The threads have merged to do with the US 2024 presidential election and the conviction of Donald J. Trump. Musk and many of his team are not elected and some not eligible to ever be president, but there are suggestions that for a while we may see a co-presidency between Trump and Musk. This is troublesome and people may find interesting articles that clarify or alert us to problems going forward.

This doesn't mean that every weird thing that pops into Don and Dick's heads should be printed here. If it gets too out of control you have advance warning that odd stuff will be culled. If you feel like you're being trolled don't post normal stuff and insults in the same post because both parts will disappear. If too many insults are posted you may disappear for a while. The other threads are going to close because we've tried to keep it to one UK and one US political thread. An exception was made mostly because we couldn't stop it. Now we can.

Looking for a news page that everyone should be able to open and read, here is a story that CNN may update:
https://www.cnn.com/politics/president-donald-trump-47 Donald J. Trump
News on former President Donald Trump and the Trump administration

Meanwhile, here is his claim that he will hand over his private businesses during the presidency:

Trump Organization’s new ethics plan pledges Donald Trump will separate himself from his private business interests

(CNN) — The Trump Organization on Friday announced that President-elect Donald Trump will not have any involvement in managing his real estate and branding empire during his second term and appointed an outside ethics adviser to monitor major company actions – part of several measures the organization said it was taking to avoid conflicts of interest as Trump prepares to return to the White House later this month.

The provisions, for the most part, mirror steps announced during the first Trump administration.

Under its plan, the company pledged not to enter into any new deals with foreign governments and voluntarily donate to the US Treasury any profits from foreign governments that it can identify flowing into its hotels and other properties.

The ethics pledge, however, is silent on how the company will handle overseas business deals. And Trump’s son Eric Trump, the company’s executive vice president, has previously said that the firm will continue to pursue foreign business during his father’s second term, relaxing a self-imposed restriction that the company has said was in place during the first term.

In a statement, the Trump Organization noted that the incoming president is not required either by federal law or the US Constitution to remove himself from his business interests. Even so, Eric Trump said, the company “is dedicated to not just meeting but vastly exceeding its legal and ethical obligations during my father’s Presidency.”

He called the ethical standards announced Friday “robust.”

The younger Trump, who essentially guides the company day-to-day, also announced that prominent Republican lawyer William Burck will serve as an outside adviser to review major transactions to avoid ethics problems.

The plan unveiled Friday pledges that Donald Trump will have “limited access” to the company’s financial information. Additionally, his businesses will remain in a trust, managed by his children, and his investments will be overseen by outside financial institutions that will “neither solicit nor accept input” from Trump.

Although Trump is not required to take these steps, previous presidents have moved more aggressively to divest themselves of their businesses or place their holdings in blind trusts to avoid the appearance of self-dealing – a distinction often noted by ethics watchdogs during Trump’s political career.

And, as CNN has previously reported, the incoming president has pursued new business deals in recent months – including joining his family in a cryptocurrency venture and promoting new merchandise touting his electoral victory.

Another thing I'm curious about but haven't bothered to look up is where are Jared and Ivanka this time around? They were front and center in the last administration, but have pulled away from a lot of his activity once he was indicted. Are they completely out of the picture, or are they doing more behind the scenes money-making on the family name? Managing the crypto fund?

The Democrats are working to elect a new party leader. Whoever is put in that role has the job of trying to flip the House and the Senate in two years to hobble Trump's ability to do more damage (he's already considered a "lame duck" and that may result in some surprising pushback by his own party.) Getting past the lies told to people who have no connection with their local politics is the biggest challenge. (A side issue is that many US newspapers have closed so the only source of info about elections for people in small communities is on the national level.) We need to rediscover the meaning of "loyal opposition."

Participants here may want to pick up a couple of small books: The U.S. Constitution (ACLU asks you for money, but skip past and read it), and Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.

Snyder's first lesson: Do not obey in advance. (Clearly many of the big names in corporate America including oligarchs like Bezos and Zuckerberg did not read this book.)