This interview highlights the importance of Russia-USA relations to both parties and to the world and how Trump makes deals. Witkoff: ‘The president is all about clearing up misconceptions, clearing up miscommunication, figuring out how to get a good deal for all stakeholders… and then deciding beforehand what the outcome he wants is.’ ABN
Donald Trump accused District Court Judge James Boasberg of trying to ‘usurp the power of the presidency’ while demanding the Supreme Court take action amid a high-stakes legal standoff.
Trump called Boasberg a ‘publicity hound’ in his latest attack on the judiciary after the judge halted his massive deportation of migrants with a temporary restraining order.
‘Judge James Boasberg is doing everything in his power to usurp the Power of the Presidency,’ he warned.
Trump mocked Boasberg as ‘a local, unknown Judge’ and added that he’s a ‘grandstander, looking for publicity.’
Boasberg on Thursday deemed a court filing from the administration ‘woefully insufficient’ because it was filed by a low-level staffer.
One day earlier, he hosted a contentious hearing with DOJ lawyers and said he wants to find out whether the government ‘deliberately flouted’ his order.
Roberts is up to his eyeballs in this as he is the one who appointed Boasberg to be the top FISA court judge and both knew the reason was to hide FBI spying on Trump’s first campaign and presidency. Much good may come of this because, ironically, neither judge has a shred of legal or moral standing. Their entire careers are irreparably stained by their malfeasance. ABN
I posted this video this morning (several posts below) along with an essay on the dangers of an advanced AI surveillance state. I commented on that essay before watching the video because a totalitarian surveillance state is a very real and dangerous possibility and many of us are talking about it. Now that I have watched Vance’s talk, I am posting it alone. In my view it’s a good talk and I agree with the policy directives Vance outlines. As a Buddhist, I am fundamentally an optimist and do not worry too much about things I have no control over. In many comments I have said our best defense against totalitarianism is free speech and platforms that host thriving free speech. Free speech can be thought of as a kind of biological technology that always sifts through the data and eventually finds the best stuff. This process must needs always be ongoing because everything is always changing. ABN
When Vice-President JD Vance delivers prepared remarks about Artificial Intelligence, pay attention.
JD Vance is the 2028 presidential candidate of choice for the Technocrats; the current goal is to envelop the MAGA populist movement for the intents and purposes of the collective network of Technocrats.
This motive and intent baseline will not change as Vance positions to replace President Donald Trump.
During a speech to the American Dynamism Summit, JD Vance outlines his optimism for the future of the U.S. economy, as boosted by the technological advances in artificial intelligence.
Within his remarks, Vance correctly notes some voices are saying there is going to be a major fracture between the “Techno-optimists” and the “populists.” However, Vance defines that chasm, and then refutes that fear/concern around jobs, advanced AI, automation, innovation and the economy. He misses what will be the root cause of the fracture completely.
Vice-President Vance notes there is nothing to fear from innovation, artificial intelligence, robotics and advanced industrial application of emerging technology. Indeed, all facets of economic growth through the use of all the aforementioned enterprises are correctly framed by the vice president.
There is nothing to fear on the economic front from the technological advancements currently underway.
Let me repeat, before I get misinterpreted….
Everything JD Vance says about the economic future of the United States, against the backdrop of innovation and AI is accurate. JD Vance is 100% correct. However, that’s not the predictable root cause of the upcoming fracture between the Techno-Optimists (his term) and the MAGA populists.
The fracture is going to come as an outcome of how AI networks with government and then destroys privacy, liberty and ultimately freedom for Americans.
It is not the economic side of the AI system Vance supports on behalf of his benefactors that is problematic; it’s the creation of a compliant surveillance state that flows as a natural outcome of advanced and automated AI systems within a highly weaponized government. That’s the problem. That where the fracture will occur.
Techno-optimists are not paying any attention to how their beloved AI networking can be weaponized in a surveillance state. When you combine fully automated AI data processing with ‘Real ID’, facial recognition software, digital identities created for each American and the motives of govt, you can easily predict what comes next.
The U.S. surveillance system can then be fine-tuned (depending on who is in charge of it) to use the real-time digital and physical identity to control access to systems. Write a Facebook post critical of government, get blocked from your bank account. Do something defined by government as against their interests, lose your access to travel etc.
