https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2506/S00042/crony-capitalism.htm #nzpol #cronyism #chumocracy #cosyism
#cronyism
A Snarky Ballad of a Certain Rabble
https://onceinabluemoon2021.in/2025/06/14/a-snarky-ballad-of-a-certain-rabble/
#The_Modani_Saga,
#Totalitarian_Regime,
#Narendra_Modi, #Monarch, #Cronyism,
#Down_With_Saffron_Fascism, #Autocracy, #Pseudology,
#Authoritarian_personality, #Plutocracy, #Oligarchy,
@anekanta Thy Hand, The Great Monarch
https://onceinabluemoon2021.in/2025/06/10/thy-hand-the-great-monarch/
#The_Modani_Saga,
#Totalitarian_Regime,
#Narendra_Modi, #Monarch, #Cronyism,
#Down_With_Saffron_Fascism, #Autocracy, #Pseudology,
#Authoritarian_personality, #Plutocracy, #Oligarchy,
Thy Hand, The Great Monarch
https://onceinabluemoon2021.in/2025/06/10/thy-hand-the-great-monarch/
#The_Modani_Saga,
#Totalitarian_Regime,
#Narendra_Modi, #Monarch, #Cronyism,
#Down_With_Saffron_Fascism, #Autocracy, #Pseudology,
#Authoritarian_personality, #Plutocracy, #Oligarchy,
Yes, #capitalism, except this is not even VAGUELY an example of a free market. This isn't capitalism, it's #cronyism.
Letter To Chuck Schumer about Section 80131 of the Budget Bill, Which Hands Over the Boundary Waters to a Foreign Mining Company
After calling Chuck Schumer’s office this morning, I sent this letter today via Schumer’s site. I’m also going to fax it to the New York office and to the environmental staffers in the DC office. Yeah, they still use faxes.
Dear Senator Schumer,
As your constituent, I am writing to share my concerns about a specific section of the Budget Bill that was drafted to enrich a foreign corporation at the American public’s expense. In particular, I urge you to strike from the Budget Bill section 80131. This is a non-budgetary policy provision that hands over our public lands to a Chilean conglomerate owned by a billionaire Trump crony and precludes judicial review of a corrupt deal.
This is reckless, bespoke policy, dictated by mining company lobbyists and written with utter disregard for science, the law, or good government.
Antofagasta plc, the mining company under the control of Chile’s Luksic Group, has repeatedly failed to obtain the necessary leases and permits for its Twin Metals project in northern Minnesota by legitimate means, so the company has resorted to influence peddling and relied on Trump’s corruption.
Even before Trump took office for the first time, it was revealed that Andronico Luksic Craig, the Chilean billionaire at the head of the Luksic Group, purchased a Kalorama mansion for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, in blatant violation of the Emoluments Clause. (This move conformed to pattern; only a few years before, Luksic had been involved in a similar scandal involving the son and daughter-in-law of Chilean president Michele Bachelet.) No surprise, the first Trump administration got quickly to work on reversing Obama-era protections.
Reporting by the New York Times (June 26, 2019, Page One), based partly on documents I obtained through Freedom of Information Act litigation, showed the administration working behind closed doors and in collusion with mining company executives and lobbyists to rewrite legal opinions in order to reach foregone conclusions. Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture was bullied into burying a scientific study demonstrating that copper and nickel mining – sulfide ore mining – on these lands, in close proximity to the Boundary Waters and north of the Laurentian Divide, would risk irreparable harm. These moves cleared the way for Trump’s Secretary of the Interior, David Bernhardt, to blithely push through the renewal of Antofagasta’s mineral leases without regard for public opinion or environmental concerns. Bernhardt’s firm now lobbies for Antofagasta on the Hill.
After President Biden restored protections for the Boundary Waters and instituted a 20-year mineral withdrawal in the watershed region, Antofagasta sued in federal court. Unable to prevail on the merits, the mining company is now working hand-in-hand with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to short-circuit proceedings at the DC District Court of Appeals. Knowing that these legal maneuvers are unlikely to succeed, Representative Pete Stauber introduced legislation on behalf of his Chilean masters that would undo the 20-year moratorium, open the Boundary Waters to extractive industry, and roll out the red carpet for foreign mining companies on our public lands. This is the special-interest legislation currently in section 80131 of the Budget Bill.
