The Trump Presidency, Season 2

Innula Zenovka · Feb 17, 2025

Financial Times: Is Donald Trump serious about annexing Canada?

Innula Zenovka · Feb 17, 2025

Leopards... faces...

Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner.bsky.social)

There’s gonna be so many variations on this theme over the next three years and eleven months. https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-voter-regrets-presidential-election-7b4fc43d?st=zk6sog

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Jopsy Pendragon · Feb 17, 2025

Innula Zenovka said:
Financial Times: Is Donald Trump serious about annexing Canada?

Serious? He doesn't have the mental capacity to be serious about anything, he's got the attention span of a magic eight ball. "Yes / No / Maybe / Am I? / What do you think? / Some say yes, some no. / I know nothing about it, what I do know is that windmills cause cancer! / bee-boopadoop bing bang / It depends, will it make me look powerful? / Where is Canada again?"

Cindy Claveau · Feb 17, 2025

Khamon said:
Farmers in central Alabama are beginning to panic about losing their subsidies for fallow fields, over production, and not timbering woodlands. I cannot imagine the furor we'll experience when Social Security and Medicare benefits are cut.

In Kansas, our usual Right wing constituency is now starting to realize they've been royally screwed. If it's happening in Kansas, it sure as heck is happening all over. We're never the trend leaders.

A greater concern is the people who cannot afford to lose EBA, Medicare, Medicaid, SSI, and WIC. We've worked for decades to fill the gaps and provide what we can to hold the desperation at bay. But this will be too much. These counties voted blue in a sea of red; we can hopefully work together to support each other and defend ourselves against the federal and state "governments."

That is actually my greatest concern, too. The solace I take is that cutting Medicare and/or Social Security could finally be the Coup de grâce for the Right.

Several sources I've seen claim that SS cuts are "politically radioactive" and best left alone.

Whether Donnie boy agrees is another matter. He's kind of immune to facts.

Khamon · Feb 17, 2025

Cindy Claveau said:
Several sources I've seen claim that SS cuts are "politically radioactive" and best left alone.

Whether Donnie boy agrees is another matter. He's kind of immune to facts.

Lord Vought firmly believes that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid programs are unnecessary drains on the economy and certainly not to be administered through the federal budget. P2025 outlines providing all Medicare and Medicaid benefits through private advantage plans.

Social Security may be fundamentally maintained because it is paid for by the current workforce. P2025 only requires that a shortfall be resolved with reduced benefits rather than the federal budget providing a supplement. SSI is another story; it is to be completely shut down.

Cindy Claveau · Feb 17, 2025

Noodles · Feb 17, 2025

Cindy Claveau said:
In Kansas, our usual Right wing constituency is now starting to realize they've been royally screwed. If it's happening in Kansas, it sure as heck is happening all over. We're never the trend leaders.

That is actually my greatest concern, too. The solace I take is that cutting Medicare and/or Social Security could finally be the Coup de grâce for the Right.

Several sources I've seen claim that SS cuts are "politically radioactive" and best left alone.

Whether Donnie boy agrees is another matter. He's kind of immune to facts.

The problem is, unlike a lot of other countries, we don't have any mechanism that I know of to trigger another election.

We are stuck with this for 4 years. Because even if they get rid of Trump, there is Vance. And probably a whole string of worse people trickling through that.

People thought it was alarmism to say last election was important, but it wasn't.

The US is finished. There is no path out of our current situation that wins, and people didn't listen, again, and voted for these fucking idiots, again.

Innula Zenovka · Feb 17, 2025

Grant DeLaney (@laney502.bsky.social)

* IT'S A COUP * I’m repeating it, because illegal power seizure isn’t just another story to be swept away in a deluge of other stories. It’s the foundational framing to understanding everything... This week, I went to market, bought a coup & realignment of the world order...

bsky.app

Evernote Link

I'm hoping this fixes the formatting issues with Evernote. If it's cutting off the edge of the page, I think the trick is to click the ellipsis menu (the ... at the top right) and to choose "Fit to Window".

