demmiblue
demmiblue's JournalDenmark's Maersk buys Panama Canal railway
Danish shipowner AP Møller-Maersk has acquired a railway connecting the ports at either end of the Panama Canal, in a deal that loosens US control of the train link just as President Donald Trump seeks to assert Washington’s influence in the Central American country.
Maersk’s ports business APM Terminals announced on Wednesday that it had acquired the Panama Canal Railway Company, which operates a 76km line that runs adjacent to the waterway and transports cargo between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
The railway was bought for an undisclosed sum from US-based Lanco Group and Canadian Pacific Kansas City, which operates across North America.
The deal has been signed despite mounting US pressure over the Panama Canal, a key passage for American and global trade, with Trump threatening this year to “take it back” under American control.
https://www.ft.com/content/cb460c62-b587-4900-a0c5-722f6c2548d4
The Wisconsin Supreme Court was not for sale.
https://bsky.app/profile/jack-e-smith.bsky.social/post/3lltcmtz67c2q
I spoke to an expert in authoritarianism, who explained to me that things like this are extremely meaningful...
@mollyjongfast.bsky.social
I spoke to an expert in authoritarianism, who explained to me that things like this are extremely meaningful and they help protect democracy, even if there’s not a straight line between this and actual legislating
Acyn @acyn.bsky.social·12h
Senator Cory Booker concludes his record-breaking Senate Floor speech after 25 hours
Massive applause for Booker
April 2, 2025 at 6:28 AM
She links to this article:
he first few weeks of Donald Trump’s second presidency have accelerated a process of democratic erosion in the United States. In just two months, the president and his allies have issued executive orders of dubious constitutionality, violated the civil protections of federal workers, impinged on Congress’s powers over the budget, sidestepped and defied court rulings, used the Justice Department to punish opponents and protect loyalists, threatened to impeach judges who rule against the administration, weaponized U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and immigration law to imprison and deport documented immigrants without due process, and allowed unappointed individuals an unprecedented (and potentially illegal) level of access and power over key agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Treasury Department, and the Education Department.
Democratic erosion has not progressed as far in the United States as it has in many other countries, but that does not make the steps the Trump administration has taken any less concerning. At a minimum, democracies should afford citizens the opportunity to form and express their preferences and have them weighted equally in government. To do so, citizens must enjoy individual rights such as freedom of association, freedom of expression, and freedom of movement. Checks and balances exist to guarantee those rights. They are meant to prevent abuses that—under the guise of majoritarian support—could limit citizens’ ability to participate in government on an equal footing. The Trump administration’s willingness to bypass the law, defy courts, and weaponize state institutions to punish opponents threatens that political participation and, in doing so, threatens democracy.
For democracy to survive, it must be protected. In the past few decades, in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Poland, opposition groups pushed back successfully against leaders with authoritarian tendencies early in the process of democratic backsliding, when they still had institutional levers to pull. But in other cases, such as Bolivia, El Salvador, Turkey, and Venezuela, oppositions either failed to act with sufficient urgency or used tactics that lost them their institutional levers, gradually hindering their ability to resist.
In the United States, the opposition’s response to the threat so far has been underwhelming. Reeling from electoral defeat and shocked by the blitz of the Trump administration’s power grabs, politicians and civil society groups are uncertain about the path forward and hesitant to take bold steps.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/how-save-democracy-trump#
Trump's reciprocal tariff plan amplifies risk of ocean shipping chaos, executives say
Source: Reuters
LOS ANGELES/BERLIN/ATHENS, April 2 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's new tariff plan has the ocean shipping industry on edge as he stokes a trade war destined to stanch transport demand and send companies scrambling to manage the fallout.
...
"The implementation of stacked tariffs has led to mounting confusion," said Blake Harden, the Retail Industry Leaders Association's vice president of international trade. "Companies have not had adequate time, certainty, and guidance they need to incorporate these changes and comply."
Trump has invoked emergency powers to swiftly add, and occasionally retract and reinstate, tariffs during his second term in office.
