Latest news with #Nazi-adjacent
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
ABC News' Terry Moran's history of attacking Trump dates back to first term in 2017
Before ABC News correspondent Terry Moran was suspended for a now-deleted social media post attacking President Donald Trump and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, he had a lengthy history of slamming the president on air. "Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He's a world-class hater," Moran wrote in a now-deleted X post on Sunday. "You can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate." "Trump is a world-class hater. But his hatred only [sic] a means to an end, and that end his[sic] his own glorification. That's his spiritual nourishment," Moran continued. This was only the latest example of Moran blasting Trump since his first term in 2017. Trump's Interview On Abc Turns Fiery When Discussing Approach To Tariffs, Deportations More recently, Moran garnered attention from his fiery interview in April with Trump to mark his first 100 days in office. Moran repeatedly argued and pushed back on the president on several topics, including Trump's tariffs and immigration. Read On The Fox News App This led to Trump calling out Moran in the middle of the interview. "They're giving you the big break of a lifetime," Trump told Moran. "You're doing the interview, I picked you because, frankly, I never heard of you, but that's okay. I picked you, Terry, but you're not being very nice." In 2021, Moran went as far as to refer to Trump as a "Führer" in the Republican Party. "[Trump] has the Republican Party as a personalized power like we haven't seen," he said. "It's a caudillo, it's a Caesar, it's a Führer. We don't see that in this country. We do now." Moran also invoked Nazi-adjacent comparisons when describing Trump after his first inaugural speech in January 2017. "[I]t carries with it overtones from the 1930s when an anti-Semitic movement saying, 'We don't want to get involved in Europe's war. It's the Jews' fault in Germany!' Charles Lindbergh led them. It is a term, as he defined it his way, but the words carry ugly echoes in our history," Moran said. In 2018, Moran appeared to joke about the idea of Trump's funeral during coverage of former President George H.W. Bush's funeral proceedings. Abc's Terry Moran Says Trump 'Weaponized' Wuhan Lab-leak Theory, Making Subject Of Covid Origins 'Radioactive' "First, he's going to choreograph it. So, there might be more trumpets and fanfare... It will be the best presidential funeral ever. No one will ever have seen anything like that funeral," Moran said. In a statement to Fox News Digital on Sunday, an ABC spokesperson said, "ABC News stands for objectivity and impartiality in its news coverage and does not condone subjective personal attacks on others. The [X] post does not reflect the views of ABC News and violated our standards — as a result, Terry Moran has been suspended pending further evaluation." ABC News itself came under fire for alleged political bias last August after Dana Walden, a senior Disney executive whose portfolio includes ABC News, was scrutinized by the New York Times for her decades-long friendship with then-Vice President Kamala Harris. The report came just one month before Harris' first and only debate with Trump in article source: ABC News' Terry Moran's history of attacking Trump dates back to first term in 2017
Express Tribune
07-03-2025
- Business
- Express Tribune
Trump, Musk
Listen to article A lot has been said and written about President Trump's policies in the short period of 47 days. This administration piques the interest of pundits further because of one important addition: Elon Musk's role as the head of the newly minted Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has raised many eyebrows. Many fear that Donald Trump is dismantling the Western-dominated world order to please some of his foreign friends, particularly Russia. This concern stems from the inquiry into alleged Russian involvement in securing Trump's victory in 2016. That would imply that the 45th and now the 47th US President is a Russian plant. However, this theory, like the aforementioned inquiry, has a fatal flaw - it disregards the agency of the American people. Suppose he is a Russian asset, and the American people still chose him over his exceptionally gifted opponents (for the second time, with an indisputable majority). What does that say about their agency and free will? And that is not all. While insinuations abound, we have seen no concrete evidence to support this claim. Seen through a similar lens, Elon Musk is painted as a greedy, power-hungry, Nazi-adjacent oligarch who seeks to punish bureaucrats who challenge his exponential growth. This theory, too, has fatal flaws. If he is truly in proximity to racist white nationalism, why did all liberals turn a blind eye to his convictions just ten years ago, when he was being hailed as a bleeding-heart liberal hero and the saviour of Mother Earth? Furthermore, thanks to the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission verdict and the resulting lobbying, the business class already exercises unfettered power in America. Why, then, would the world's richest man expose himself to scrutiny, mudslinging and hatred when he could have achieved the same ends through carefully placed sub-cabinet appointments? So, what should we make of President Trump's foreign policy and DOGE's persistent rattling of the American bureaucracy? Judging by the promises he campaigned on and the voter response he received in the elections, I would hazard a guess that it has much to do with the political and administrative system's inertia. Call it latency, path dependence or systemic inertia — institutions and systems rarely adapt to changing times, even in the world's most advanced democracies. This resistance is not necessarily rooted in corruption. Yet, to disaffected people, it invariably looks like corruption. And let's face it, when it comes to a country as powerful as the US, where money is considered free speech, you cannot rule out foul play either. Hence, the campaign promise of "draining the swamp". To understand this path dependence, let me offer an analogy. If you use a smartphone, you must have experienced a moment when you delete a sizable file, but the phone does not immediately show an increase in available memory. You check the trash folder, but the file is not there either. Only when you empty the trash does the memory free up. This delay is due to system latency, UI lag, or a refresh delay. Now, consider the voter's reality. A voter invariably has one main lever — the vote. But imagine that the voter is pressing the button repeatedly, yet nothing changes. What does the voter do next? Get a hammer. That is precisely what happened. Before operationalising this analogy, let's address the theoretical backdrop. Many experts have written about the inertia of systems and bureaucracies. One of the loudest voices is Charles Lindblom. In his Politics and Markets (1977), he states: "The market system and its associated political arrangements — tend to perpetuate themselves not because they are ideal but because they are there." Political scientist Paul Pierson elaborates on this idea: "Once established, patterns of political mobilisation, the institutional rules of the game, and even citizens' basic ways of thinking about the political world will often generate self-reinforcing dynamics." And here is Max Weber in Economy and Society (1922): "Once it is fully established, bureaucracy is among those social structures which are the hardest to destroy." Now, let us apply this to the international system. Some institutions were created solely with the Cold War in mind. Yet, the Cold War ended 34 years ago, and these institutions have since struggled to find a new purpose. Critics argue that such institutions manufacture threats to justify their existence. Russians, for instance, accuse NATO of failing to extricate itself from a Cold War mentality, making conflict a self-fulfilling prophecy. Similarly, critics of the CIA claim that its pivot from the Cold War to the Global War on Terror exacerbated the rise of terrorism. This is a classic observer effect, intertwined with conspiracy theories masquerading as analysis. However, two real-world events profoundly shook the average American's faith in the system: the Iraq invasion and the 2008 financial crisis. Obama was supposed to be the iconoclast, the ultimate repudiation of the system. But when he bailed out nearly every culpable institution and individual, disillusionment set in. Voters then reached for the "break the glass" option. During Trump's first term, swing voters remained wary of his intentions, partly due to the ongoing Russia inquiry and the mainstream media's relentless campaign. Then along came COVID. President Biden won and attempted to implement positive changes, but public distrust in bureaucracy deepened. That is why, when media and Democrats painted "Project 2025" as a threat, the average American saw it in a positive light. This brings us back to Elon Musk. He, too, was growing wary of the system. Recall how he was excluded from a White House meeting on green energy. It is astonishing that one of the industry's leading figures was left out of the loop. Figures like Musk must have concluded that ideology had replaced pragmatic policymaking. Hence, his crusade against the so-called "woke virus". However, everything being done today was telegraphed well in advance by the Republican campaign. Perhaps the most revealing discovery is not financial waste but the continued use of COBOL in government record offices — an emblem of the system's failure to renew itself. Federal workers are understandably anxious. One hopes they find a way through this upheaval. As for the international system, a growing consensus among American allies suggests that this is a phase of reorganisation, not destruction. And for that to happen America's chosen leader will have to be shown the deference that builds on the agenda of peace through strength. In the end, a stronger, richer America serves the free world's interests.