Innula Zenovka · Feb 17, 2025

The First Writers' Congress of Donald Trump

Let’s get one thing clear from the start: Trump isn’t Stalin and Stalin wasn’t Trump. Stalin was a reader and had a substantial library and Trump is an enthusiastic golfer. Stalin had pictures of Lenin in his office; Trump has pictures of Trump. Also Stalin was more popular with the voters (they all said so). There are other differences.

But, says David Aaronovitch, their views on the relationship between the creative artist and the ruler (or his advisors so long as they enjoy his favour) are not dissimilar.

Monica Dream · Feb 17, 2025

ALASKA is one of the battleground states for the Democrat's strategy against the GOP:
Democrats Have a Plan to Counter Trump at the State Level

Innula Zenovka · Feb 17, 2025

Apparently "probationary," when applied to UA Air Traffic Control employees like the ones recently fired by President Musk, doesn't refer only to employees who started only recently. It also applies to experienced employees who have recently been promoted and who may still be returned to their previous rank if the promotion doesn't work out.

Rick Perlstein (@rickperlstein.bsky.social)

Another way the dictatorship might kill you. This is from a friend who is a retired air traffic controller.

bsky.app

Free · Feb 17, 2025

The Trump team is still focusing on the important shit.

Trump Administration Wants to Help Get Professional Misogynist Andrew Tate out of Romania

Tate and his brother are charged with human trafficking, sexual misconduct, and money laundering.

gizmodo.com

Kamilah Hauptmann · Feb 18, 2025

Ha! I knew it. Niemöller was a Nazi when they were purging queers. hahaha, that's why he started with Communists when the book burning was sexual science hahahaha

trans-nuremburg

This is how it begins. Germany in April of 1935. The Reichstag–the national parliament of Nazi Germany–passed the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. This was don…

gregfallis.com

Kamilah Hauptmann · Feb 18, 2025

Well, it’s because you are mere peasants and beneath him.

Innula Zenovka · Feb 18, 2025

Peter Stefanovic (@peterstefanovic.bsky.social)

Dems prep for Trump legal meltdown https://www.axios.com/2025/02/18/democrats-trump-judges-constitution-doge

bsky.app

Top Democrats on the Hill suspect President Trump will ignore one of the many major court rulings that'll be coming his way, and are gaming out legal and political responses behind the scenes.

Why it matters: Federal judges are the main obstacle to Trump's efforts to remake the federal government. Trump has said he'll obey court rulings. But he and Elon Musk have questioned whether the judicial branch should be able to stop the executive.

ETA David Allen Green argues that, whatever the outcome is for Trump, this may not end well for Musk.

Making sense of what is happening in the United States

18th February 2025 How can we make sense, from a constitutionalist perspective, of what is currently going on in the United States? Perhaps it cannot make sense, perhaps it is senseless – and…

davidallengreen.com

One suspects Trump would never have ended up having to buy Twitter against his will because of legal blunders.

This reckless/cautious distinction is one key difference between Musk and Trump.

One suspect that after all this, Trump will deftly survive/avoid the legal consequences of DOGE shenanigans, and Musk and his cronies will not.

Bartholomew Gallacher · Feb 18, 2025

Frank Zappa (!) in 1986 (!) telling that the biggest threat to American democracy is not communism, but that the country is moving to a fascist theocracy.

Innula Zenovka · Feb 18, 2025

The “king of toxic masculinity” and the death of the West

Trump’s shown you who he is – believe him

nickcohen.substack.com

Evernote Link

The Guardian (@theguardian.com)

Andrew Tate’s alleged victims urge US to stay out of Romanian criminal proceedings https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/feb/18/andrew-tates-alleged-victims-urge-us-officials-to-stay-out-of-romanian-criminal-proceedings?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky&CMP=bsky_gu

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