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Aardvark's suggested reading “American politics: the promise of disharmony” should spark good discourse here

Buried in the 1984 thread. Wanted to give attribution to Aardvark. A good summary of the book is here:


This except is the heart of it:

More specifically, Huntington has identified 14 characteristics of these periods. Nine describe the general mood:
  • “Discontent was widespread; authority, hierarchy, specialization, and expertise were widely questioned or rejected.”
  • “Political ideas were taken seriously and played an important role in the controversies of the time.”
  • “Traditional American values of liberty, individualism, equality, popular control of government, and the openness of government were stressed in public discussion.”
  • “Moral indignation over the IvI gap was widespread.”
  • “Politics was characterized by agitation, excitement, commotion, even upheaval — far beyond the usual routine of interest-group conflict.”
  • “Hostility toward power (the antipower ethic) was intense, with the central issue of politics often being defined as ‘liberty versus power.’”
  • “The exposure or muckraking of the IvI gap was a central feature of politics.”
  • “Movements flourished devoted to specific reforms or ‘causes’ (women, minorities, criminal justice, temperance, peace).”
  • “New media forms appeared, significantly increasing the influence of the media in politics.”
The remaining five describe the political changes these periods bring.
  • “Political participation expanded, often assuming new forms and often expressed through hitherto unusual channels.”
  • “The principal political cleavages of the period tended to cut across economic class lines, with some combination of middle- and working-class groups promoting change.”
  • “Major reforms were attempted in political institutions in order to limit power and reshape institutions in terms of American ideals (some of which were successful and some of which were lasting).”
  • “A basic realignment occurred in the relations between social forces and political institutions, often including but not limited to the political party system.”
  • “The prevailing ethos promoting reform in the name of traditional ideals was, in a sense, both forward-looking and backward-looking, progressive and conservative.”
To me, it provides a very interesting perspective, with the twist that as the reviewer notes, this time the charge is not being led by the "political left". So the pendulum is swinging back to the "political right" if not already being there. What is hard to make sense of for me is that distrust of billionaires/establishment/institutions feeding prior cycles is being subsumed by trusting billionaires to make the right decisions for all of America. So Trump has tapped into the lower/middle class desires, while he himself and who he wants in his cabinet, at least to me, do not make sense in furthering the interests of the lower/middle class. So is this cycle built on a house of cards with Trump leading lambs to the slaughter? Or is something else afoot? Thoughts?

Amber Alert issued for pregnant teenager suspected to be with 40-year-old man

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BEAVER DAM, Wis. (WBAY/Gray News) - An Amber Alert has been issued for a pregnant teenager who is believed to be with a 40-year-old man.

Sophia Franklin, 16, was last seen Sunday night at her home in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. She is three months pregnant.

Authorities believe she is with 40-year-old Gary F. Day, who is the father of Sophia’s unborn child. He was last seen at Sophia’s home Monday morning.
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Hawks in the new InterMat Rankings - Feb 4







It is great to be an Iowa Wrestling fan.

Go Hawks!
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The Familiar Arrogance of Musk’s Young Apparatchiks

