dumnezero

New elements include DOGE’s feed from X, Musk’s social network, and a blank section for savings identified by the agency, promised to be updated “no later than” Valentine’s Day. At the top of the website’s regulations page, DOGE used data published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a libertarian think tank that claims to fight “climate alarmism.”

The CEI’s “unconstitutionality index,” which it started in 2003, compares regulations or rules introduced by government agencies with laws enacted by Congress.

The CEI claims to fight “climate alarmism,” and has long worked to block climate-focused policies, successfully lobbying against the ratification of the international climate treaty the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 as well as the enactment of the 2009 Waxman-Markey bill, which aimed to place a cap on greenhouse gas emissions.

Shortly thereafter, Wallnau proclaimed that once Trump took office, "the government and the church" would begin "moving together to build the ekklesia" to take control of "the government mountain" globally. ("Ekklesia" is a term used by dominionists to refer to the church as God’s governing body on Earth.)

Wallnau then announced something he called The Nehemiah Project, which is committed to "partnering the prophetic collaboration of government and church and business together to take all the domains we can while we have the wind to our back."

...

"There are three arteries that make this happen: Legislation, litigation and the shaping of public opinion," Wallnau replied, explaining that they intend to pass laws and file lawsuits to further their Christian nationalist agenda while simultaneously using the power and influence of the media, the government, and the church to shape public opinion in support of that agenda.

"Paula White has to be careful [about] what she says in public.," Wallnau stated. "[But] I believe I might have learned that from her."

Objectives

We call on the European Commission to propose a binding legal ban on conversion practices targeting LGBTQ+ citizens in the European Union:

Conversion Practices are interventions aimed at changing, repressing or suppressing the sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression of LGBTQ+ persons.

Such practices, due to their discriminatory, degrading, harmful and fraudulent nature have been qualified as torture by the United Nations, and are currently being banned in a growing number of States.

The EU plays a key role in the protection of fundamental rights and should take actions to fight against all inhuman practices. The Commission should propose a directive adding conversion practices to the list of euro-crimes and/or amend the ongoing directive on equality (2008) to include a ban on these practices.

Furthermore, to fight against the legislative moratorium, the Commission should also enforce a non-binding resolution calling for a widespread ban of conversion practices in the EU.

Finally, we call on the Commission to amend the Victims’ Rights Directive to establishes minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of conversion practices.

All member states should introduce a ban on conversion practices or review their current ones.

Permalink to artist page: https://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2025/01/31

Corporate Europe Observatory has set up Deregulation Watch to help civil society monitor new developments in the deregulation agenda, assess what’s at stake, and organise in defense of strong social, environmental and human rights protections.

On a related note:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_bottom

Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting immigrants are a sign that America may soon have what amounts to a system of concentration camps for extra-judicial imprisoning of immigrants. It’s part of the plan.

The only Democrat who seems to understand all this and who is willing to call it out is Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She has previously used the c-word to describe Trump’s camps, and yesterday in Congress, she explained how the Laken Riley Act will create what amounts to a system of concentration camps for extra-judicial imprisoning of immigrants.

In this bill, if a person is so much as accused of a crime if someone wants to point a finger and accuse someone of shoplifting, they will be rounded up and put into a private detention camp and signed and sent out for deportation without a day in court,” she said. “So when a private prison camp opens in your town and they say we didn’t know this was going to happen, know that they did, and they voted for it.”

None of this is accidental: it is the way such regimes operate, and we have very clear historical precedents. We need to get this through our heads.

All of those declarations and constitutions and values and human rights we thought were chiselled in stone were, in fact, written on tissue paper, and Trump is dropping them onto a bonfire.

...

And at the heart of all authoritarianism is the creation of an enemy, the demonisation of some other, or others, onto whom the “good citizens” can project their fears and concerns. When Trump and Vance warn of immigrants eating cats and dogs, they are participating in this age-old ritual of demonisation, and as I’ve said, this is not just a media strategy.

Hitler certainly made no secret of his antisemitism, and as far back as 1921, an article in the Nazi daily newspaper, Völkischer Beobachter, mentioned the idea of a future Nazi government using camps to deal with their enemies. But as Nicholas Wachsmann cautions, “The improvisation after the capture of power makes abundantly clear that there was no blueprint in Nazi files. When Hitler took charge of Germany in 1933, the Nazi concentration camp still had to be invented.”

An article by Tim Dunlop. Audio version is available on the page.

Of course, there was plenty of inspiration to invent concentration camps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_colony

• 'Dr. Phil' embeds with ICE in Chicago
• Trump administration deputizes DOJ agencies for immigration enforcement
• ICE makes arrests in Arizona, Puerto Rico

• 'Dr. Phil' embeds with ICE in Chicago
• Trump administration deputizes DOJ agencies for immigration enforcement
• ICE makes arrests in Arizona, Puerto Rico

Phil McGraw, known as "Dr. Phil" for the eponymous American television series focused on mental health, followed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and other federal agents during the action, according to his X account and two sources familiar with the matter.

Into that maelstrom came a renowned scientist and engineer named Howard Scott. With a doctorate from the University of Berlin, he’d commanded complex projects around the globe, including British munitions plants and industrial projects for U.S. Steel. Scott and a small group of fellow engineers and scientists had made a diagnosis of civilization’s ills and a prescription for relief. The current capitalist system, they said, was irrevocably broken, and—as one magazine summarizing the movement put it—“we are faced with the threat of national bankruptcy and perhaps general chaos within eighteen months.” Scott described the solution in the language of an engineer—a civilization “operated on a thermo-dynamically balanced load.”