The Trump Presidency, Season 2

[Casey Pelous]

Mangolini's thinking (such as it is ...): "Might as well sell these National Security Briefings; I'm not using them."

 

[Innula Zenovka]

We must treat the U.S. as if it were a dictatorship

Seeing Trump as America’s Putin

nickcohen.substack.com

Free to read, I think.

It has been obvious since Trump tried to overthrow the American democratic order in 2020, that he admires dictators because he wants to be a dictator himself.

American democracy continues, of course. The Bill of Rights has not been repealed. Elections will still be held, although how fair they will be is open to doubt.

But it strikes me as crucial to grasp that Trump and his sycophants can still behave as if America is now a dictatorship.

The Czech dissident Václav Havel said in the 1980s that the only way to retain your self-respect while enduring Soviet rule was to “live as if you were free,” even though you were not.

America’s Republicans have turned Havel on his head. They remain citizens of a democracy but they live as if they were the servants of a dictator.

Also contains a wonderful historical parallel:

While I was researching this piece, I came across a passage from The Lives of the Caesars by Suetonius (AD 69 –to AD 122) describing the Emperor Domitian. It might have been written this morning.

“He took pleasure in being addressed as ‘lord and god’,” Suetonius notes, and “no one ventured to speak or act except by his permission. He suffered no statues to be set up in his honour in the Capitol, except of gold and silver and of a fixed weight. He erected so many and such huge vaulted passage-ways and arches in the various regions of the city, adorned with chariots and triumphal emblems, that on one of them someone wrote in Greek: ‘It is enough'."

 

[Free]

Watch: Vance speaks in North Carolina battleground district

[W]e're going to bring those prices at the pump back down to the levels they need to be for the American people. Now, here's the interesting thing. All this conversation happens where Joe Biden left us in a terrible situation and the reason why gas prices are where they are today is because of Donald Trump's work to get them lower. Because in the Biden administration, they were crazy high.

Uh, wat?

During Biden's administration, gasoline prices were only higher than what they are right now from February to July of 2022. What happened around that time to cause that?

Oh, right.

Donald Trump's work to get gas prices lower is what is causing the price to increase, which is totally and obviously Joe Biden's fault, because he's very obviously responsible for the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which is completely obviously the reason gas prices are where they are today. It's so obvious.

 

[Noodles]

According to the article



Presumably, then, if you pay up, you'll receive even more fundraising emails containing the amber Amin's ramblings about the yuge ... enormous like no one's ever seen before ... threats to the US posed by whoever comes into his head some terrible enemies he's just received a confidential briefing about and how only he can defeat it and save the nation, but only if you send him a donation in the next 24 hours, and while you're at it, why not buy a Trump hat/bible/watch/smartphone?

Yeah, it comes off like another grift selling "state secrets" which is jist going to be some.nonsense newsletter, probably not even read, seen, or written by Trump.

Do these people not know Truth Social and Twitter are free?

 

[Casey Pelous]

Yeah, it comes off like another grift selling "state secrets" which is jist going to be some.nonsense newsletter, probably not even read, seen, or written by Trump.

Do these people not know Truth Social and Twitter are free?

While this is almost certainly true, it is also almost certainly true that for the right price, you can have any damn secret to which that woefully inept piece of crap occupying the White House has access.

 

[Casey Pelous]

I just want to know why he goes around giving people shoes. WTF is that?

Same reason LBJ used to meet with people while he was on the toilet. Huge power move. (It was said to be as horrific an experience as you may, unfortunately, be imagining.)

The proper response would be to eye the box with just the tiniest bit of disappointment, thank the idiot for his largesse, then ask, "Say, what size do you take?" The next day, bring him a pair of Bruno Maglis or some other high-end shoe. "Try these some time. I think you might like them."

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Trump wants to give the White House a new visitor screening center. Actually one of the few ideas which makes sense.

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www.washingtonpost.com

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Same reason LBJ used to meet with people while he was on the toilet. Huge power move. (It was said to be as horrific an experience as you may, unfortunately, be imagining.)

The proper response would be to eye the box with just the tiniest bit of disappointment, thank the idiot for his largesse, then ask, "Say, what size do you take?" The next day, bring him a pair of Bruno Maglis or some other high-end shoe. "Try these some time. I think you might like them."

