The Trump Presidency, Season 2

[Free]

Deranged Trump Rants Edited Out of 60 Minutes Interview After Shooting

CBS news didn’t air some particularly troubling rants from President Trump in its interview following the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting.

newrepublic.com

CBS News’s 60 Minutes cut out large portions of its interview with President Trump in which he rambled about his ballroom, how hot his Secret Service agents are, and how the No Kings protests are just like the Ku Klux Klan.

An analysis by Decoding Fox News revealed that many portions of the interview, which took place Sunday following the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, simply never made it to air.

Oh oh how can this be?! I thought we'd moved beyond editing down broadcasted interviews.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Samuel Wynn Warde (@samuelwynnwarde614541)

“You recently commented, Mr. President, that if it were not for the United States, European countries would be speaking German. Dare I say that if it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking French” ~ King Charles III, Tuesday during his state visit to the U.S.

substack.com

 

[Veritable Quandry]

I like to say that if it wasn't for the French we would be speaking proper English.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

I was mildly curious after reading an alarmist headline on Reddit, but even in a post that took this theory seriously it was pretty damn obvious that there was nothing there. The term "scientist" is ludicrously broad to begin with, but it was really stretched in an attempt to group these disparate people together. There was no coherence to the work they were doing, or where they were doing it, or in the manner of their deaths. Then to stretch it over a span of years was further distortion.

Someone could make the same claim for "numerous medical workers have died or gone missing" and come up with 50 people that met that criteria in any metro area. I'm waiting for "numerous plumbers have died or gone missing" before I get too worried.

Yup; if you've ever heard of the "Missing 411" thing that was all the rage a couple of years ago, it works exactly the same way.

 

[Noodles]

I like to say that if it wasn't for the French we would be speaking proper English.

Oi Guv, u fokin wot mate???

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

I like to say that if it wasn't for the French we would be speaking proper English.

Naaah, the accents diverged before the Revolution. Though if the Colonies had stayed part of the Empire, perhaps the properly Rhotic dialects would have become the prestige dialects again.

 

[Free]

Anyone out there giving a comedy lecture? Humor classes on discount?

 

[Free]

We've pretty much come to know this, but good to see it in print. I guess. (Article paywalled on The Atlantic, linked through the Wayback Machine.)

The YOLO Presidency

Trump is focused on becoming one of history’s “great men.”

web.archive.org

Had President Trump, we wondered, possibly been reading or at least thumbing through—just maybe—the works of … Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel?

Impossible. And yet. Hegel’s theory of “world-historical individuals,” men who redirected the course of humanity, focused on three figures: Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Hegel described them as unlikely “heroes of an Epoch” for upending established orders that had previously seemed fixed. They were “practical, political men” who were each condemned in their age for smashing norms and for other conduct “obnoxious to moral reprehension”—as Trump has been accused of, centuries later.

And though Trump has long compared himself to America’s two greatest presidents, we were recently told by two people who are in a position to know such things—a senior administration official and a longtime Trump confidant—that the president had, in private conversations, begun thinking about himself less as a peer of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and more as an addition to Hegel’s immortal trifecta.

“He’s been talking recently about how he is the most powerful person to ever live,” the confidant told us. “He wants to be remembered as the one who did things that other people couldn’t do, because of his sheer power and force of will.”

 

[Veritable Quandry]

There is a reason he reverted the official name of Denali to Mt. McKinley. McKinley oversaw the Spanish-American War which made the US an imperial power and added territory (Puerto Rico and Guam permanently, but we held the Philippines and had a protectorate over Cuba). His focus on renaming the Gulf of Mexico and annexing SOMETHING (Greenland, Panama, Canada, maybe Cuba) is his attempt to add to the map and get in the history books as something other than the most impeached President or most corrupt administration.

 

[Ellie]

Oi Guv, u fokin wot mate???

Sauf Lunnun, innit.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Naaah, the accents diverged before the Revolution. Though if the Colonies had stayed part of the Empire, perhaps the properly Rhotic dialects would have become the prestige dialects again.

In most countries there is a Broadcast News dialect that differs from most local dialects. Those I could see staying in sync. Beyond that there would still be a patchwork of spoken variations, same as there is now.

While you sometimes hear people joking that England is more traditional in usage, the fact is Webster consistently picked older words (Fall instead of Autumn) and spelling (-or over -our and -er instead of -re) and his dictionary cemented those choices in American usage.

 

[Free]

Rep. Brad Schneider (@repschneider.bsky.social)

For 76 days, Democrats and I have pushed to fund critical Department of Homeland Security agencies. Every one of those days, House Republicans blocked that funding. Today, they abruptly reversed course and joined Democrats to pass a DHS funding bill.

bsky.app

CrimethInc. Ex-Workers' Collective (@crimethinc.com)

After Congress voted to fund parts of the Department of Homeland Security without funding ICE, CNN is reporting that [House Speaker Mike] "Johnson and his GOP have effectively lost their ability to govern.” Good. The less they can govern us, the better. ICE is just the tip of the iceberg.

bsky.app

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

In most countries there is a Broadcast News dialect that differs from most local dialects. Those I could see staying in sync. Beyond that there would still be a patchwork of spoken variations, same as there is now.

While you sometimes hear people joking that England is more traditional in usage, the fact is Webster consistently picked older words (Fall instead of Autumn) and spelling (-or over -our and -er instead of -re) and his dictionary cemented those choices in American usage.

Yep, American english is actually MORE traditional. As I sometimes say, American English is slightly more akin to the language of Elizabeth I than Elizabeth II.
(Elizabethan English was Rhotic, like American english)

 

[Cristiano]

This is brilliant.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Trump is suing his own government for $10 billion

May Day, 2026 And he wants to negotiate with his own government for a settlement sum One thing about fundamental legal principles is that they are rarely expressly feature in litigation – at …

theemptycity.com

There is a legal principle so fundamental that it is sometimes described as one of the very rules of natural justice.

This principle is that a person should not be a judge in their own cause.

Here the application of the principle would be that a person should not settle a legal dispute with themselves. Indeed, one can fairly ask if there is a dispute at all in such circumstances.

There are, he suggests, various possible remedies (e.g. stay the case until Trump is no longer in office). It'll be interesting to see how the case develops.

 

[Free]

Trump is suing his own government for $10 billion

May Day, 2026 And he wants to negotiate with his own government for a settlement sum One thing about fundamental legal principles is that they are rarely expressly feature in litigation – at …

theemptycity.com

"May Day, 2026"

The day of renewal!

 

[Innula Zenovka]

"May Day, 2026"

The day of renewal!

Erik Loomis (@erikloomis.bsky.social)

Happy May Day!! I have an article with my 20 favorite leftist films in The Nation. Check it out! https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/may-day-films-labor-movies-solidarity-class-struggle/tnamp/

bsky.app

 

[Free]

Erik Loomis (@erikloomis.bsky.social)

Happy May Day!! I have an article with my 20 favorite leftist films in The Nation. Check it out! https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/may-day-films-labor-movies-solidarity-class-struggle/tnamp/

bsky.app

That's the other May Day...

 

[Free]

We already know what that would be like, Mr. President...

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

We already know what that would be like, Mr. President...

Wait! Wait! I've heard this song before!