Appearing on an anti-feminist podcast in 2021, JD Vance compared his ambitions for a conservative takeover of America to U.S. policy in postwar Iraq. “We need like a de-Baathification program, but a de-wokeification program in the United States,” he said, referring to the campaign to root out members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. If and when Donald Trump returned to the White House, Vance argued, he should “fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”
Vance’s words were prophetic, because the first days of the second Trump term have a distinct Coalition Provisional Authority vibe. For those lucky enough not to remember, the Coalition Provisional Authority was the administration that George W. Bush and his team put in place after charging heedlessly into Iraq, convinced that it would be easy to remake a government about which they knew next to nothing. It was full of right-wing apparatchiks, some barely out of college, who were given enormous responsibilities. Six people initially hired for low-level administrative jobs after sending their résumés to the conservative Heritage Foundation were assigned to manage Iraq’s $13 billion budget. A social worker who’d served as director at a Christian charity was put in charge of rebuilding the health care system.
Meanwhile, 50,000 to 100,000 Iraqi government workers, many of whom had joined the Baath Party only to get their jobs in the first place, were fired. Schools went without teachers. As Syrus Solo Jin wrote in Time, budget blunders by overwhelmed novices meant that the police weren’t paid on time. The de-Baathification that Vance wanted to emulate is widely seen as a disaster that contributed to the deadly chaos and instability that followed America’s invasion.
The United States government, of course, has yet to be dismantled to the same extent as Iraq’s, though not for lack of trying. During the transition, Trump’s allies used the phrase “shock and awe” — another throwback to the Iraq war — to describe his plans for the first 100 days.
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Soon after taking over, they created a crisis by shutting down huge segments of federal government spending, though they restarted at least some payments after a judge slapped them with a court order. Late Friday, Elon Musk seized control of the Treasury Department’s payment system, which disburses trillions of dollars and houses sensitive data about millions of Americans. Some of the people helping him take over the government — who include, as Wired reported, a half dozen engineers between the ages of 19 and 24 — appear to be even less experienced than the neophytes who staffed the C.P.A. in Iraq.
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Employees at the General Services Administration, which manages office space, transportation and technology for the federal government, told Wired that Edward Coristine, a recent high-school graduate who spent three months at Musk’s company Neuralink, has been on calls where “workers were made to go over code they had written and justify their jobs.” Another young member of Musk’s team, a software engineer named Gavin Kliger, sent out an email to USAID employees informing them that the headquarters has been closed and they shouldn’t come in; Musk said that he’s “feeding USAID into the wood chipper.”
At the Department of Education, employees have been put on leave for doing diversity training sessions that their managers recommended, and The Washington Post reports that Trump will soon begin dismantling the department altogether. More than a thousand people at the Environmental Protection Agency who work on issues like climate change and reducing pollution have been told they could be fired imminently.
Trump’s lackeys are purging the security services. Thousands of F.B.I. agents are being scrutinized for their work investigating and prosecuting the Capitol rioters, and according to The New York Times, scores or even hundreds of agents could be forced out. Meanwhile, leading administration jobs are going to cranks and fanatics. Darren Beattie, whom Trump reportedly plans to tap to be under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, wrote last year, “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work.”
Many are describing Musk’s assault on the federal bureaucracy as a coup, which isn’t quite right. Trump was, alas, elected, and delegated outsize power to Musk voluntarily. But the reason it feels like a coup is that we have no precedent for an administration treating its own government like a hostile territory to be conquered and exploited. In his memoir of America’s war on Iraq and its aftermath, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad described being ruled by “young, naïve zealots who held unchallenged powers to reshape Iraq the way their masters wanted. They represented the worst combination of colonial hubris, racist arrogance and criminal incompetence.” We’re now getting a taste of that experience.



It’s as if we’ve come full circle. America’s war in Iraq, in addition to killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and destabilizing the Middle East, also set the stage for Trump’s rise by fostering a widespread sense of distrust and betrayal in the United States. Trump, in turn, is imposing on us a milder version of the careless, unaccountable governance we installed there. As he does so, jingoist mobs and craven elites are cheering him on, just as many cheered George W. Bush. (Before there was the “Gulf of America,” there were “freedom fries.”)
Eventually, the destruction wrought by this new regime will be undeniable, even to some of its supporters. But breaking a country, unfortunately, is a lot easier than putting it back together.
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Iowa lawmakers advance another anti-DEI bill targeting university curriculum

Morans:
A year after lawmakers passed sweeping legislation banning diversity, equity, and inclusion spending across Iowa’s public universities, legislators are taking aim at DEI-related curricular requirements — and the Board of Regents is in support.



Lobbyists representing the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and the University of Northern Iowa have registered “for” House Study Bill 53 — which, among other things, would bar the campuses from requiring students take a DEI or critical race-theory course to graduate.

Rep. Steve Holt, R-Denison
Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison, during a recent subcommittee meeting advancing the bill said that’s for the best.


“I would give a word of caution to our regent universities,” he said. “I’m really glad to hear you’re supporting it, because it’s going to be done one way or another — the easy way or the hard way.”


In voicing his support for the proposal, Holt said last session’s legislation targeting DEI offices, training, staffing, and other spending did not go far enough.


“DEI still maintains a strong and toxic presence in public universities, including Iowa, through course requirements that force students into politicized DEI classes,” he said.


