadian singer Grimes — whose children with Musk have been legally acknowledged — took to X to beg him, "Plz respond about our child’s medical crisis. I am sorry to do this publicly but it is no longer acceptable to ignore this situation. This requires immediate attention.”

Feminist writer Moira Donegan wrote on Bluesky that the right-wing woman "believes that sexual and reproductive service to right wing men will earn her their protection, affection, and material support. She is wrong." Instead, Donegan wrote, "it is a core belief of the right wing man that no woman, however compliant, has any claim on him that he must respect."

To be sure, it's not just conservative women who are at risk at the hands of an increasingly misogynist MAGA movement. That much was illustrated in a distressing incident in Idaho, where three men accosted a woman who spoke out at a town hall, dragging her fighting out of the room while the local sheriff cheered them on. They were later revealed to be security guards, but it appears that wasn't clear at the time — and it's certainly questionable that violence was necessary because a woman was heckling Republican officials at a public event. Abortion, the Associated Press reported, appears to have played a triggering role in the display of violence. "One lawmaker mentioned legislation that he said protected doctors from 'being forced to do abortions,'" to which audience members shot back “women are dying" and "doctors are leaving our state!” 

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:f7pgoy3mor2635sjc7ka6qsa/post/3livlzjxxhc2u

That footage is viscerally shocking, but crucially, Republican women are fools if they think that treatment will only be reserved for Democratic women. On the contrary, because Republican women tend to be in closer proximity to Republican men, they're far more likely to be on the receiving end of anger over talkback or other perceived insubordination. 

No surprise that Musk and Trump are misogynists.

And today the felon and rapist released and flew by private jet to Florida the other rapists and traffickers the Tate brothers

[Vesper 30,120]

https://bsky.app/profile/bamjcasta.bsky.social/post/3lj5567kfus2a

[Vesper 30,120]

She hoped Trump’s victory would change her life, but not like this

Ryleigh Cooper is normally more focused on motherhood than politics. Then came DOGE.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/27/fired-federal-worker-trump-voter/

 

BALDWIN, Mich. — Ryleigh Cooper exhaled as she slid onto the couch after nine hours of work for the U.S. Forest Service, still covered in the blue paint she used to mark trees for local loggers. Then she got the text.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” her union leader wrote.

It was the second Thursday in February, and a historic White House purge aimed at federal workers like Cooper was sweeping the country. But the headlines felt far away from her life in rural Michigan. She figured her job, with paychecks totaling about $40,000 a year, would be safe from the cost-cutting campaign led by President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk.

Besides, motherhood was her most pressing concern. Cooper, 24, and her husband were trying to get pregnant, but the doctor said that IVF might be their best chance. Trump had promised to make it free. That is what she thought about in the voting booth.

Now she was staring at her phone, learning that probationary workers in the Forest Service were the next to be fired by his administration. Cooper was likely to be one of them, her union head told her.

Her eyes watered. She knew it wasn’t personal. Every day brought new rumors of cuts, and her performance evaluation from last fall found her “fully successful” — the highest possible score.

She reminded herself that she had done everything right: graduated college with a 3.5 GPA, finished her first semester of work toward a master’s degree in forestry with a 4.0, rescued two dogs and two cats from the local shelter, chosen a man who held her on the shower floor when she found out she had endometriosis, a condition that can lead to infertility, and told her, “It’s okay, there is more than one way to be a parent.”

She thought about the Facebook posts she had seen a few days earlier.

“It’s February 3,” her grandmother posted, “and we’re going in the right direction.”

“Any government employee who is afraid of transparency,” wrote the man who taught her AP government class in high school, “is a criminal!”

Cooper knew the people in her life meant well, but she wanted her future to be different from theirs. She had grown up watching her family struggle as her mother lost one job, then another, then another. She was just a few months shy of her graduate degree and close to a promotion that could nearly double her salary. Even $50,000 or $60,000 a year, she thought, could help get her a house a few counties over, with better schools.

For now, she and her husband lived in Baldwin, a village of about 1,000 people where the high school track is made of cracked concrete and weeds. They had purchased their home because it was cheap, less than $150,000, and close to their families, who could help with child care.

