The Trump Presidency, Season 2

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New York Times columnist David French told MS NOW Monday morning that Senate Republicans are quietly reaching a breaking point with Donald Trump — not because they have suddenly grown a spine, but because they are learning that no amount of loyalty is sufficient to protect them from his wrath.

French, appearing on Morning Joe with anchor Jonathan Lemire, said the dynamic driving the frustration has been largely missed in the broader political coverage.
"There's a very important distinction that a lot of these senators are very aware of that has been sort of underplayed in the public," French said. "Trump turned on senators who had, in many ways, been doing everything that they could to signal their loyalty to Trump."
 

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Pentagon press office is now a classified area and off-limits to reporters
Journalists are no longer allowed in the Pentagon press office.

The office where journalists have long been able to seek information from military officials has been deemed a classified space and off-limits to the press to make room for speechwriters who handle sensitive material, the Defense Department said Monday.

“As a result, journalists will no longer be permitted to enter the office space,” Joel Valdez, the acting press secretary, said in a statement. “There’s nothing controversial about that.”
Sure, keeping the press out of the press office. That's not controversial. At all.

What a joke Pete Hegseth and his team is.
 

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Innula Zenovka

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They've still got Vanilla Ice, though I really want the Iranian government to up their trolling level by booking him too

After several artists drop out of Freedom 250 concerts, Vanilla Ice says he'd "play for anybody" including Putin and Iran
 

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Are Kanye and Kid Rock not available?
 

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Are Kanye and Kid Rock not available?
I think I read that Rock is big-time butthurt over being left out, so maybe there's still "hope."
 

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There is so, so much wrong with this case, from every angle. It is like an implausible exam question for law students. This is not what litigation is for and this is not what settlements are for.

But at least now there is a chance for the court to self-correct the excesses of the parties, for if the case is struck out there cannot be a ‘settlement’ – either recognised by the court or otherwise.
 
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The parties "settled" the case before filings were due on jurisdiction. That also removed the next steps the court would take: first they would have to rule on the Statute of Limitations (normally 2 years if I recall correctly) and then on excessive damages (there is a $1000 limit in the IRS Code unless they can prove actual costs for credit monitoring and similar direct costs, the law does not allow punitive, reputational, or emotional damages, only direct costs).
 

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With the Trumpenreich, one must not limit one's thinking to the box called "the law." The IRA could "settle" on the basis of, "Nice little agency ya got here. Be a shame if someone was to, you know, cut its budget to, oh, I dunno, say, zero or sumpin'....." or even just, "The boss says to write him a check for $1.7 billion."
 

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In discussing the present situation with a knowledgeable US source yesterday I asked how Trump eventually gets out of the Iran War (which as always he remains desperate to do). The response I got was fascinating. I was told: “Right now he cannot get out. It is physics.” What this person meant is that while Trump tries constantly to wriggle away, the unbreakable hold that Iran and Israel have over his power/position always sucks him back him. The US does not control its own destiny at this point in the war, indeed every day the American position is weakening. The US is in a far weaker state than it was when the ceasefire was announced on April 7, and will be in weaker position next week when I write this (unless Trump surrenders).
This story of US weakness certainly is the story of the week, maybe the year.

This weakness ties into what Trump is doing with the GOP and the federal government, which gets comment but I am not sure of the right type. People need to ask themselves why Trump is prizing absolute subservient loyalty over anything. Its not just that he wants to punish his enemies. He has always wanted to do that. No, its far more than that, Trump is setting up a parallel system to protect himself and maintain his power, and that is based on total control of the GOP and executive government. This might actually be the thing that makes US decline unstoppable. He is, as always, willing to destroy the country to save himself. And his Iran war is accelerating that.
 

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Albanians are rising up in protest against Ivanka Trump and Jared Kusher's massive luxury resort project on a previously protected island. Ivanka had the fucking audacity to do an interview where she talked about being out on a yacht and "discovering" this beautiful island, and she and Jared had to have it. Not coincidentally. there are Soviet-era tunnels underneath the island. All of the super-wealthy seem to be building properties with bunkers. They know what is eventually coming for them.


Protests in Albania grow over Jared Kushner-backed luxury resort

 

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All of the super-wealthy seem to be building properties with bunkers. They know what is eventually coming for them.

Protests in Albania grow over Jared Kushner-backed luxury resort
So did Edgar Poe

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.
 

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Albanians are rising up in protest against Ivanka Trump and Jared Kusher's massive luxury resort project on a previously protected island. Ivanka had the fucking audacity to do an interview where she talked about being out on a yacht and "discovering" this beautiful island, and she and Jared had to have it. Not coincidentally. there are Soviet-era tunnels underneath the island. All of the super-wealthy seem to be building properties with bunkers. They know what is eventually coming for them.

Protests in Albania grow over Jared Kushner-backed luxury resort
I love how the comment is "It will bring jobs and investment". Because thats all that matters right?
 

Innula Zenovka

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Minor problem: the island and the seabed around it are packed with unexploded WWII ordnance. Balkan Insight and BIRN reporting describe a 5,000-square-meter underwater field of 200mm artillery shells, anti-submarine mines, and tons of live explosives — in a spot sailors literally call Gryka e Xhehenemit, the Gorge of Hell. Official Albanian Armed Forces documents reportedly note mined zones on nearly every side of the island. The detonators are theoretically disabled. The explosives are not. “If they are touched or moved, the consequences could be fatal,” one expert told reporters. So: luxury marina, on top of a minefield, on top of a graveyard of warships.
Ok, sorry Albania, I totally want Epstine Island v2.0 here where all the worst peoppe congregate. I strongly encourage hiking in these woods for these people. Please. In fact, lets just drop them there without any off like a powderkeg version of Survivor.
 

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lol I guarantee you Trump never registered anything else that was in this image beyond his own face on a muscular body. He is a classic megalomaniac, his brain just stopped there like, "I've seen enough! *send*"

It makes you wonder what else he can be tricked into sending or approving...