Iowa State, for example, has a “U.S. Cultures and Communities requirement” for undergraduate students that can be satisfied by classes like “Race, Ethnicity, and the U.S. Criminal Justice System” or “Gender and Sexualities in Society.”


“The requirement emphasizes the systemic oppression of groups in American society based on their race, ethnicity and gender,” Holt said of the ISU requirement. “The political agenda behind this requirement is obvious. Students must be taught that the United States is a systemically bigoted country which justifies radical actions to overturn the American constitutional system.”


Accusing the universities of wasting “an enormous amount of taxpayer and tuition money,” Holt said, “The American people are done, and the people of Iowa are done with tolerating that which divides us.”


“I think a better name for diversity, equity and inclusion — based upon what I've seen in these courses — would be adversity, inequity and exclusion, because that is what these programs are doing.”


‘Mirrors past legislation’​


The bill not only would require the Board of Regents to establish a policy barring its campuses from requiring students enroll in a DEI or critical race-theory course to graduate, but it would prohibit the universities or any of its employees from requiring or incentivizing faculty to use or participate in DEI or critical race-theory practices.


That includes any requirement they include that material in any course or as a condition of tenure or promotion.


The proposal also includes a mechanism for reporting violations.




“We are done with it, and we will not tolerate it any longer,” Holt said.


In supporting the proposal, regent lobbyist Jillian Carlson said, “Largely this mirrors past legislation … and it is the direction that the board and the federal government has been moving.”


Opponents of the bill — including students or former students — stressed the need for cultural competency in the workforce and in the academic institutions preparing them to enter it.






Speaking in favor of the measure, though, was Danny Carroll with The Family Leader — a conservative organization with a political action arm.


“Iowa nice is real,” he said, pointing to a medical professional he recently spoke with who chose to come back to Iowa from the west coast “because Midwest people are nice, courteous.”


But, Carroll added, “DEI, CRT and all of the baggage associated with that and the assumptions built into it are offensive to Iowans who are nice and respectful, because it takes that and tries to force it upon them.”


‘Gain some self-awareness’​

Iowa Rep. Ross Wilburn, D-Ames
Rep. Ross Wilburn, D-Ames, in opposing the proposal said he disagrees with the notion that diversity-competency is unnecessary.


“One of the speakers mentioned you don’t know what you don’t know,” Wilburn said, “and frequently students will take a course that they are required to take — and they think they don’t have any biases toward any one particular group, or faith, or political persuasion — but when you get into the meat of it and discussing it, they gain some self-awareness about themselves, as well as the other group.”


Wilburn also pushed back against Carroll’s mention of “Iowa nice.”


“Iowa nice is a thing,” he said. “But not everybody subscribes to Iowa nice. And to insist that all Iowans have ‘Iowa nice’ — whether you have a disability, whether you are a person of color, whether you are older, whether you are in rural Iowa, whatever it might be — not everyone will respect you.”


Sharing a personal experience to illustrate the need for diversity and cultural-competency curriculum, Wilburn said a few years ago a member of the public called him a racial slur and suggested he be lynched.


“That person wasn’t Iowa nice,” he said.

Rep. Skyler Wheeler, R-Hull
Rep. Skyler Wheeler, R-Hull, said he condemns that type of behavior but doesn’t think DEI training and curriculum will help.


“I'm a Christian. I read my Bible. The Lord made us all. We are all one race, one blood, racists exist and they suck,” he said. “The problem with all of this is there's zero proof that this is helping make people less racist. There's actually a lot of people out there arguing it's doing the opposite of that.”


So what’s the best path forward, he asked.


“What used to be the path was we would unify in America around the Constitution, around the Bill of Rights, and that's what I think we have to get back to,” he said. “Trying to come up with divisive things, things that have been debunked — like the 1619 Project and things like this — it's not working. It's making things worse. This stuff is crap. It shouldn't be mandated on people, and I think that we need to continue to try and get this out of there and allow people to unify the way they used to unify.”

E. Iowa nursing home sued after intruder is found undressed in bed with a resident

An Iowa nursing home is being sued over an incident in which an intruder was able to enter the home, undress and climb into bed with a resident.



The family of the late Ruth Bartow is suing Crestview Specialty Care of West Branch and the home’s owners, Care Initiatives of West Des Moines, in Cedar County District Court.