It takes three minutes to drive past Baldwin’s one post office, one bar and one bowling alley, which also serves pancakes and omelets for breakfast. The median household income is about $23,000, according to the most recent American Community Survey, putting it among the poorest towns in Michigan.

In the winter, locals ice fish from shanties warmed by propane heaters and drive snowmobiles to bars. In the summer, they drive lawn mowers to gas stations, though Cooper said she would never do that.

Most people in Baldwin like Trump; more than 62 percent in Lake County, which includes the town, voted for him in November and in 2020. But people don’t talk about it. Politics here, at least until recently, felt removed from everyday worries.

Now it was in her living room, as she turned to her husband and burst into tears. “I think I’m getting fired,” she said.

Getting fired meant she would no longer have health insurance, including the 12 weeks of paid maternity leave that was a guaranteed benefit of her federal service. Also gone would be the promotion that would allow her to plan for the kids she so badly wanted to have.

She wondered if Trump was going to break his promise to make IVF free, and if it would even matter if he did.

Her husband sat beside her and squeezed her hand, still processing. Together they had been counting. Sixteen days until they could try again. Twenty-eight until she could take her next test.

After she was sexually assaulted at 16, Cooper had sworn she would never be caught unprepared. But here she was. Betrayed by her body, which would not cooperate. Betrayed by her family, who supported firing federal workers like her. And, perhaps most painfully, betrayed by herself.

Cooper did not want to think about what happened three months prior but her mind went there anyway. To the voting booth in Baldwin’s town hall, where she filled out every part of the ballot before turning to the box that said “Presidential.” She recalled staring at it for 15 minutes.

She did not want to vote for Trump. Cooper hated what he said about women and hated how he treated them. Her family always said the women who accused the president of sexual assault had either made it up or deserved it. Cooper heard them and kept her own experience a secret, thinking that they might feel the same way about her.

She voted for Joe Biden in 2020, her first time casting a ballot in a presidential election. But life felt more complicated these days. Her mortgage was too expensive, groceries were nearly $400 a month, and one single cycle of IVF could cost more than 10 percent of her annual household income.

Trump, at a campaign stop an hour and a half south of her, had promised to make IVF free. She knew that from a video clip she saw on TikTok. And she had believed him.

She also believed him when he said that Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for the next Republican administration that suggested mass cuts to the federal workforce, was not his plan.

So Cooper filled in the bubble next to his name, thinking of the daughter she wanted. She planned to name her Charlotte.

The days after she got the text passed quickly. A call from the district ranger, who is in charge of the Forest Service in Baldwin, telling her to pack up her things. A box of printed performance reviews and tree identification books and a framed picture from her wedding last fall under a willow tree. A text from her co-worker who brought candy to refill the jar at her desk but arrived to find it, and her, gone.

Four days after Trump fired her, Cooper was in bed with her husband. She picked up her phone and saw the news.

There was a new executive order to expand access to IVF. She read the White House fact sheet, which talked about Trump’s request for policy recommendations to reduce costs of the service.

But it still wasn’t free, and she was out of a job and out of a plan.

“Delivering on promises for American families,” read the White House’s announcement.

“That’s bulls---”, she recalled thinking, and put down her phone.

 

The Ultimate "Leopards Ate My Face" Rendition

[NikkiCFC 8,301]

On 24/02/2025 at 00:23, KEVINAA said:

Be on high alert in Europe. At any moment it would fireworks again 

We already died from your previous alert about Chernobyl 🥱

[Fulham Broadway 17,306]

Bezos is censoring and not allowing 'certain points of view' in the Washington Post. So funny watching the billionaires rimming Trump.

How's that free speech going ?

[bluesman2610 1,417]

Things just keep going from bad to worse in North America we are having elections and projections are showing the PC( Progressive  Conservative/Republican) candidate Pierre Poilievre leading. Which means we will give up all our sovereignty to be in good with the United States.