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How An Unelected Car CEO Bought His Way Into Government To Tear It Apart And Benefit Himself And His Billionaire Buddies
Elon Musk has been a controversial figure for years, but even folks who were put off by his constant lies, bigoted beliefs and creepy treatment of women have found themselves shocked by just how quickly he went from a bad person who ran a car company to a bad person who had bought his way into the government and is now tearing it apart from the inside to benefit himself and his billionaire buddies. No one voted for him, and even though we knew he supported right-wing candidates, no one had any idea that less than a month after Trump took office, we'd be debating whether the Tesla CEO had given an actual Nazi salute or if the salute he gave was just Nazi-adjacent. As new reporting from the New York Times reveals, though, Musk's plan to take over the federal government actually began several years ago at a $50,000-per-head dinner. Allegedly, Musk first floated the idea of what would become the advisory committee that he calls DOGE (or the Department of Government Efficiency) in September 2023 during a dinner at fellow billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya's mansion to raise money for delusional presidential candidate and wannabe rapper Vivek Ramaswamy's inevitable failure of a campaign. Musk reportedly wanted to keep his presence at the dinner quiet since he wasn't quite ready to go full mask-off. There, he suggested being given access to all of the government's computers so he could gut the government from within. After all, what better way to get rid of those pesky regulators who kept complaining about the safety of his products and their damage to the environment? Read more: Tesla Recalls Almost Every Car It's Sold In The US After spending hundreds of millions of dollars to gain Trump's favor and get him elected, there wasn't much stopping Musk from doing whatever he wanted. The dinosaurs in Democratic leadership were caught flatfooted, the courts didn't show much interest in stopping him, and Republican lawmakers certainly weren't going to risk their careers doing anything to stop him. Musk and his associates moved in quickly, taking over the Office of Personnel Management, which operates as the federal government's human resources department, and began working to force workers out of their jobs, whether it be through pressure, intimidation or, ultimately, blatantly illegal firings. They also began tracing where money was being spent so they could more effectively kneecap the agencies and departments they didn't like or see any use for. Part of the reason Musk was able to move so quickly was because Trump insiders such as Stephen Miller and Russell Vought had reportedly already spent time with him, teaching him how the federal government operated and helping him look for weaknesses he could exploit to gain insider access. Musk then set his sights on the U.S. Digital Service, a small unit created in 2014 to help other agencies fix their tech problems after the website rollout faced early issues. The billionaire and his associates believed the USDS would be the key to taking over and began putting the pieces in place while Biden was still president. That meant they were able to hit the ground running the day Trump took office. Musk didn't just have help from a former Heritage Foundation stooge and, uh, I'm not sure I can get what I'd like to call Stephen Miller past our CMS, so just use your imagination. He also had plenty of class traitors already working in the government, eager to prove themselves to their new CEO-King. Amy Gleason, a former USDS staffer, returned as a senior adviser to help with the Trump transition only to hire several young, inexperienced Musk loyalists who would later become infamous. During that transition period, Musk flunkies wormed their way into as many agencies and departments as they could, gathering information on the computer systems, as well as contracts and personnel lists. Musk's far-right, pro-Trump pivot also reportedly flattered Trump to the point that he was happy to sit back and let him spearhead their plans to raid the coffers and remake the government to exclusively benefit the wealthy. As long as Musk made that happen, Trump reportedly didn't care about the details of what Musk did or how he did it. After all, they were both tired of laws and regulations that got in the way of them from making as much money as possible. It also didn't hurt that Musk's cult of personality meant millions of credulous morons would buy into anything he did regardless of its legality or morality. Whether he's violated civil service protections, attempted to unilaterally cancel contracts or shut down agencies doing vital work, they've done nothing but cheer him on, often even dropping any pretense of believing in the rule of law. If Musk does it, it must be correct. Any normal person with a semi-functioning brain can understand that regulations are written in blood. They're in place because something bad happened, and we want to prevent it from happening again. Ignoring them is how wildfires start, workplace accidents happen and people die. Musk, however, reportedly got it in his head that the Biden administration was targeting Tesla and SpaceX by enforcing laws that were already on the books. He didn't like people with authority investigating his companies, evaluating his safety claims, or fining him when his companies polluted the environment. Sure, regulators keep people safe, but if you're a sociopath who doesn't care about other people, what does that matter? Musk reportedly came to see a Trump victory as the only way his companies could survive and likely much less expensive than simply following environmental laws. That