The lawsuit alleges that Bartow was admitted to Crestview in February 2023 with severe cognitive impairments, and that three months later, at 2:50 p.m. on April 5, the staff found an unauthorized male “visitor” in her room, 54-year-old Michael Beaver of West Branch.




Beaver was laying with Bartow in her bed “without any clothes on,” the lawsuit alleges.


The Crestview staff escorted Beaver out of Bartow’s room to the front lobby and notified the police. Bartow was later found in her room crying, according to the lawsuit.


State inspectors later concluded Beaver had been seen walking around in the facility as early as 10:30 a.m. that day. At 11:10 a.m., and at 1 p.m., staffers noticed Beaver pushing Bartow in her wheelchair throughout the building but failed to intervene.


The lawsuit accuses Crestview and Care Initiatives of gross negligence and recklessness in the form of inadequate staffing, false advertising, and “inappropriately allocating excessive funds to itself, thereby draining the facility of the resources necessary to maintain sufficient and appropriately trained staff to supervise residents and prevent avoidable injuries.”





The lawsuit also seeks unspecified actual damages and punitive damages for breach of contract and dependent adult abuse.


Crestview and Care Initiatives have yet to file a response to the lawsuit.


According to West Branch police, Beaver wasn’t criminally charged for his role in the incident as there was already an order to pick him up in connection with a civil commitment proceeding. Police said there was “no direct evidence” Bartow was sexually assaulted.


Court records show that two days before the incident at Crestview, Beaver was arrested and charged with indecent exposure at the Iowa City Public Library. According to the arrest report, video evidence showed Beaver entering the library, going to the computers on the second floor, taking off his sweatshirt and pants, placing a jacket over his genitals, and then spending four hours watching pornographic videos while reaching under his jacket and stimulating himself.


The day after he was arrested, he was released from jail on his own recognizance. District Associate Judge Jason A. Burns released Beaver on the condition that he not return to the library.


On May 24, 2023, the library staff called police to report Beaver was sitting on a bench outside of the library watching pornographic material on a mobile phone and masturbating in clear view of library patrons.


Beaver ultimately pleaded guilty to two counts indecent exposure and three remaining counts were dismissed. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

  • Poll
Are you OK with Elon Musk Auditing our Treasury?

Are you OK with Elon Musk Auditing our Treasury?

  • Absolutely. And I'd be fine with it if Mark Cuban or George Soros were doing it as well.

    Votes: 7 5.8%
  • Yes. But I would not be fine with Mark Cuban or Soros doing it.

    Votes: 7 5.8%
  • Hell No. Get these people the eff away from our money.

    Votes: 104 86.7%
  • Hell No. But if Mark Cuban was doing it I'd be OK with it.

    Votes: 2 1.7%

Survey: Iowa’s economy sees small boost but is still worst in Midwest

The Midwestern economy improved slightly during January, according to the latest Creighton University survey, but Iowa’s economy continued to struggle.


Creighton economist Ernie Goss says supply managers are fearful new tariffs will hurt business, and in anticipation, many firms increased inventory levels during January and boosted imports to a record high. For only the third time since last July, Goss says the overall Business Conditions Index climbed above growth neutral.


“It’s much like what the Federal Reserve had to say last week,” Goss says. “The economy is doing okay, but it’s skimming like a stone, skimming across the water. It goes below the water and above the water, below the water, above the water. That’s the way the manufacturing economy in Mid America is doing, according to our survey.”


The survey is based on a zero-to-100 scale, with 50 being growth neutral. For January, Iowa’s economy hit a regional low of 43.1, which was up from December’s score of 40.8. Still, Goss says more employers in the region added to their workforces during the month.


“Hiring, wow, it went up above growth neutral, and this is the first time in some time it’s risen above growth neutral,” Goss says. “We’ve had almost a year of below growth neutral readings, and it rose to 51.1 and that’s up from December’s 46.4 and that’s almost, I won’t call it great news, but it was good news compared to what we’ve been seeing.”


For a fourth straight month, Goss says the wholesale price inflation gauge rose, but it continues to indicate modest inflation. Because of that, he expects the Federal Reserve to pause on any interest rate change at its next meeting in mid-March.


Despite weak manufacturing employment readings over the past year, Goss says about one in five firms reported labor shortages.


