United States Politics Thread 47

[Raphael]

Epstein buddy says what?

Trump calls Democratic members of Congress guilty of treason because the said things he doesn't like to hear, and calls for their execution: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... video-post

Always great to see one of the glorious heroes of free speech in action.

Oh, while we're at it:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or [...]

What, exactly, has Trump been doing for the last few months?

[jcb]

Unauthorized US signs on Mexican beach along Texas border lead to international dispute

Mayor-elect Mamdani says he's 'ready for anything' in his meeting with Trump at White House

[malloc]

Mayor-elect Mamdani says he's 'ready for anything' in his meeting with Trump at White House

Apparently Trump came away from the meeting genuinely impressed with Mamdani rather than viciously repudiating him as most would have expected. Honestly not sure what to make of this development. Presumably it represents an attempt to discredit Mamdani among leftists by presenting him as an ally of the MAGA movement, although that seems a little too clever for Trump. Alternatively he may be trying to improve his flagging popularity by tying himself to a popular politician.

[jcb]

Mayor-elect Mamdani says he's 'ready for anything' in his meeting with Trump at White House

Apparently Trump came away from the meeting genuinely impressed with Mamdani rather than viciously repudiating him as most would have expected. Honestly not sure what to make of this development. Presumably it represents an attempt to discredit Mamdani among leftists by presenting him as an ally of the MAGA movement, although that seems a little too clever for Trump. Alternatively he may be trying to improve his flagging popularity by tying himself to a popular politician.

Trump is a narcissist that has always loved rubbing shoulders with Important People. Trump respects that Mamdani is the (future) mayor of NYC, and wants to use it to his advantage somehow.

Reporter: Are you affirming that you think the president is a fascist?
Mamdani: I've spoken about --
Trump: Just say yes, it's easier than explaining.

[Raphael]

Apparently Trump came away from the meeting genuinely impressed with Mamdani rather than viciously repudiating him as most would have expected. Honestly not sure what to make of this development. Presumably it represents an attempt to discredit Mamdani among leftists by presenting him as an ally of the MAGA movement, although that seems a little too clever for Trump. Alternatively he may be trying to improve his flagging popularity by tying himself to a popular politician.

I first assumed that it was either 1) an attempt to gain popularity with people who are far enough to the Left to hate "the libs" from the Left, by bonding with them over shared hatred of "the libs", or 2) simply a result of Trump's occasional habit of agreeing with the last person he talked to, but...

Trump is a narcissist that has always loved rubbing shoulders with Important People. Trump respects that Mamdani is the (future) mayor of NYC, and wants to use it to his advantage somehow.

...that seems like the most plausible explanation to me.

Reporter: Are you affirming that you think the president is a fascist?
Mamdani: I've spoken about --
Trump: Just say yes, it's easier than explaining.

LOL.

[jcb]

...that seems like the most plausible explanation to me.

Also, I think Mamdani is smart enough to know that the way to convince Trump is flattery and association. In the meeting, maybe Mamdani said something like "I just want to make New York City great and affordable again, just like you!" or saying that city-owned grocery stores can't be a leftist idea, because Erdogan did it in Turkey, and he's no leftist!

[Raphael]

Any ideas on why MTG is leaving Congress? My first suspicion when I heard of that was that maybe Trump's people had dug up dirt on her and then, you know, "recommended" that she should resign. But over on Bluesky, Ian Boudreau suggested that she's planning to join Nick Fuentes in some kind of paid capacity, and that idea makes sense, too: https://bsky.app/profile/ianboudreau.co ... 6r7rkops2c

[Raphael]

This is a bit over two months old, but I just discovered it. Simultaneously extremely infuriating and unintentionally darkly laugh-out-loudly funny. The Trump Administration ended grants for a project benefitting deafblind students because - well, read for yourself:

The Education Department also was concerned about other words in the application, said Adrian Klenz, who works with deafblind adults in the state. He said he has talked with state officials about the discontinuation of the grant.

“I was told that apparently the administration is going through past grants and two words were flagged: One was transition and one was privilege,” Klenz said. “Transition — transitioning from childhood to adulthood. Privilege came up because a parent wrote a glowing review of staff that said what a privilege it was to work with them.” ProPublica obtained a copy of the grant application and confirmed that those words were included.

https://www.propublica.org/article/trum ... nt-funding

The US Government is run by people who are too stupid to understand complete sentences, and can only react instinctively to individual words and phrases.

