May 21 Meeting: Project 2025
At our meeting on Wednesday May 21, the Northport Cracker Barrel will discuss the Heritage Foundation manifesto, Mandate for Leadership: Project 2025. This massive plan, written in 2023 and reaching nearly 1000 pages, outlines a set of conservative priorities for every branch of government.
The project was launched in part because many conservatives thought that the first Trump administration left too much business unfinished. Getting the rest of the job done would take careful planning. So far, the plan seems to have worked. The Trump administration has acted on many recommendations, although not all, during its first four months in office. In some respects the administration's actions have been more radical than the Heritage version envisioned.
- You can download the full text of the Mandate for Leadership here.
- This unofficial "tracker" estimates how much of each part of Project 2025 has been implemented so far.
- David A. Graham has written a book, The Project, published just a few weeks ago. You can get it from Amazon. Here is a review from The Guardian.
The Project 2025 tracker, https://www.project2025.observer/?agencies=White+House, is a very useful tool. The link I've included is the White House crosstab, as an example, of their 13 objectives, 9 are marked as completed with 4 in progress. Looking forward to Rick's facilitation of this weeks discussion.
ReplyDeleteIf you find the Project 2025 tracker of interest, which I have, you will find that the reference links to the Project 2025 page are not directly useful. I have downloaded the PDF version and us the page reference to find to the correct page to review. A bit of effort required to be objectively informed,
ReplyDeletePerhaps one of the areas we would all be familiar with is the actions taken against the AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT.
ReplyDeleteThe conclusion in that section's opening reads:
"The next conservative Administration should scale back USAID’s global footprint by, at a minimum, returning to the agency’s 2019 pre–COVID-19 pandemic
budget level. It should deradicalize USAID’s programs and structures and build
on the conservative reforms instituted by the Trump Administration. This will
require working closely with the U.S. Congress to make deep cuts in the international affairs “150 Account” while granting USAID greater flexibility in spending its appropriated funds to achieve better developmental outcomes."
The tracker indicates that 100% of their objectives were completed, yet it seems they went will beyond what their state minimum objective to a maximal and illegal elimination of this agency.
Here is an example of the peculiar behavior of the Trump regime related to digital asset and trust exchange. What the Project 2025 states verses what was done is gapped and needs to be assessed objectively. Regulation of digital asset systems is required and the action taken is an abdication of responsibility and governance.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.project2025.observer/?agencies=Commodity+Futures+Trading+Commission
Page 835 of Project 2025:
DIGITAL ASSETS
Both the SEC and the CFTC have been irresponsible actors in the digital asset area. They have had more than a decade to promulgate rules governing digital assets, yet the SEC has utterly failed to do so, and the CFTC has provided only minimal guidance. Instead, both agencies have chosen regulation by enforcement—and have done it poorly. They neither adequately protect investors nor
provide responsible market participants with the regulatory environment that they need to thrive.
The SEC and CFTC should clarify the treatment of digital assets (coins or tokens). Specifically, they should:
l Promulgate a joint regulation providing that a holder of digital assets may not be deemed a party to an investment contract or an investor in a common enterprise unless, while the enterprise is a going concern, the holder is entitled to a share of the earnings or profits of the common enterprise or a defined flow of payments from the common enterprise in consideration of the investment or unless, upon liquidation, the holder has rights against
the assets of the common enterprise. Otherwise, the digital asset shall be deemed a commodity to be regulated by the CFTC, not the SEC.
l Amend the definition of commodity to include digital assets that are not a security as so defined and amend the definition of security to make it clear that a certificate (digital, electronic, or otherwise) that represents ownership of commodities and is convertible into a physical commodity on demand is not a security but a commodity.
In the absence of regulatory action, Congress should enact legislation that achieves these goals.
ABC News reports:
The Trump administration is pulling back its enforcement of crypto regulations, disbanding a unit dedicated to cryptocurrency enforcement
The Justice Department instructed federal prosecutors to "no longer target virtual currency exchanges, mixing and tumbling services, and offline wallets for the acts of their end users or unwitting violations of regulations," according to a memo from the U.S. deputy attorney general reviewed by ABC News.
"The Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator," the memo said. "The National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET) shall be disbanded effective immediately."
The shift is consistent with President Donald Trump's other pro-crypto policies, including directives to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to ease up on crypto regulation and the creation of a digital assets reserve.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche's memo attacked the Biden administration, which he said, "used the Justice Department to pursue a reckless strategy of regulation by prosecution, which was ill conceived and poorly executed."
During the discussion, I mentioned the No Kings June 14, 2025 national day of protest. See: https://indivisible.org/statements/indivisible-and-partners-announce-no-kings-nationwide-day-defiance-flag-day-during for specifics.
ReplyDeleteEd Dolan mentioned the book Abundance - https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Abundance/Peter-H-Diamandis/Exponential-Technology-Series/9781451616835
ReplyDeleteIn 2015 I bought and read Diamandis' (https://www.su.org/about-us) and Kotler's (https://www.flowgenomeproject.com/) BOLD - How to Go Big, Create Wealth, and Impact the World (https://www.diamandis.com/bold), which is their follow up to Abundance outlining specific actions that can be taken (note https://www.AbundanceHub.com is abandoned so that is no longer a resource).
As a technologist, I found BOLD to be consistent with first principle thought and application of emerging technologies applied for good case, not abuse case, opportunities. Also, they out line incentive competitions such as XPRIZE (https://www.xprize.org/).