The Trump Presidency, Season 2

[Isabeau]

I thought it was a joke post or AI. The comments…

PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes.bsky.social)

Pete Hegseth accidentally flipping a skateboard into his nuts on live TV

bsky.app

 

[Free]

I thought it was a joke post or AI. The comments…

PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes.bsky.social)

Pete Hegseth accidentally flipping a skateboard into his nuts on live TV

bsky.app

Do you recall this event?

 

[Khamon]

Who set that up? Why would anybody ever set up an axe target where people could stand behind it? Never ever throw blades at a target with people standing behind it. This is too dumb; it must be staged. Nobody on the planet is that stupid.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Nobody on the planet is that stupid.

It appears you and I live on different planets.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Trump announced a new set of tariffs today on

* any country that does not make its furniture in the USA, like China, to make North Carolina GREAT again,
* 100% tariff on all movies not made in America.

Also Oklahoma becomes the first state where every high school is going to have its own Turning Point USA chapter.

 

[Cindy Claveau]

'This is coming': Former GOP insider flags 'two words that will break America' under Trump

Political strategist Steve Schmidt, who Saturday published an article in which he argued that Pete Hegseth is setting the stage for a potential "coup," followed that up with a piece called, The domestic enemies of the US Constitution.

In that essay from Sunday, he argues that "Donald Trump seems to be agitating for an American Tiananmen Square in Portland, Oregon, where American troops open fire on American civilians with the weapons purchased by American taxpayers to defend the nation from threats to our liberty."

 

[Casey Pelous]

100% tariff on movies "not made in the US."

Huh?

Where do these tariffs get collected? Almost nothing physical gets shipped into the US -- movies are distributed digitally now unless someone somewhere is still showing reels of film. (Look it up, kids ...)

Are we to imagine the tariffs will be collected at the box office? "Foreign Film Tariff, $15." That'll be popular! What about when Netflix and other streamers show it? Is that yet another tariff? What if I buy the DVD? (Again, kids, look it up.)

100% of what? Even if they were shipping in reels of film, how does one determine the correct tariff to pay? A reel of film is, what -- maybe $200 for the film and the processing? Another $20 for the reel?

Tariffs on the profits?* Tariffs on the US box office gross? Tariffs on the production cost? Production + promotion?

What constitutes "not made in the US?" What if a US studio makes it, but shoots part or all of it in Vancouver or Toronto then does all the post-production in LA except that one little animated bit in the titles which they farm out to a studio in Korea. Plus, some of the samples in the soundtrack and/or sound design came from Europe. At what point does it count as "not made in the US?" I would be quite surprised to find many examples of modern productions that were "made" 100% within the borders of the USA. I'm not even sure it is any longer physically possible, and I'm more sure that it would be financially prohibitive.

Many of the big franchises -- Mission Impossible comes to mind immediately -- shoot all over the world. Sorry, Canada, but you just don't have anything that equals Dubai when it comes to looking like Dubai!

FFS! Does anyone in this pack of diaper-aroma-addled nincompoops have any idea how tariffs work?

* Given the movie business's pathologically rapacious accounting practices, if this actually happens, I would not be surprised if the US ends up owing the studios millions, if not billions.

 

[Free]

Where do these tariffs get collected?

Oh, well...DOGE will be given access to all the accounts of all movie producers in that famous Hollywood bank, the one all of Hollywood uses to store their money in. You know the one, right?

 

[Govi]

Can the Customs office assess Trump's tariffs on digital goods? How do they even know a sale has taken place?

 

[Free]

Can the Customs office assess Trump's tariffs on digital goods? How do they even know a sale has taken place?

You're asking that question while giggling hysterically, aren't you?

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

I thought it was a joke post or AI. The comments…

PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes.bsky.social)

Pete Hegseth accidentally flipping a skateboard into his nuts on live TV

bsky.app

You know, when the whiskey wears off and he sobers up, that's really gonna hurt!

 

[Free]

 

[Khamon]

Masochist me has the meeeeeting streaming in the PBS Youtube on a side screen. The Brass are either already dead or stunned to point of utter stillness. How on Earth are they going to work around this administration? Now is typical Trumpdee Dumpty. On deck is Hegseth waiting to administer the Empirical Oath.

edit: Oh, Hegseth spoke first, and I missed it. That was the part I wanted to know. He still may return to the stage I suppose.

edit edit: No oath this time but a long list of reasons that people will be "fired on the spot" at either Hegseth's or Trump's discretion.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

He's apparently triggered by beards. Cue lawsuits from Sikh servicemen, and heaven knows what all the top brass make of being summoned to hear this in person.