I was trying to remember the literary figure of whom Trump's treatment of his cabinet reminds me: Graham Greene's Dr Fischer of Geneva.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

About that free speech malarkey -- straight out of Viktor Orbán's playbook!

FCC chair threatens to throttle news broadcasts over ‘hoaxes’ about Iran war

 

[Free]

I thought it was known as the FAKE NEWS. Need it in all caps to show how serious it is.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I thought it was known as the FAKE NEWS. Need it in all caps to show how serious it is.

Or in German, Lügenpresse

 

[Free]

Or in German, Lügenpresse

LÜGENPRESSE, bitte.

 

[Free]

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles has breast cancer but will keep working through treatment

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles has been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer but plans to continue working through her treatment, retaining her place as one of President Donald Trump’s closest aides.

apnews.com

Normally I'd say "fuck cancer," but in this case: Thoughts and prayers.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Trump telling the baffled audience this: "The president of the United States, Gavin Newscum, admitted that he has learning disabilities." and ranting about that he doesn't want a president with dyslexia.

This is a new all time low for Trump, failing to recognise that Newsome is a Governour and promoting him to President while sitting in the Oval Office as acting president. Time for the 25th amendment.

 

[Casey Pelous]

Sane people: Time for the 25th amendment.

GOP: Time to focus on doing, you know, "that stuff" for the midterms.

 

[Free]

Not sure who's behind these, so I'm avoiding any assumption this is related to the "excursion" in Iran.

Drones Detected Over Washington Base Housing Rubio and Hegseth as US Raises Security Levels - The Media Line

Unidentified drones were detected over a Washington army […]

themedialine.org

Unidentified drones were detected over a Washington army installation where Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reside, prompting heightened security measures and internal discussions on how to respond, according to three sources briefed on the situation.

Multiple drones were observed over Fort Lesley J. McNair on a single night within the past 10 days, one official said. The sightings led to a meeting at the White House and raised concerns among senior officials, including whether to relocate the two cabinet members. Two of the people briefed said such a move was considered, though a senior administration official said Rubio and Hegseth have not been relocated.

 

[Free]

 

[Noodles]

I mean, it just goes along with the racism nonsense they constabtly push on the rubes of MAGA. Like thst saying, "Convince the poorest white man he is better than the richest black man", however it goes.

Also why they constantly.vote against their own self interrst, because you might be better off, but god forbit those OTHERS benefit.

 

[Free]

The national debt just crossed $39 trillion—almost doubling since Trump vowed to erase it | Fortune

Budget experts agree on one thing. The debt is on an "unsustainable" trajectory.

fortune.com

The United States national debt crossed $39 trillion for the first time Tuesday, arriving at the grim milestone less than five months after it first hit $38 trillion in late October—a pace of accumulation that budget watchdogs and academic economists are now calling, with unusual unanimity, “unsustainable.”

The milestone, confirmed in Wednesday’s Daily Treasury Statement, lands amid a politically charged moment: it comes roughly two weeks before the ten-year anniversary of President Trump’s 2016 campaign promise to eliminate the national debt within eight years. Instead, the gross national debt has roughly doubled since Trump first took office—it was $19.9 trillion in January 2017.

“Our moral duty to the taxpayer requires us to make our Government leaner and more accountable,” President Trump wrote in March 2017, as he issued an executive order directing OMB Director Mick Mulvaney to submit a comprehensive plan to reorganize Executive Branch departments and agencies in order to keep his promise to put in place common sense reforms to eliminate waste so that the Government better serves all Americans. “We’re going to do more with less,” Trump said at the time.

Trump has said a LOT of things.

“As America soars past $39 trillion in debt, we must recognize this alarming rate of growth and the significant financial burden we are putting on the next generation,” Michael A. Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, told Fortune in a statement. “Borrowing trillion after trillion at this rapid pace with no plan in place is the definition of unsustainable.”

Sounds like a Trump presidency.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

I mean, it just goes along with the racism nonsense they constabtly push on the rubes of MAGA. Like thst saying, "Convince the poorest white man he is better than the richest black man", however it goes.

Also why they constantly.vote against their own self interrst, because you might be better off, but god forbit those OTHERS benefit.

Put another way "Don't worry guys, we fucked the whole world over, NOT JUST YOU!"