To make matters worse, the Stauber language precludes judicial review of Antofagasta’s mining leases. This measure would block the public from challenging the corrupt deal between the current administration and a foreign private entity owned by a Trump crony. As you are well aware, it is of a piece with other alarming language in the Budget Bill, like section 80151, which guts the National Environmental Policy Act, and other sections that prevent the judiciary from reviewing agency actions and holding Trump administration officials accountable. Trump loyalists are trying to codify the outrageous attacks we’re seeing on the judicial branch and on the rule of law itself.
The Senate Parliamentarian should rule that Sections 80131 and 80151 are not budgetary provisions. Rhetoric from mining touts about critical minerals, renewable energy, and national security is just more bad faith; most mining nowadays is highly automated, so the promised jobs are unlikely to materialize; and there are no provisions to keep the copper and nickel Antofagasta might pull from the ground in northeastern Minnesota, and at great risk to the Boundary Waters, within the United States. It will surely be exported for processing and sold back to us at high tariffs, if at all. We will keep only the toxic pollution sulfide mining creates. In other words, there is not even a decent economic argument to be made for allowing this foreign company to exploit our public lands.
Finally, I remind you that the lands in Superior National Forest and the Rainy River Watershed are governed by treaties with Native American tribes, who have not been meaningfully consulted in this matter and have not consented to it, and with Canada, whom Trump has already senselessly antagonized. Why should the private interests of a billionaire Trump crony be put above binding agreements with tribes and with our good neighbor to the north?
Please work with Senator Tina Smith to strike the Stauber language from this bill, and hold the line on NEPA to protect our public lands and defend the public interest. I would be happy to meet with you or your staff to discuss this further.
Thank you.
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#ANTO #BudgetBill #corruption #cronyism #emolumentsClause #federalLands #governmentCapture #NEPA #publicLands #Section80131 #Water
"It sends a message that the pardon power is now being totally and thoroughly politicized, that it will be used as a benefit to those who are supporters of the president and not for those who do not express political loyalty."
Trump's pardons highlight Justice Department's pullback from public corruption cases https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/trumps-pardons-highlight-justice-departments-pullback-public-corruptio-rcna209202 #cronyism #pardons #Constitution #law #lawless #corruption
An explanation from someone uniquely equipped in education and experience to weigh in.
I do believe it’s very likely #tariffs + #DOGE decapitated government + #Project2025 + #Cronyism = #MAGA marching America into “shithole country” territory. #TrumpsAmericanCarnage
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/why-the-one-big-beautiful-bill-is?r=2wo6i&triedRedirect=true
“A #transactional #president has revealed the US to be a transactional society, where the highest returns accrue to #rentseeking & #cronyism, not to #initiative & #innovation. Sooner or later, #productivity growth will become a casualty” www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/t... Syndicate Newsletter
American Exceptionalism Meets ...
So it turns out Poindexter is as much a fReE cOmPetiTioN aBsoLutiSt as he is a fReE sPeEcH aBsoLutiSt ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://www.thecooldown.com/green-business/tesla-tariff-exemption-us-manufacturing/
#copinage #cronyism #cronyCapitalism #Musk #Tesla #USpol
Elon Musk Set to Win Big With Trump’s Trillion-Dollar Pentagon Budget https://theintercept.com/2025/05/07/elon-musk-trump-pentagon-budget-spacex/ #uspoli #trump #ElonMusk #corruption #Cronyism #ConfilctOfInterest #oligarchy
More ridiculous, brain-dead RFK Jr. nonsense. He is so obviously unqualified for his position, and his #vaccine denial-ism has already led to the deaths of American children. The ONLY reason he is Secretary of HHS is #Trump 's reckless #cronyism
The Conversation U.S.: "The MMR vaccine doesn’t contai…" - Mastodon https://mastodon.world/@TheConversationUS@newsie.social/114456413742351571
Trump’s tariff exemptions for politically connected firms are a clear example of corruption and cronyism. Behind closed doors, insiders got rich while the rest of us paid the price. This is the system he built. #TrumpTariffs #Cronyism #Corruption #DrainTheSwamp www.propublica.org/article/trum...