[jcb]

This is a bit over two months old, but I just discovered it. Simultaneously extremely infuriating and unintentionally darkly laugh-out-loudly funny. The Trump Administration ended grants for a project benefitting deafblind students because - well, read for yourself:

The Education Department also was concerned about other words in the application, said Adrian Klenz, who works with deafblind adults in the state. He said he has talked with state officials about the discontinuation of the grant.

“I was told that apparently the administration is going through past grants and two words were flagged: One was transition and one was privilege,” Klenz said. “Transition — transitioning from childhood to adulthood. Privilege came up because a parent wrote a glowing review of staff that said what a privilege it was to work with them.” ProPublica obtained a copy of the grant application and confirmed that those words were included.

https://www.propublica.org/article/trum ... nt-funding

The US Government is run by people who are too stupid to understand complete sentences, and can only react instinctively to individual words and phrases.

They're probably just doing a ctrl-F, and not bothering to investigate further to confirm.

[Raphael]

True enough, but it has the practical effect I described.

[jcb]

Just another normal day in America:

Trump suggests Democratic lawmakers who urge military to ignore illegal orders could be executed

Of course, Trump's going to try to stay in power in 2028 again, regardless of whether he wins the election, so we'll all find out soon enough what people will do when given illegal orders.

[jcb]

Politics
‘Rush Hour 4’ revived after Trump urged Paramount Skydance to resurrect franchise: Reports

I would've preferred if he had kidnapped Mike Myers to make another Austin Powers movie. (sarcasm)

[malloc]

Just heard that an Afghan refugee shot a bunch of people in Washington DC. It looks like Trump finally got his Reichstag fire.

[Raphael]

Just heard that an Afghan refugee shot a bunch of people in Washington DC. It looks like Trump finally got his Reichstag fire.

You said the same when Charlie Kirk got murdered.

[malloc]

Just heard that an Afghan refugee shot a bunch of people in Washington DC. It looks like Trump finally got his Reichstag fire.

You said the same when Charlie Kirk got murdered.

This time two people were shot and by an immigrant. This looks like just the turnaround that Trump needs after months of declining approval ratings. Americans were already dubious toward the Afghans, as evidenced by the decades of occupation in Afghanistan and anti-immigration has always been Trump's strongest issue. It stands to reason that this represents an amazing propaganda coup for him.

[jcb]

Just heard that an Afghan refugee shot a bunch of people in Washington DC. It looks like Trump finally got his Reichstag fire.

You said the same when Charlie Kirk got murdered.

This time two people were shot and by an immigrant. This looks like just the turnaround that Trump needs after months of declining approval ratings. Americans were already dubious toward the Afghans, as evidenced by the decades of occupation in Afghanistan and anti-immigration has always been Trump's strongest issue. It stands to reason that this represents an amazing propaganda coup for him.

Your rhetoric is indistinguishable from that of a Trump sycophant.

9/11 had a big impact because it killed nearly 3000 people and targeted many prominent buildings. This attack has neither of those aspects that would give it infamy.

[rotting bones]

NASA only allows its engineers to use approved software. I recently learned that it never approves open source software if it was made by people in China.

[Ares Land]

NASA only allows its engineers to use approved software. I recently learned that it never approves open source software if it was made by people in China.

Yes, that's common practice in a number of industries (to varying degrees). I'd say it's a pretty common sense practice at heart.

There's a similar distrust of American products, though of course it's very difficult to put in practice.

[Raphael]

Has Glenn Greenwald done something fucked up again? I've seen some people bring him up on social media, but they didn't bother to explain what prompted their mention of him.

************************


Re: the discussion of what Trump might need to turn things around now: I don't know whether anything could turn things around for Trump himself. But arguably, what the larger MAGA Movement could use right now would be for Trump personally to somehow go away. I don't know whether that would repair everything for them, but it might improve their chances.

I mean, a lot of things have been hurting MAGA lately, but the biggest of them is probably the Epstein scandal. And that's mainly Trump's personal doing. Yes, a lot of other MAGA shitheads have permanently disgraced themselves by defending Trump or even Epstein himself over this matter or by helping to prevent the release of the files. But the only senior MAGA people who were personally involved with Epstein back when he was alive and committing his crimes are Alan Dershowitz, who is at most very marginally a MAGA figure, and Trump himself. So, to other MAGA hotshots it might well look as if their movement is in real trouble not because of anything they did, but because of something he did.

So let's just say that if I'd hear at some point in the near future that Trump's helicopter crashed or he got food poisoning or something, I'd have suspicions.

[rotting bones]

Yes, that's common practice in a number of industries (to varying degrees). I'd say it's a pretty common sense practice at heart.

There's a similar distrust of American products, though of course it's very difficult to put in practice.

Open source software can be checked for spyware.