Friday, February 07, 2025

7: Hinduism



The World’s Richest Men Take On the World’s Poorest Children The world’s richest man is boasting about destroying the United States Agency for International Development, which saves the lives of the world’s poorest children, saying he shoved it “into the wood chipper.” ......... By my calculations, Elon Musk probably has a net worth greater than that of the poorest billion people on Earth. Just since Donald Trump’s election, Musk’s personal net worth has grown by far more than the entire annual budget of U.S.A.I.D., which in any case accounts for less than 1 percent of the federal budget. ........... Cutting aid, Kennedy noted, “would be disastrous and, in the long run, more expensive.” He added: “Our own security would be endangered and our prosperity imperiled.” ......... In contrast with Kennedy, the Trump administration braids together cruelty, ignorance and shortsightedness, and that combination seems particularly evident in its assault on American humanitarian assistance. ........... Remember the American panic over the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014? (Trump was particularly hysterical back then.) In the end, an Ebola pandemic was averted — in part because of U.S.A.I.D.’s work in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. .......... It is fair to complain that U.S.A.I.D. is endlessly bureaucratic and that too much of the aid goes to so-called Beltway bandit American contractors rather than to needy people abroad. ........... Trump’s claim that it spent about “$100 million on condoms to Hamas” (he doubled his previous claim of $50 million). .......... Male condoms cost the U.S. government 3.3 cents each, so that would be three billion condoms. By my calculation, for Hamas to use up that many condoms in a year, each fighter would have to have sex 325 times a day, every day. ............. That might wipe out Hamas as a fighting force more effectively than Israeli bombardment. ........... In any case, the actual amount of U.S. assistance spent on condoms for Gaza in recent years appears to have been not $100 million but $0. ........... Trump’s policies are as reckless as his rhetoric. I’d welcome some restructuring of U.S.A.I.D. But this isn’t restructuring but demolition — a blow to our values and interests alike. ............ Musk lambasted U.S.A.I.D. as “a criminal organization.” In fact, many of its employees have risked their lives in the best tradition of public service. ........... Trump’s moves are of uncertain legality, not least because U.S.A.I.D. was established by Congress, but the outcomes are indisputable. Around the world children are already missing health care and food because of the assault on the agency that Kennedy founded to uphold our values and protect our interests. ..........

what’s unfolding is sickening



There Is No Going Back No one in the executive branch has the legal authority to unilaterally cancel congressional appropriations. No one has the legal authority to turn the Treasury payments system into a means of political retribution. No one has the authority to summarily dismiss civil servants without cause. No one has the authority to take down and scrub government websites of public data, itself paid for by American taxpayers. And no private citizen has the authority to access the sensitive data of American citizens for either information gathering or their own, unknown purposes......... it is not as if the president of the United States has the authority to unleash an unvetted, unaccountable private citizen onto some of the most sensitive data possessed by the federal government. ........ “Constitutional crisis” does not even begin to capture the radicalism of what is unfolding in the federal bureaucracy and of what Congress’s decision not to act may liquidate in terms of constitutional meaning. .......... the courts are slow-moving and reactive, and as we wait for the federal judiciary to make its moves, Trump and Musk are creating facts on the ground. .......... Those with the direct institutional power to slam the brakes lack the will and those with the will lack the power.

Trump Has a Master Plan for Destroying the ‘Deep State’ “Either the deep state destroys America or we destroy the deep state.” ........ would elevate personal fealty to Mr. Trump as the central value in government employment, processes and institutions. ........ If Mr. Trump has a chance to implement his various plans, expect a weaker American government, worse public services and the dismantling of limits on presidential power.

Stephen Colbert Is a Little Alarmed About Trump’s Gaza Proposal Colbert wasn’t the only host flabbergasted by President Trump’s plan to take over Gaza, move the Palestinians out and turn it into a resort destination.



Why Gen X Women Are Having the Best Sex In an era plagued by sex negativity, only one generation seems immune: mine.

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