Trump Admin II: Orange Fascist Boogaloo

"It was done by a mean person who says things I don't like" is NOT a fucking counterpoint.

We did this in Canada, turned out to be a great idea

Yes, the facts are the facts. And you have none.
Have you read any of the briefs? I have.
Maybe you should educate yourself instead of parroting Faux News.

Sure, but the Constitution gives that authority to Congress, not the President.

Ma'am please calm down this is an Arby's.

For now...

Ooo. You kiss your mother with that mouth, sweety?

Good on Kendrick Lamar for straight up trolling Donald Trump and his fascist administration. Der Fuhrer left around the time of the half time show, but the message left for him and for every other rancid fascist piece of shit was made clear. It was supremely well done.

One wonders how often we will hear that qualifier over the next 4 years.

Was just kidding...

Something I'm beginning to wonder ...

We often hear "don't do X, because whatever power you grant yourself, your successor will have it too." (Democrats naively clung to this as a reason not to abolish the filibuster, as if Republicans aren't going to abolish it without a second thought as soon as they have a tempting enough reason to.)

So, for the Republicans who are all about firing judges and handing as much power to the president as possible ...

Are they just throwing short-sighted tantrums?

Or are they willing to do it because they do not believe they will ever have to hand over power to a Democrat again?

FUCKING DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HELLO?!?!?!?!?!!?

Dicky's got it. They have no intention of handing it back over, at least not at the upper levels. This is straight up "we want a King" behavior. Trump's their Hail Mary pass for a theocratic fascist state.

And to be clear, I don't mean that they'll always try to win elections — because, duh, what else would they do? But in the past, party strategists have always had to contend with the knowledge that it wouldn't always go in their favor, so they had to plan for all possibilities.

I mean they believe — based on solid reasoning, because despite the visibility of idiots like Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican party contains many shrewd strategists who know what they're doing — that they have a realistic path to making sure nobody but them is ever able to achieve power again.

They also know that modern Democrats are massive cowards. The supreme Court handed Biden an absurd amount of power and freedom that he could have leveraged to prevent Trump from getting back into the White House, and Biden did fuck all with it. There's no way Trump won't use that same power to kneecap whoever tries to run against him in 2028.

They're willing to do it because they know that even if Democrats are elected, they will be neutered.

The purges they are doing are hard to undo. While Trump and Elon are cutting back and shutting down departments they are destroying systems that took time to build. Once they're gone that can't be easily undone. It's likely they'll lose some court battles over it, but ultimately so what, if months/years after destroying something you get the ruling it was wrong of you to destroy it, the thing is still destroyed and they'll either ignore the rulings, or put them back together in a lip service manner.

The ideological purges you're seeing in places like the FBI are hard to undo as well. Organisations like that are typically made up of a range of political opinions, along with long term apolitical cogs in the machine who work effectively and smoothly across administrations. With reports that they are trying to stack the internal political in their favour, only hiring those who agree with them and firing those who don't agree with statements like the 2020 election being stolen, they are going to leave organisations stacked towards supporting them.

If the Democrats come back into power it's harder to rebuild things, because to do so needs legislation passed, funds allocated, legal challenges met, and all those things delay the act of building. Best case is they manage to just put things back how they were, so again things are skewed towards the average state being closer towards the Republican ideals than they are today

When anyone not on the Trump train is gone, it becomes much harder to undo, because the Dems effectively need to remove everyone and start with a clean slate. They won't, so even as they try to restore balance the Overton window is shifted right, the average state of the organisation over time actually skewed to on the Republican side.

Don't worry though, history shows it isn't hopeless. Constructive effective governments can come in. Bad news things have to get a lot worse and a lot more things have to be torn down before the public momentum builds for that, and there's also no guarantee of it happening.

I've been trying to go easier on the Democrats, because we all need each other to push back against the shit stain that is the Trump administration. The problem is, however, as you say it. We have a bunch of Neville Chamberlains and Paul von Hindenburgs when we need Roosevelts, Churchills, and Stalins (at least in this case) who are ready and willing to use every tool in their arsenal to push back against this new rise of White Nationalism and Theocratic Fascism, and these Democrats, for the most part, are not meeting the moment and we are going to lose enormously in regard to our civil and human rights.