[Vesper 30,120]

[Vesper 30,120]

Anneliese Dodds resigns over Keir Starmer’s aid budget cuts

The MP for Oxford East says it was ‘not a decision I wanted to make’ and the prime minister’s order would ‘bolster Russia and China’

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/anneliese-dodds-quits-cabinet-over-starmers-aid-budget-cuts-dxc0fxd00

Anneliese Dodds, the international development minister, has resigned from the government over Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to cut the international aid budget to pay for an increase in defence spending.

In a scathing letter to the prime minister, Dodds said that pulling back from development spending would bolster Russia and China.

Dodds accused Starmer of abandoning the world’s poorest with a political decision that appeared to be “following in president Trump’s slipstream”.

She also attacked the prime minister for refusing to have a cabinet debate about whether to raise the additional money needed for defence spending through tax rises or increased borrowing.

Instead, she said he had taken a “tactical decision” for the overseas aid budget “to absorb the whole burden”, suggesting that he had tried to take an “easy path” to securing Britain’s defence.

Dodds said she had delayed the announcement until after Starmer’s visit to Washington to avoid disrupting his attempt to reach a deal on Ukraine but pointedly confirmed she was only told about the cuts the day before they were announced.

“These cuts will remove food and healthcare from desperate people — deeply harming the UK’s reputation,” Dodds wrote. “You have maintained that you want to continue support for Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine; for vaccination; for climate; and for rules-based systems. Yet it will be impossible to maintain these priorities given the depth of the cut; the effect will be far greater than presented.”

Dodds’s departure is the first resignation over policy of Starmer’s government and threatens to galvanise growing left-wing discontent within Labour.

She was Starmer’s first choice as shadow chancellor when he became Labour leader and his demotion of her has been seen as a sign of how he has marginalised the party’s soft left.

Dodds said she had been willing to find some savings from the aid budget to boost defence spending, but told Starmer she had “expected we would collectively discuss our fiscal rules and approach to taxation, as other nations are doing”. She warned that even raising defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP may be “only the start”.

“It will be impossible to raise the substantial resources needed just through tactical cuts to public spending,” she said.

She said there were “no easy paths” to increasing defence spending. “Strategic decisions for the sake of our country’s security cannot be ducked,” she added.

 

Dodds said that the cuts would force the UK to stop providing aid across large swathes of the world. “The cut will likely lead to a UK pull out from numerous African, Caribbean and western Balkan nations at a time when Russia has been aggressively increasing its global presence,” she wrote.

She added that it would also leave the UK “shut out of numerous multilateral bodies” and “having a reduced voice” in the G7, G20 and climate negotiations. “All this while China is seeking to rewrite the global rules and when the climate crisis is the biggest security threat of them all.”

Dodds stressed that she would continue to support Starmer’s government, but her decision was hailed by critics of the prime minister’s decision.

Sarah Champion, the Labour chair of the Commons international development committee, praised Dodds’s “honourable” decision, suggesting that she had no option but to resign. “You knew cuts were unworkable to deliver the PM’s commitments but held back resigning to not mar the DC visit,” she told her.

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https://digbysblog.net/2025/03/01/yes-im-horrified/

Russian dissident Gary Kasparov spoke at the Principles First conference in Washington last weekend, writes Michael Tomasky. Kasparov “uttered a very simple line that chilled the thousand or so people in the room: ‘The United States has changed teams.’ ”

The hell it has. I resent being told the United States of America switched sides because the White House is in the grip of a band of lawless sociopaths.

Donald Trump’s country-wreckers have changed teams, certainly. Most of the Republican upper echelons has. Many MAGA foot soldiers have as well. How many have aligned with Vladimir Putin’s “might makes right” geopolitics simply because Trump has is unclear. How many would snap out of it after he’s gone is even less clear.

The lean toward Russia on the Christian right comes from the ludicrous proposition that there people live under biblical law because the nation is heavily white and Putin is hostile to LGBT people. One conservative Christian couple from Canada moved to Russia to be free from “LGBT ideology” and quickly found themselves free from being free.