“The nation’s lost for 2024 about 93,000 jobs, and that’s about eight-tenths of 1%,” Goss says. “Our Mid America region lost about 7,900 jobs in the year, and that’s about five-tenths of 1%.”


According to the latest U.S. International Trade Administration data, Iowa experienced a $1.5 billion drop in 2024 year-to-date manufacturing exports compared to the same period in 2023 for a 9.6% decline.

Omaha nonprofit caught up in political storm after Trump administration allegations

  • Morans Musk and Flynn:


A century-old Omaha nonprofit that receives federal funding to provide substance abuse and mental health services found itself caught up in a political firestorm when a Trump administration official amplified claims, without evidence, that it was engaged in money laundering.
“It’s been a little bit of a hectic 24 hours,” said Chris Tonniges, president and CEO of Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska.
Michael Flynn, who briefly served as national security advisor to President Donald Trump during his first term in office, first made the unfounded allegation on social media Saturday.
Flynn shared images of millions in payments made to Lutheran Family Services affiliates across the country, including $3.3 million to Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska, suggesting they amounted to “money laundering.”

The allegation was then amplified when Flynn’s post was reshared by Elon Musk, the businessman who is leading Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency.



“The @DOGE team is rapidly shutting down these illegal payments,” Musk wrote.

Tonniges was not familiar with the payments listed but said they were most likely for substance abuse, mental health and behavioral health services — the only services for which his agency receives direct payments from the federal government.

The charity also receives indirect funding through its national parent organization to help resettle and assist refugees and other immigrants who are in the country legally. And it receives funding from the State of Nebraska and other local agencies to provide family services, including foster care and the facilitation of adoptions.



The posts on X by Flynn and Musk led to negative calls that were “disheartening and disappointing, to say the least,” Tonniges said.






It also produced calls from supporters who questioned whether Flynn and Musk understood Lutheran Family Services and the assistance it provides for those in need.
The most “heartbreaking” calls, Tonniges said, were from clients currently being helped by the agency who worried that its funding was about to get cut off by the Trump administration. One mother of a child receiving therapy services said she was concerned that the nonprofit would no longer be there for her son. Tonniges offered her assurances services would continue.


Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska was first founded 133 years ago by two Lutheran pastors to operate orphanages in Omaha and Fremont. It later moved into adoption, foster care and a variety of other family services.

Tonniges said all the funding the nonprofit receives is public information through government agencies and its annual federal nonprofit disclosure form, and it’s also audited.
But it received enough calls by Monday that it felt the need to respond publicly to the allegations.
“So, we strongly encourage Gen. Flynn and Mr. Musk to visit us to learn more,” the nonprofit said in a press release. “Learn about who we serve, and how we transform federal grant funding into children, families and lives saved.”

Six Hawks place at Loras Open







It is great to be an Iowa Wrestling fan.

Go Hawks!
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Idiotic MAGA news sources: An example

This is an example of what you tards do all the time. Here we have LibsOfTikTok claiming that Trump's tariffs elicited a 1.3B border plan from Canada.

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The only problem is that this was set in motion by the Canadian government long before the tariff talk started.

Dec 17:

MAGA media pushes propaganda like this constantly. Flat out lying to its gullible followers in order to pump Trump's accomplishments up. @Scruddy why is MAGA media so pathetic like this? Why does it have to lie constantly?

Trump makes total fool of himself talking to Davos econonmic forum experts; laughable

The Dumpster reads off his teleprompter how these countries will make more product in America or face the wrath of paying high tariffs to export their products.

He actually says they will pay the tariff. Either he is just blustering for his Maga voters who if they believe him, and I think they do because they dont know jack shit, think China will pay the tariff or the Dumpster is still so stupid about tariffs that he believes the stupid shit he says.

But guess what, all of those people know US companies will pay the tariffs on those imports and then pass that 30% or 50% higher charge onto the their customers. Customers will bitch about the increase in cost but not know why. The price sticker will not say to thank Trump for the higher TV cost.

Enjoy, or just keep believing his lies

Migrants Nabbed in Trump’s Raids Have Been Released Back Into U.S. Already

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/m...r&cvid=f0fc59c8c79e4943ade018011c5cddbf&ei=23

Despite the president’s campaign promises to carry out the “largest deportation operation in American history,” some migrants rounded up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are currently being released back into the country due to space constraints.
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Intial review Vaultek VS20i

Bought a new nightstand safe.