"Importers don't know from one week to the next what their duty cost is going to be," said Kit Johnson, director of import compliance at John S. James Co., a U.S. customs broker and freight forwarder whose customers include automakers and producers of chemicals, machinery, medical devices and textiles.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/trumps-reciprocal-tariff-plan-amplifies-risk-ocean-shipping-chaos-executives-say-2025-04-02/
Exclusive: DOGE official at DOJ bragged about hacking, distributing pirated software
Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON, April 2 (Reuters) - A top employee of billionaire Elon Musk who is now working in the U.S. Justice Department previously bragged about hacking and distributing pirated software, according to archived copies of his former websites reviewed by Reuters.
Christopher Stanley, a 33-year-old engineer who has worked at both Musk's social media company X and space-launch company SpaceX, is a senior advisor in the Deputy Attorney General's office, according to a former Justice Department official and a staff directory listing reviewed by Reuters.
Stanley was assigned there while working for Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency that President Donald Trump set up to slash the federal bureaucracy. Musk has said no "organization has been more transparent” than DOGE, but there’s been little public information on the responsibilities and background of its staff.
Stanley ran a series of websites and forums starting as far back as 2006, when he was 15, registration data preserved by the internet intelligence firm DomainTools shows. Several of those sites distributed pirated ebooks, bootleg software and video game cheats, according to copies maintained by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit whose 'Wayback Machine' preserves old websites.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/doge-official-doj-bragged-about-hacking-distributing-pirated-software-2025-04-02/
The livestream of @booker.senate.gov's speech has more than 220M likes on TikTok
@aterkel.bsky.social
The livestream of @booker.senate.gov's speech has more than 220M likes on TikTok
April 1, 2025 at 6:26 PM
https://bsky.app/profile/aterkel.bsky.social/post/3llrw65ets22h
* Make that 264M!
This is not an exaggeration: illegally gutting this program will cause Americans to freeze to death in their homes.
@costasamaras.com
This is not an exaggeration: illegally gutting this program will cause Americans to freeze to death in their homes.
isaac @sevier.io·1h
Confirmed.
www.cnn.com/2025/04/01/h...
CNN Health
Also terminated was the entire staff of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, according to Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. The program provides about $4 billion to help millions of Americans with their heating and cooling bills.
“It will definitely hamper program operations,” Wolfe said, noting that he doesn’t see how the agency can “allocate the remaining $387 million in funds for this year without federal staff. The program could well grind to a halt.”
April 1, 2025 at 3:51 PM
https://bsky.app/profile/costasamaras.com/post/3llrni4wyjk27
These people are evil.
Waltz and staff used Gmail for government communications, officials say
Source: msn/WaPo
Members of President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, including White House national security adviser Michael Waltz, have conducted government business over personal Gmail accounts, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post and interviews with three U.S. officials.
The use of Gmail, a far less secure method of communication than the encrypted messaging app Signal, is the latest example of questionable data security practices by top national security officials already under fire for the mistaken inclusion of a journalist in a group chat about high-level planning for military operations in Yemen.
A senior Waltz aide used the commercial email service for highly technical conversations with colleagues at other government agencies involving sensitive military positions and powerful weapons systems relating to an ongoing conflict, according to emails reviewed by The Post. While the NSC official used his Gmail account, his interagency colleagues used government-issued accounts, headers from the email correspondence show.
Waltz has had less sensitive, but potentially exploitable information sent to his Gmail, such as his schedule and other work documents, said officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe what they viewed as problematic handling of information. The officials said Waltz would sometimes copy and paste from his schedule into Signal to coordinate meetings and discussions.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/waltz-and-staff-used-gmail-for-government-communications-officials-say/ar-AA1C5Veh
House votes to defy Mike Johnson in painful blow
Source: Axios
The House voted Tuesday to defy House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and force a vote on allowing members who are new parents to vote by proxy for three months.
Why it matters: It's a brutal loss for Johnson, who poured considerable political capital into trying to snuff out Rep. Anna Paulina Luna's (R-Fla.) efforts.
Luna launched what is called a discharge petition, which can force a vote on any measure without the support of leadership if 218 House members sign on.
Luna got the signatures — including a dozen Republicans — and the vote will have to happen by the end of the week.
Read more: https://www.axios.com/2025/04/01/mike-johnson-anna-paulina-luna-proxy-voting
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