The Trump Presidency, Season 2

[Casey Pelous]

Billionaire Trump Gives Jaw-Dropping Lecture to Parents as Prices Surge

Folks might want to consider cutting back on donations to the GOP ....

That seems like a good place to economize.

Just sayin' .....

 

[Free]

Amazing how immigrants can do it all. How does one get in on this immigration grift?

 

[Free]

See, the FIFA Peace Prize IS a major award.

NYT article, paywall should be unlocked with this link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/nyregion/soccer-corruption-charges-fox-employee.html?unlocked_article_code=1.7k8.UI3T.AjsCsr9uamj4&smid=url-share

If not: https://archive.ph/pKCwy

 

[Innula Zenovka]

US engaging in ‘extreme rightwing tropes’ reminiscent of 1930s, British MPs warn

My local MP --

Matt Western, a Labour MP and chair of parliament’s joint committee on the UK government’s national security strategy, said: “The United States consensus that has led the western world since the second world war appears shattered.

“The prospect of United States interference in the democratic politics of Europe, I believe, is chilling … The absence of condemnation for Russia is extraordinary, though not surprising.” He said the US pivot left the UK “especially vulnerable”.

 

[Noodles]

Folks might want to consider cutting back on donations to the GOP ....

That seems like a good place to economize.

Just sayin' .....

No, Little Johnny does not get a new toy truck this year instead.

 

[Casey Pelous]

James Carville has -- well, let's say "not the greatest track record of accurate predictions" -- but, this is some first-class trolling.

Carville weighs in on Trump: 'He's done. It's over'

“He’s done. It’s over. You’re a loser, dude. You’re losing everywhere, and you’re going to lose more because you, my friend, are a loser,” Carville said of Trump’s ability to resonate with voters during a Wednesday episode of “Politicon.”

Carville ventured to put his hand in the shape of an L — a sign for “loser” — for the president. The longtime Democratic adviser said Trump’s remarks about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and the Somali community along with his administration’s harsh immigration policies will impact campaigns next year.

“He’s paying for it, and he’s going to continue to pay for it,” Carville said during the show.

“And we got to stop looking at him as some kind of political Svengali or political Houdini, or anything like that. He’s done. We just got to butter this toast and slice it and eat it. He’s done,” he continued.

 

[Cristiano]

 

[Free]

How Many Members Does Antifa Have? Where Is Its Headquarters? The FBI Has No Answers.

Despite saying that antifa is the biggest U.S. domestic threat, the FBI couldn’t explain how the movement is a “terror organization” — or an organization at all.

theintercept.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The US' new security strategy document has caused some consternation in Europe and elsewhere:

We're the baddies now. Our new Security Strategy shows it.

It's a gift to the Kremlin and a middle finger to our erstwhile allies.

www.publicnotice.co

 

[detrius]

The US' new security strategy document has caused some consternation in Europe and elsewhere:

We're the baddies now. Our new Security Strategy shows it.

It's a gift to the Kremlin and a middle finger to our erstwhile allies.

www.publicnotice.co

And here's what a fact-based security assessment looks like:

Danish intelligence classifies Trump’s America as a security risk

Denmark sounds the alarm about the U.S.’s increasingly antagonistic posture toward Europe.

www.politico.eu

 

[Free]

We're getting mighty close to crazification factor numbers.

Trump's handling of the economy is at its lowest point in AP-NORC polling

A new AP-NORC poll finds President Donald Trump’s approval on the economy has fallen substantially since he reentered the White House.

apnews.com

Only 31% of U.S. adults now approve of how Trump is handling the economy, the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds. That is down from 40% in March and marks the lowest economic approval he’s registered in an AP-NORC poll in his first or second term.

The good news for Trump is that his overall approval hasn’t fallen as steeply. The new poll found that 36% of Americans approve of the way he’s handling his job as president, which is down slightly from 42% in March.

"Down slightly."

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Just to state the obvious, 36% approval is abysmal. It's only the totally brainwashed MAGA worshippers who still think he's awesome. Many Republicans even hate him but just hate democrats more.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Thirty-six percent is slightly lower than the percentage who believe in young-earth creationism or who believe (or did 10 years ago) that humans coexisted with dinosaurs, and about the same number as those who believe in ghosts.