What is clear after yesterday’s world-shaking, Oval Office shouting match is that Trump and J.D. Vance are all in on Vladimir Putin’s brand of autocracy. “[W]elcome to the Putinization of America, comrade!” Kasparov wrote in The Atlantic Friday morning before the fireworks:

Imitation and servility aren’t the same thing. Trump and Musk could attempt to undermine American democracy and create a Russian-style power vertical without kowtowing to Putin or abandoning Ukraine. But they haven’t. And while imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, affinity and envy aren’t enough to explain the abruptness and totality of the Trump administration’s adoption of every Russian position. On Monday, the anniversary of Russia’s all-out invasion, the United States even joined Russia in voting against a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Yesterday’s “appalling spectacle” [timestamp 9:03] did not arrive out of thin air.

Tomasky writes:

If anyone doubted that before this horrifying exchange Friday, it surely can’t be doubted now. You had the president of Ukraine who, whatever his flaws, was representing a democracy—a struggling and imperfect democracy, for sure, but one that was invaded by a gangster regime; a country of 38 million people ravaged by a country of 144 million. He came to Washington willing to meet with a president whom he knows to be hostile but ready to sign a totally one-sided deal giving that president control over his country’s mineral rights. That he decided not to sit there in silence as lies were being told about him and the nature of Putin’s invasion was renamed impertinence. And in that moment, about three minutes and change into the tape linked to above, the United States of America symbolically and visibly switched from being the leader of the free world to being a partner of the global authoritarian axis.

The New York Times’ reliably wrong Peter Baker described the “verbal brawl in the Oval Office” as Trump coming to Putin’s defense over Zelensky’s lack of diplomatic finesse:

But what was particularly striking in their exchange was how much Mr. Trump seemed insulted on Mr. Putin’s behalf. He has long been an open admirer of Mr. Putin and has rarely offered any criticism of his own. Just this week, he called Mr. Putin “smart” and “cunning,” and declined to call him a dictator even after calling Mr. Zelensky that.

“You want me to say really terrible things about Putin and then say, ‘Hi, Vladimir, how are we doing on the deal?’” Mr. Trump told Mr. Zelensky on Friday. “It doesn’t work that way.”

He did not explain why it was OK to say terrible things to Mr. Zelensky while pursuing a deal. Instead, he portrayed the Ukrainian leader as unreasonably distrustful of Mr. Putin, who has broken multiple agreements guaranteeing Ukrainian sovereignty and calling for cease-fires and now faces an international arrest warrant for war crimes.

Asked by a reporter what he would do if Putin breaks a ceasefire, Trump haughtily replied that it had happened in the past because Putin didn’t respect the U.S. president. Then came this weird ramble:

They broke it with Biden because Biden, they didn’t respect him, they didn’t respect Obama. They respect me. Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia—Russia, Russia, Russia, you ever hear of that deal? That was a phony—that was a phony Hunter Biden, Joe Biden scam. Hillary Clinton, shifty Adam Schiff, it was a Democrat scam. And he had to go through that. And he did go through it and we didn’t end up in a war. He went through it, he was accused of all that stuff—he had nothing to do with it. It came out of Hunter Biden’s bathroom. It came out of Hunter Biden’s bedroom. It was disgusting. And then they said, ‘Oh, oh, the laptop from hell was made by Russia.’ The 51 agents, the whole thing was a scam, and he had to put up with that. He was being accused of all that stuff.

Trump taking offense on Putin’s behalf, as Baker sees it, appear more pathological from where I sit. Trump identifies with Putin. He looks up to Putin. The coward fantasizes about being like Putin: a strongman. He wants to be accepted in the exclusive club of world autocrats who wouldn’t have an easily manipulated whiner like him as a member.

The wrongs Trump rattled off as done to Putin were done to Trump himself. Trump was not taking offense on Putin’s behalf. Trump saw Zelensky’s listing of Putin’s crimes as an attack on himself. Because in Trump’s fractured mind, he and his BFF are one in the same. Inseparable.

We are in the grip of a madman. Madmen, to be accurate. Sociopaths, megalomaniacs, career grifters, and anti-democracy tech oligarchs. How we purge ourselves of them and heal our alliances, I don’t know.

But I cannot believe real Real Americans™ have gone autocrat or worse. There are more of us than there are of them. We’d best start acting like it. In numbers.

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Have you fought the coup today?
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