Politically Connected Firms Be...
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-tariffs-exemptions-pet-lobbyists-asbestos-confusion-secrecy
Politically Connected Firms Benefit From Trump Tariff Exemptions Amid Secrecy, Confusion
#cronyism #political #trump #cronies #tariff #exemptions #taxes #lobbyists #tariffs #tax #transparency #corruption #incompetence #paytoplay #economy #economics #layoffs #business #TariffExemptions #trade #USChinaTrade #TrumpTariffs #PoliticalConnections #china #us #corruption #SpoilsSystem #SpecialFavors #BigBusiness #TechLobby #EconomicInequality #Accountability #TradeWar #exports #imports #goods #agriculture #farming
“Elon Musk’s empire is built on corruption and self-dealing.
A top adviser pushing to sell off government real estate while her husband runs key initiatives?
This isn’t business, it’s a racket. #ElonMusk #ConflictOfInterest #Corruption #Cronyism” fortune.com/article/two-...
Two of Elon Musk's top DOGE hi...
No-Bid #ICE Contract Went to Former ICE Agents Being Sued for Fabricating Criminal Evidence on the Job
The $73 million deal for assisting with deportations went to a company whose executives are accused of retaliating against a fellow ICE worker.
Sam Biddle, April 17 2025
"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement just signed a contract worth $73 million with a firm whose executives are accused of taking part in a scheme to manufacture evidence against a co-worker during their time working at the Department of Homeland Security.
"According to a contract document reviewed by The Intercept, federal contractor #UniversalStrategicAdvisors will provide services pertaining to #ICE’s 'non-detained docket,' a master list of millions of #noncitizens believed to be removable from the United States but not yet in the agency’s custody.
"The contract cites President Donald #Trump’s declaration of a #NationalEmergency on the #USMexicoBorder, an overwhelming glut of potential #deportees, and a shortage of officers to process them all as justification for hiring a private vendor to assist with the collection of biometric data, coordinating removals, and monitoring #immigrant populations.
"The document says that with a fleet of new outsourced employees, ICE can reassign hundreds of officers to tasks that better align with Trump’s recent executive orders aimed at maximizing the agency’s detention and deportation operations. With the contractors onboard, the document says at least 675 ICE officers 'will be able to take all appropriate actions to comply with the EO’s by prioritizing conducting at-large arrests, removals, and detention related activities.'
"A former ICE official, who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity, said they were concerned by this plan to further privatize the agency’s operations at the same time as the Trump administration has dramatically slashed its workforce and gutted important oversight bodies like the Office for #CivilRights and #CivilLiberties, as well as the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. 'I certainly take issue with them firing career feds and demolishing whole offices, just to hire contractors to do the same work, many of them who are former ICE employees now retired,' the official said."
Read more:
https://theintercept.com/2025/04/17/ice-deportation-contracts-us-advisors/
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/DjRAG
#WorkerRetaliation #ICEDetention #Deportations #HumanRightsAbuses #USPol #WorldPol #Corporatocracy #CorporateFascism #Fascism #Authoritarianism #Cronyism
Trumpworld can’t stand him, but Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is going nowhere. He’s joined Trump at Mar-a-Lago every time this term—because loyalty, not qualifications, rules this Cabinet. #TrumpWatch #Cronyism www.politico.com/news/2025/04...
Ice cream, outlandish ideas an...
"#ElonMusk’s minions in the federal government have just fired key experts who regulate #Tesla"
https://newrepublic.com/post/193850/elon-musk-doge-tesla-firing-self-driving-car-experts
#USpol #USpolitics #MAGA #DOGE #NHTSA #DOGEbags #cronyism #CronyCapitalism #Musk #SiliconValleyRight
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Server: https://mastodon.social
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