Majority Still Credits God for Humankind, but Not Creationism

A majority of Americans believe God played at least some role in humans' origin, but a majority also believe humans evolved from less advanced forms of life.

share.google

Over 40% of Americans believe humans and dinosaurs shared the planet | YouGov

41% of Americans believe that dinosaurs and humans once coexisted, but most know that current technology doesn't allow for cloning dinosaurs from fossils

share.google

Paranormal Phenomena Met With Skepticism in U.S.

Psychic healing and ghosts top Americans' paranormal beliefs, while most reject concepts like witches, astrology and reincarnation.

share.google

 

[Cindy Claveau]

 

[Noodles]

I am starting to think Conservatives think aboit transgender people more than basically everyone else, including Transgender people.

 

[Govi]

We have become the Fortress of Foolishness or the Citadel of Stupidity. Putin hit us big time with his manipulation of Trump into the presidency.

 

[Lexxi]

Thirty-six percent is slightly lower than the percentage who believe in young-earth creationism or who believe (or did 10 years ago) that humans coexisted with dinosaurs, and about the same number as those who believe in ghosts.

Over 40% of Americans believe humans and dinosaurs shared the planet | YouGov

41% of Americans believe that dinosaurs and humans once coexisted, but most know that current technology doesn't allow for cloning dinosaurs from fossils

share.google

Surprised it is as low as 41%. I mean, dinosaurs became birds. And birds are still around, so humans and dinosaurs-as-birds have shared the planet.

How Dinosaurs Shrank and Became Birds

Modern birds appeared to emerge in a snap of evolutionary time. But new research illuminates the long series of evolutionary changes that made the transformation possible

www.scientificamerican.com

I do know that when people talk about humans and dinos living together, they mean something like the Flintstones, or:

Spoiler

 

[detrius]

Billionaire Trump Gives Jaw-Dropping Lecture to Parents as Prices Surge

The detachment from reality reminds me of this:


Truly the party of Marie Antoinette. Where's the guillotine smiley when you need it?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

The US' new security strategy document has caused some consternation in Europe and elsewhere:

We're the baddies now. Our new Security Strategy shows it.

It's a gift to the Kremlin and a middle finger to our erstwhile allies.

www.publicnotice.co

The UK's Home Secretary responds

Shabana Mahmood dismisses White House’s ‘civilisational erasure’ claims

Her comments are the strongest response from a government minister so far to Donald Trump’s national security strategy. Published this month, it triggered alarm with its wide-ranging attack on European governments and suggestion that the US should promote “patriotic” political parties.

Asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky News to respond to the strategy and its implicit criticism of Muslims in Europe, Mahmood said: “Others will want to make political points about whether there’s too many Muslims in Europe or not. What I would say is we’re the sort of country that allows people to have the calling of their own conscience to live their own life free, but also has common rules that we all live by so that we live in peace together.”

The home secretary said she was “very proud to be a citizen of a country that is as diverse as we are” and added: “We are a multifaith, multi-ethnic country. I think that we have managed the challenges very well compared to other countries.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Can the “Sistine Chapel of the New Deal” Be Saved From Trump?

Precious murals by Ben Shahn, Philip Guston, and others are even more endangered than we knew.

newrepublic.com

The Trump White House’s desire that government-funded art “remove divisive or partisan narratives,” to quote a letter sent last August to Smithsonian secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, is nothing new. At the dawn of the Cold War, that same fatuous sentiment was directed against Ben Shahn’s New Deal frescoes The Meaning of Social Security, the most visually arresting of many murals and sculptures decorating the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building in Washington, D.C. Gray Brechin, an architectural historian and founder of the nonprofit Living New Deal, described the Cohen to me as “a kind of Sistine Chapel of the New Deal.” It and all the art inside could soon be rubble.

A December 8 story by Bloomberg’s Suzanna Monyak reported that, according to a former official of the General Services Administration, the agency in charge of federal real estate, Trump is already bypassing legally required GSA procedures and soliciting bids to demolish the Cohen, along with three other federal buildings in Washington—the Marcel Breuer–designed Housing and Urban Development headquarters; the building housing the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, built in 1919; and the GSA’s own Regional Office Building, which, like the Cohen, is a New Deal–era building housing social-realist murals, in this instance by Howard Weston (though these are on oil and removable). Once the four buildings are demolished, the land will be sold to developers. It won’t likely fetch a high price, because these buildings are all in Washington’s southwest quadrant, where the vacancy rate is above 15 percent. (Anything north of 10 percent is bad.)