doesn't mean it was cheap to buy a Trump victory, though. According to the New York Times, Musk spent about $300 million to get his preferred outcome. Even several months before the election, though, Musk was already talking openly about his plans to do a lot more than simply donate to the Trump campaign. In August 2024, he told right-wing podcaster Lex Fridman, "I have discussed with Trump the idea of a government efficiency commission, and I would be willing to be part of that commission," after Fridman said he wished Musk could spend a week in Washington, D.C. making the government smaller. Eleven days later, Musk brought up his idea for a new "government efficiency commission" on a live Twitter call with Trump. Trump said he agreed it was a good idea, although if you look at his track record as president, it's clear Trump has no interest in actually reducing the national debt. Otherwise, it wouldn't have ballooned by about $8 trillion during his first administration. Still, he continued to support Musk's so-called "DOGE" idea leading up to the election. Elon Musk may have been laying the groundwork for his new role, but other than tweeting incessantly, he allegedly didn't really get going until it was clear Trump had won. He then holed up in Mar-a-lago and brought in several other ultra-wealthy individuals, including Ramaswamy, to figure out what they could actually do. They reportedly weren't worried about what was legal and instead focused on who would support them and what they could get away with, with fellow billionaire Brad Smith supposedly alienating himself when his ideas required lawyers and carefully written executive orders. Musk wasn't quite ready to completely remove any veil of legitimacy, but he also reportedly had no patience for incremental change. That's how they landed on taking over the USDS, but without Musk in the role of official administrator. Instead, Musk would officially just be an advisor to the president. Among other reasons, they reportedly made that decision to keep Musk's actions secret and avoid accountability: For all his talk about "transparency," Mr. Musk was obsessed with confidentiality and fearful of leaks. If people filed lawsuits seeking disclosure of his emails or the operation's records under the Freedom of Information Act, the arrangement would set the administration up to argue that such documents were exempt. In contrast with agencies like the Office of Management and Budget, FOIA does not apply to a president's White House advisers or to White House entities that advise him but wield no formal power, like the National Security Council. That's also apparently where Musk's disagreements with Ramaswamy began. Vivek initially supported taking extreme action but wanted to focus more on eliminating regulations that he didn't like. Musk, on the other hand, is said to have "had scant interest in constitutional law" and assumed the Supreme Court would let him get away with whatever he wanted. By the time Trump was inaugurated, Musk had already assembled a team of loyalists ready to do his bidding. Executive orders had been drafted. Steve Davis, a vicious cost-cutter who had been part of the plan to take over the USDS was tapped to begin dismantling the government from within, and even before Inauguration Day, they had already sent staffers to various government tech hubs across the country. Others demanded massive amounts of information from various agencies with questions that "covered everything from personnel to pending executive orders to in-depth budget data to how much access officials had to government payment systems." They even showed up at the Treasury, insisting that they be shown the source code for the payment system that it used to fulfill spending obligations incurred by federal agencies. Trump, in turn, did his part, almost immediately signing an executive order that would unleash Musk on the federal government while officially hiring him as a "special government employee." In doing so, Musk was allowed to avoid having his financial disclosure form made public. Career civil servants were also reportedly shocked by how quickly Musk's loyalists moved, especially when it came to gutting USAID. The fact that the agency is vital to America's soft power across the world, and cutting off funding would have disastrous immediate effects, as well as undermining the country's influence long-term, apparently didn't matter. Surely, Musk isn't still holding a grudge against USAID for its role in ending South African apartheid, right? That would just be petty and childish. We're barely a month into the second Trump administration, and Musk has already done so much damage, it's hard to know what the next several months will look like. No one in Democratic leadership seems to have the courage to do anything approaching standing up to Musk and his flunkies. In less than six weeks, the CEO of an electric company has become the defacto president, and unfortunately for us, there isn't really an established playbook for what you do when a car dork takes over your country. That said, Musk's power is also inextricably tied to his wealth, and that is tied up in Tesla stock. If there's anything that can be done, it's going to start by taking the protests to Tesla dealerships directly. Just, please, for the love of God, don't try to blow up any Teslas or Tesla dealerhips. Mock Cybertruck drivers and make it socially unacceptable to be seen driving a Tesla, sure, but hurting people isn't the answer. We can keep our protests peaceful and also push back against an unelected billionaire buying his way into government and then tearing it apart for the benefit of himself and his other billionaire buddies. After all, there are only so many of them and many, many more of us. Read the original article on Jalopnik.