I don't think this bullshit lives .uch past Trump. Who would be his successor? More "reasonable" successors like DeSantis or Vance don't have the support of the nutcases. The crazy ones like MTG or Gaetz are repugnant to the masses. Trump's children are charisma vacuums who can't do anything on their own. So who takes his place? The rank and file Repugs like McConnell, Cornyn, Collins, Graham, they'd love for the status quo to return. I really don't believe they want this autocratic nonsense Trump is setting up, because they already had cushy, comfortable lives they don't want to upend.
So, if he dies? MAGA dies with him. I hope.

Elon’s DOGE Attack on Financial Watchdog Coincides With X Pursuit of Digital Wallet

https://bsky.app/profile/marcveld.bsky.social/post/3lhub22r75z2m

https://prospect.org/economy/2025-02-10-even-bankers-dont-want-to-delete-cfpb/

Are you linking the audio version of HCR's Letters?

Maybe she'll do better with an 8-10 minute listen rather than read.

Google Maps:



If you zoom out far enough, it switches to "Gulf of Mexico," but otherwise now reads "Gulf of America" when viewing the continental United States.

Well, here's something I strongly agree with.

I'll read it myself and make a video. Lol.
And then I'll make videos of all the stuff the crazy man says too.

Trump targets Board of Visitors for Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard academies



President Trump on Monday moved to dismiss the Board of Visitors for four military service academies, claiming the groups that help oversee student life and academic programs at the prestigious schools had been “infiltrated” by “woke” ideology.

“Our Service Academies have been infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues over the last four years,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I have ordered the immediate dismissal of the Board of Visitors for the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard.”


Trump did not immediately say who would be appointed as new members of the boards, which are tasked with inquiring into the state of morale and discipline, the curriculum, instruction, physical equipment, fiscal affairs, academic methods, and other matters relating to the schools.

The boards at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., U.S. Naval Academy, U.S. Air Force Academy and U.S. Coast Guard Academy consist of six members appointed by the president, three appointed by the vice president, four appointed by the Speaker, one designated by the Senate Armed Services Committee and one designated by the House Armed Services Committee.

While the board members are meant to provide independent advice and recommendations on the operation and other matters relating to the schools, in recent years they have become targets in political jostling.

Trump in December 2020, weeks before he was set to leave office, appointed a number of political allies to the boards of the service academies after removing long-standing experts.


President Biden in September 2021 then moved to purge the members appointed by Trump, a move that drew pushback, considering each individual’s term is meant to last three years.
**************************


Jay-zus... he's gone full Stalin mode..

Gouda has no scent. It's the least offensive cheese in existence. You need to up your game dear child if that's the only cheese choice you can think of.

What are we talking about?

It's not a bad idea. If we followed the Canadian model, the main reason to be against it is that credit card transactions would continue to be to-the-penny, while cash purchases would round up or down to the nearest nickel. Presumably major retailers will figure out the pricing structures that will yield the greatest possible number of round-up transactions, and since lower-income people are the most likely to be unbanked, they will end up paying more on average than higher-income people.

(If somebody who understands the math better than I do can demonstrate that manipulating prices that way is mathematically impossible and round-ups and round-downs will always be roughly equal, I'll withdraw that objection. Note to MAGA: This is what's called being willing to revise your opinion based on evidence.)

At any rate, the impact on any given individual is likely to be small, and probably does not outweigh the benefits.

Trump's desire to eliminate the penny is probably the best chance of it actually happening that has come along in a long time, because the most vocal public opposition would normally be from the knee-jerk "all change is bad" crowd of grouchy Archie Bunker types, and they've been conditioned to worshipfully fall in line with whatever he says.

However:

1) Because Trump is a simpleton, he fails to comprehend that abolishing low-value currency involves more than just saying "I hereby order you to stop making this coin." You have to actually spell out what happens to coins currently in circulation, whether they will remain legal tender, and how cash transactions will be handled.

2) The idea will probably vanish as soon as a lobbyist for Jarden Zinc Products shows up at Mar-A-Lago with a whole bunch of insincere flattery and a suitcase full of cash.

3) Failing that, somebody just needs to point out to him that zinc mining is terrible for the environment, and he'll decide to be all for it because environmental damage "owns the libs." Then he'll concoct some story about big, strong zinc miners coming to him with tears in their eyes and saying "sir, sir, please don't eliminate our jobs" and the end result will be the same.

I have also read an objection that this move will cause more nickels to be minted, but it's hard to imagine why that would be the case if you're rounding to the nearest nickel.