Could have been an email.

The British Army and the Royal Air Force have both allowed beards in recent years. The Royal Navy has long permitted full beards and moustaches at the discretion of the Commanding Officer (sailors have to obtain permission to grow a beard and then, if after a couple of weeks it becomes apparently they can't grow a proper beard, the permission is likely to be rescinded). The Royal Marines, for some reason, were allowed moustaches but not beards, but I think they are now allowed full beards.

RAF to allow beards for the first time

The rule change will allow "smart, neatly-trimmed" beards, but not "scraggly or patchy" ones.

www.bbc.co.uk

Army lifts ban on serving soldiers having beards

The beards and moustaches must be neat and well-groomed, and troops must maintain a professional appearance.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Cindy Claveau]

Masochist me has the meeeeeting streaming in the PBS Youtube on a side screen. The Brass are either already dead or stunned to point of utter stillness. How on Earth are they going to work around this administration? Now is typical Trumpdee Dumpty. On deck is Hegseth waiting to administer the Empirical Oath.

edit: Oh, Hegseth spoke first, and I missed it. That was the part I wanted to know. He still may return to the stage I suppose.

All Pete had to offer was a stream of word salad and patriotism, like he was wearing a pleated skirt doing high kicks.

I turned it off before Donnie opened his yap.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Fascism Makes You Stupid, Not the Other Way Around

Trump and Ezra Klein provide examples

www.everythingishorrible.net

“Am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening?”


Trump has been threatening to send federal troops to what he has referred to as “war-ravaged” Portland. “These are crazy people, and they’re trying to burn down buildings,” he insisted. “This weekend, he posted on social media directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to order an invasion of the city to protect “ICE facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.”

And yet, on Sunday, Trump seemed to confusedly walk back his belligerent rhetoric. Asked if he was planning to send troops to Portland, he said, with odd reticence, “we’re certainly looking at it.” He then explained that he had spoken to Oregon Governor Tina Kotek. Kotek, Trump said was “very nice,” and told him (as she has said publicly) that there is no public safety crisis in Portland and no need for troops.

Trump said he responded by asking Kotek, “’Well wait a minute, am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening? My people tell me different.’ They are literally attacking and there are fires all over the place...it looks like terrible.”

Of course, Trump is “watching things on television that are different from what’s happening.” Portland had large demonstrations during the George Floyd protests of 2020; most were peaceful, but some images of fires and looting became rage bait on right wing media, endlessly recycled to give the impression that Portland has been under siege for half a decade. Fash propagandist Steve Bannon, a longtime Trump ally and influencer, has been demanding on his War Room podcast that Trump declare martial law. “Just round them up,” he bloviated in a Politico interview.

 

[Noodles]

He's apparently triggered by beards. Cue lawsuits from Sikh servicemen, and heaven knows what all the top brass make of being summoned to hear this in person.

Good god is there anything these idiots are not triggered by? The snowiest of snowflakes.

 

[Isabeau]

And what are the generals doing? Are they clapping?

 

[Khamon]

All Pete had to offer was a stream of word salad and patriotism, like he was wearing a pleated skirt doing high kicks.

I turned it off before Donnie opened his yap.

Apparently we are planning to be at war with the rest of the world soon; Trump wants to commission new battleships after firing our competent military leaders.

edit: add missing character to "military"

 

[Khamon]

And what are the generals doing? Are they clapping?

They applauded the Joint Chief when he arrived but much less after he praised the War Secretary. They stood when Hegseth entered and he did tell them to be seated. They were formally called to attention when Hegseth exited and then were never put at ease through several minutes of musical interlude but did eventually sit down. They stood again when Trump took the stage and he, of course, did not display enough courtesy to seat them but noted how quite the room was as though he expected applause. They giggled and he told them not too do that, they weren't allowed, then told them to have a good time, applaud when they wanted (they never did), and leave if they didn't like what he had to say although that would cost them their rank and pension. They stood again when he exited and there was some scattered applause.

Rump also stated, somewhere in the middle, that there are two "N" words that we're not allowed to use then corrected himself to say we are allowed to use them.