The Trump Presidency, Season 2

[Cristiano]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Trump and Rubio praise Orbán: the godfather of Western corruption

And copy his attacks on free speech and press freedom

nickcohen.substack.com

Viktor Orbán’s Hungary has been a laboratory for autocracy. The Orbán regime refined the use of state power to suppress free speech, the turning of racist conspiracy theories into official dogma, and the impoverishment of society by a corrupt elite.

Rather than deplore Orbán, the Western right wants to follow his example.

How Trump and MAGA are following Orbán's example in capturing the US media.

 

[Isabeau]

Lauren Harper (@laurenleharper.bsky.social)

"You have to vote for us.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/13/trump-rally-gop-fort-bragg/

bsky.app

t ball (@t-ball.bsky.social)

Headline should read "In Clear Violation of Federal Law..."

bsky.app

Trump tells soldiers to vote GOP in campaign-style rally at Fort Bragg

 

[Cristiano]

Love this woman soooooo much ‍
View attachment VE32SQdHZ18v0cGn.mp4

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Financial Times: Fund managers take most bearish stance on dollar for a decade (Evernote link because paywall)

Fund managers are taking the most bearish stance on the dollar in more than a decade, as the currency bears the brunt of the damage from unpredictable US policymaking.

The dollar is down 1.3 per cent this year against a basket of peers including the euro and the pound — on top of a 9 per cent drop in 2025 — and is hovering close to a four-year low.

A Bank of America survey published on Friday said fund managers’ exposure to the dollar had dropped below last April’s nadir, when President Donald Trump spooked the world with sweeping tariffs.

The survey found that the managers’ positioning in the dollar was the most negative since at least 2012, the earliest year for which it had data.

The shift comes as Trump’s aggressive geopolitical actions and pressure on institutions such as the Federal Reserve have raised anxiety over the country’s attractiveness as a haven for the world’s capital.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Where Trump went wrong in his quest for a Nobel Peace Price

In exclusive interviews, Norway's prime minister and the head of the Nobel Institute tell Isaac Stanley-Beckett and Simon Shuster how they handled the president's pressure campaign.

www.theatlantic.com

Evernote Link

 

[Free]

Where Trump went wrong in his quest for a Nobel Peace Price

In exclusive interviews, Norway's prime minister and the head of the Nobel Institute tell Isaac Stanley-Beckett and Simon Shuster how they handled the president's pressure campaign.

www.theatlantic.com

Evernote Link

I weep over the reasons anyone saw the need for something like this to be a piece published in The Atlantic...

HELP HELP WE ARE ABSOLUTELY IN THE WRONG TIMELINE PLEASE WRITE US OUT OF THIS STORY I DID NOT VOTE FOR THIS PLOT!

 

[Free]

Poll Surprise: Bad Bunny Comes Out Ahead of Trump When U.S. Adults Are Asked, ‘Who Better Represents America?’

A Yahoo!/YouGov poll taken after the Super Bowl shows more U.S. adults saying Bad Bunny represents America well than President Donald J. Trump.

variety.com

A new Yahoo!/YouGov poll shows more Americans approving of Bad Bunny than of his recent nemesis-in-chief, Donald J. Trump, in the wake of controversy over last weekend’s Super Bowl halftime show, by a margin of 42% for the Puerto Rican performer versus 39% for the president.

I'm sorry, but why is the poll's result a "surprise?"

 

[Casey Pelous]

Poll Surprise: Bad Bunny Comes Out Ahead of Trump When U.S. Adults Are Asked, ‘Who Better Represents America?’

A Yahoo!/YouGov poll taken after the Super Bowl shows more U.S. adults saying Bad Bunny represents America well than President Donald J. Trump.

variety.com

I'm sorry, but why is the poll's result a "surprise?"

That 39% are still in the "approve" column?

 

[detrius]

Where Trump went wrong in his quest for a Nobel Peace Price

In exclusive interviews, Norway's prime minister and the head of the Nobel Institute tell Isaac Stanley-Beckett and Simon Shuster how they handled the president's pressure campaign.

www.theatlantic.com

Evernote Link

Where did he go wrong?

He was born.

 

[Free]

It's good to be the king at large and in charge.

Susan McPherson (@susanmcp.bsky.social)

The interior of Kristi Noem’s new billionaire-class luxury jet is complete with two bidets and a wet bar with a wine chiller. It will be purchased on our dime from the slush fund Congress approved in the One Big Beautiful Bill...

bsky.app

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Reuters: Exclusive: US plans online portal to bypass content bans in Europe and elsewhere

WASHINGTON, Feb 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department is developing an online portal that will enable people in Europe and elsewhere to see content banned by their governments including alleged hate speech and terrorist propaganda, a move Washington views as a way to counter censorship, three sources familiar with the plan said.
The site will be hosted at "freedom.gov," the sources said. One source said officials had discussed including a virtual private network function to make a user's traffic appear to originate in the U.S. and added that user activity on the site will not be tracked.

EU regulators regularly require U.S.-based sites to remove content and can impose bans as a measure of last resort. X, which is owned by Trump ally Elon Musk, was hit with a 120 million-euro fine in December for noncompliance.
Germany, for example, in 2024 issued 482 removal orders for material it deemed supported or incited terrorism and forced providers to take down 16,771 pieces of content.
Similarly, Meta's oversight board in 2024 ordered the removal of a Polish political party's posts that used a racial slur and depicted immigrants as rapists, a content category EU law treats as illegal hate speech.
Calling the U.S. plan "a direct shot" at European rules and laws, former State Department official Kenneth Propp, who worked on European digital regulations and is now at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center, said freedom.gov "would be perceived in Europe as a U.S. effort to frustrate national law provisions."

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Can I use it to get around Ohio's porn blocker?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Can I use it to get around Ohio's porn blocker?

From the article

It was not clear what advantages the U.S. government portal would offer users that are not available from commercial VPNs.

However, out of an abundance of caution I think it might be prudent to use a commercial VPN to access particular types of material rather than to trust the US federal government with information about your viewing habits.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

I just want to access irony.

 

[Essence Lumin]

My goals are to find a cure for irony and make a fool out of God.

 

[Free]

My goals are to find a cure for irony and make a fool out of God.

Galatians 6:7, baby!

 

[Noodles]

Galatians 6:7, baby!

But what if he could, wouldn't that be ironic?

 

[Free]

But what if he could, wouldn't that be ironic?

Don't you think?

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Don't you think?

A little too ironic.