The problem for Americans is how advanced AI will be deployed under the guise of efficiency to create a comprehensive DHS surveillance state.
The predictable system will automate, connecting every aspect of our lives to our compliance in living that life in the manner approved by those who control the system.
Privacy, freedom and liberty, core fundamental principles of our American system, are replaced with surveillance and defined citizen compliance. These are the pesky issues JD Vance and his Techno-Optimists (Thiel, Sacks, Musk, Ellison, et al) do not want to consider when they think about those pesky ‘proles’ they call “populists.”
Vice-President JD Vance has been constructed as the palatable messenger to calm the fears of MAGA. To calm those AI fears, Vance focuses attention to the well-discussed AI issues around jobs, labor and employment as outlined in his speech.
Listen carefully. However, the issue is not economics, it’s about privacy and liberty.
Reposted in full with permission from Sundance. I definitely see the problem but do not see any way out of it, save we the people having enough free speech to communicate our shared dissatisfaction and thus influence the powers that be. We the plebs have already allowed our civilization to be inundated with incompatible mass immigration, and we have even paid for it. Who is to blame? Not AI.
The Buddhist tradition has long been a ‘render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s’ one. I am black-pilled on our technological future when viewed in terms of the past and assessed with values formed in the past.
My white-pilled, optimistic side envisions digital babies with super-high IQs; AI so good and so well networked, everyone is wealthy and no one needs to be greedy. If everyone is super smart, healthy, and has all they need, the ancient human values of violence, dominance and might makes right, may wither away. All of us are capable of murder but very few ever do it. Several generations of digital babies will produce the finest human beings possible. In their hands AI surveillance will also have the capacity to prevent fraud, group parasitism, evil cabals. Bad as it looks today, I see lots of room for optimism and no matter what, Buddhist practice works in all worlds. ABN
This flap all but certainly proves there is real division between elite factions in USA. Trump and the activist judges, including Roberts, are not on the same side. What the judges are doing looks amateur. They lack not only a professional sense of public imaging but also good reason to do what they are doing. One can only assume they are desperate to prevent exposure of something even worse than massive corruption throughout the government. They appear to be battling for their elite faction’s hold on power. These rabbit holes are deep and ugly. Almost all of Congress is rolling in ill-gotten gains from (CIA-controlled) USAID NGOs. Now, even SCOTUS has no moral compass. ABN
Yes, and also destroy all traditional family, religious, legal, intellectual, and institutional bonds so a total takeover can be secured. What’s worse is all of this was preceded and accompanied by covert violence against especially boys and young men. Why? Because destroying just the men (especially while they are young) in a society causes the entire structure of that society to fail and fall within just a few generations. A secondary tactic used against the West has been as you destroy the boys and young men (with poison, lobotomies, sensory damage, educational misdirection and much more) teach the women and girls to hate them. Then you will have one-half of society fighting the other half at every level, even inside of the home, even between sister and brother. Once you see this, you will understand what has been and still is happening to Western civilization. Add mass immigration with its obvious spinoffs and addons from this core attack strategy and you can see the even bigger picture. ABN
Not so different in USA and other Western countries, and only Western countries. Mass immigration is a major battlefront in a war to destroy the West. There is no other intelligent conclusion. We are at war and are weak due to decades of covert savagery in Western nations. ABN
Trump knows this and appears to have framed his Middle East policy based on this. His Russia policy also appears to take into deep consideration that the Middle East is changing quickly. In somewhat like manner to Israel, Europe/NATO/Biden’s USA bet on a sleazy policy in Ukraine and have lost. Trump is well on his way to fixing that mess as well. The foundation of a future better world depends on good relations between Russia and USA. Best of all worlds will have great relations between Russia and USA. Europe and other northern and Western nations will join that alliance because they will have no choice and also nothing could be better for them than that alliance. ABN
The “Pardons” that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen. In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them! The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime. Therefore, those on the Unselect Committee, who destroyed and deleted ALL evidence obtained during their two year Witch Hunt of me, and many other innocent people, should fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level. The fact is, they were probably responsible for the Documents that were signed on their behalf without the knowledge or consent of the Worst President in the History of our Country, Crooked Joe Biden!