The major focus for me was:

Biometric entry.

Manual entry Backup.


Cool thing it has that I'm wondering how much it will be used:

An app to tell you if it has been opened/disturbed.

I did also purchase the additional battery.

It's plugged in, with a battery backup, and now an additional battery backup. The box says if it's unplugged the first battery Is good for 4-6 months and the additional battery gets you another 6 mo.



Here goes:

Panama alerts the United Nations to Trump’s inaugural remarks on the canal.

Panama submitted a formal letter to U.N. Secretary General António Guterres and the U.N. Security Council on Monday, rejecting comments that President Trump made about reclaiming the Panama Canal during his inauguration speech.

“We didn’t give it to China,” Mr. Trump said after being sworn in. “We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”

The letter, dated Jan. 20 and seen by The New York Times, attached a statement by President José Raúl Mulino of Panama saying that on behalf of his country and people, “I must reject in its entirety the words expressed by President Donald Trump regarding Panama and its Canal in his inaugural address.”
Mr. Mulino said, “the canal is and will continue to be Panama’s.”
The letter cited two articles of the U.N. charter that prohibit member states from using threats and force against “the territorial integrity or political independence,” calling such actions inconsistent with the purpose of the United Nations, and suggesting that Mr. Trump’s statements violated the U.N. charter.
Panama did not ask for the Security Council to convene a meeting about the issue, but diplomats said that if tensions between the United States and Panama persist, then it was possible that the Council could schedule a meeting.
The United States is among the five permanent veto-holding members of the council.
Starting late last year, Mr. Trump has repeatedly taken aim at Panama, falsely claiming that Panama has ceded control of the canal to China and that the United States must reclaim the strategic passageway.
Those claims have been rebuffed several times by President Mulino, who said, after Mr. Trump brought up the canal in a speech in late December, that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zones is part of Panama, and it will continue to be.”
He added at the time: “Our country’s sovereignty and independence are not negotiable.”
The canal was constructed by the United States in the early 20th century, but after lengthy negotiations in the late 1970s, the United States agreed to hand over full control to Panama in 1999. Since then, Panama has overseen the waterway through its Panama Canal Authority, which completed an expansion of the canal in 2016 to accommodate larger cargo ships.
Mr. Trump has not backed off his claims. This month, in a long speech he gave at Mar-a-Lago, his estate in Florida, he refused to rule out using military force to retake the canal. “It might be that you’ll have to do something,” Mr. Trump said.
The statement unnerved Panamanians, many of whom remember not only an era when the United States controlled the canal and the surrounding territory, known as the Canal Zone, but also recall when the U.S. military invaded Panama in 1989 to depose the autocratic regime of Manuel Noriega.
“That was not an invasion to colonize or take territory,” said Raúl Arias de Para, an ecotourism entrepreneur and descendant of one of Panama’s founders. “It liberated us from a formidable dictatorship.”
On Monday, Mr. Mulino swiftly released a statement rebuking the incoming U.S. president for his rhetoric.
“Dialogue is always the way to clarify the points mentioned without undermining our right, total sovereignty and ownership of our Canal,” Mr. Mulino said in his statement, which was posted on X on Monday afternoon.
However, later on Monday, the Panamanian comptroller’s office announced that auditors had visited the county’s maritime authorities to initiate an audit of Panama Ports Company, a Hutchison Ports Holding subsidiary. The company is a major port operator and the country’s main port concessionaire. It is also part of CK Hutchison Holdings, a Hong Kong-based conglomerate.
“The purpose of this exhaustive audit is to ensure the efficient and transparent use of public resources,” the comptroller’s office said.
Mr. Trump’s comments during his inaugural speech seemed to signal an escalation in tensions with Mr. Mulino, who since taking office last year has consistently signaled his willingness to help the United States restrict migration toward the U.S. border.
At the Darién Gap, the number of migrants fell sharply over the last year, after Panama introduced tougher restrictions to complement the Biden administration’s new asylum policies. In August 2023, a record 80,000 migrants passed through the Darién Gap in a single month. In December, Panamanian officials reported that just under 5,000 people went through.

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