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This what we want from Trump. Those people committed crimes and subverted the legal system of USA. They must be held accountable. Moreover, the tens of millions of dollars amassed by so many members of Congress in such short periods of time scream corruption. Guilty members must be fully exposed and face, at the very least, the wrath and contempt of the public, if and only if there is some way what they did is technically legal. The known excuse is insider trading laws do not apply to Congress. But it’s hard to believe that’s the whole of it. We know Biden and family lived off graft and corruption for decades. I believe Trump knows the next step has to be exposure at the least. Clawing back ill-gotten gains should follow and if laws were broken prosecution. ABN
Bukele is rightly mocking Judge Boasberg. A major reason you want to keep your country clean, law-abiding, and competent is to avoid needing a prison system like the one in El Salvador, or having judges like Boasberg. ABN
This is a good thing. We do not want truck drivers who cannot read road signs, or who have illegally obtained their drivers licenses, piloting huge trucks on our roads and highways. How well and safely our society functions depends entirely on the competency of the people working in it. ABN
We accept that USAID was funding left-wing extremism, correct? We also accept that USAID is a front group for the CIA, correct? Yet then a disconnect happens.
Yet, for some reason I do not quite understand, people struggle to realize the two points above mean the CIA control domestic political outcomes.
The CIA is the entity, the IC silo, controlling politics in the USA, and the resistance to the politics -namely Trump- they do not agree with.
This is why I use the restaurant analogy. The CIA is the back of the house, the kitchen.
We hold elections, we change the name of the restaurant. We change the front of the house, the staff, the maître d, we even change the decor (DOGE) and the menu. But the kitchen is the same.
The judicial branch defers to the IC. The legislative branch is fearful of the IC. The executive branch is the front of the house, giving the illusion of change, but nothing really changes.
Until the system is changed, totally and radically reformed to remove the power of the IC, then nothing changes.
Repeal the Patriot Act. Repeal the 17th amendment. Start repealing the tools that created the problem, and only then do we start to free ourselves from this mess.
Eisenhower warned about it. JFK talked about it. Many more people have inferred it and have skirted on the issue, pretending there was some reform process that could be used. All of that well-intentioned inaction leads us to this place where we are now; standing jaw-agape wondering what can be done.
Take down the apparatus. Quit being fearful. Yes, leave us vulnerable to harm, but restore constitutional liberty. The people who weaponize govt use fear, real or imagined, for their purposes.
Take down the national security state. Disassemble the tools (FISA, NSA Surveillance, DHS, DOJ-NSD) and all the mechanisms in place to give the illusion of security.
Ultimately, live a life wrapped in constitutional liberty with the potential for harm always present… but live without the control mechanisms of the IC influencing every facet of life, under the ruse of security.
Find that and you will find the opportunity for freedom.
His reasoning is impeccable, but the highlighted conclusion, alas, is unlikely, probably impossible. Surveillance and control are consequences of technologies invented by humans and also the root technologies of the human brain. Game theory of power strongly indicates that power, once attained, concentrates and seeks control and growth. Hierarchies form naturally based on how our minds work, how social groups form, how languages work, how power inevitably forms hierarchies. Sundance can point to ‘the CIA’ but beyond that surface the deep power in control is not visible. Who in the CIA or who is controlling the CIA?
A relevant aside to this is even the people in control of the CIA, or whatever the deep power center is, can never be certain they are in full control. Some force, some group, some entity or enemy could always depose them at any moment. This is the deep reality that drives the need for ever more power among top people. This same reality is true in China, Russia, Europe, wherever. And this same reality is true between and among all nations and power centers on earth. It has ever been thus.
Another relevant aside concerns people who want to return to kingdoms and royalties because democracy is a failure. I agree democracy is a ridiculous way to run a nation, but also must say the deep state is today the modern version of kings and queens. We just don’t know who they are and they no longer parade in front of us in costumes. Other than that, under the sun it’s the exact same old nothing new as ever.
One last aside is it is possible that a vast surveillance state will work in favor of we the people. A super surveillance AI control state will be able to apportion goods and services more efficiently than capitalism and much less painfully. A robotic world will be so wealthy, greed will seem passe. Any elite that controls this state may reason that its control is no longer absolutely necessary because there is no longer any reason for anyone to overthrow them. ABN
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