Me? He’s bluffing too much.
Here’s a list of unethical and I believe illegal actions that the Trump administration has taken beginning in January before Trump actually took office as presented by US Senator Chris Murphy yesterday.
“So, on January 6th – this is before Trump is even sworn in – Amazon, which has a ton of business before the incoming Trump White House, pays $40 million to the Trump family to license a documentary in a series about Melania Trump. Just a cash payment from a company that has huge interests before the incoming White House to the Trump family.
“On January 17th, a few days before Trump is sworn in – maybe the most corrupt act in the history of the White House – this is the creation of the Trump meme coin. This is just a backdoor way for anybody with business before the Trump administration to send him millions of dollars in total secret. Trump doesn’t disclose who buys the coin. He launders his income from the coin through an unregulated Chinese exchange. He promotes the coin on his social media feeds. In the first minute of trading, one buyer – and what we know is that this was likely a Chinese individual – purchases six million coins, sending the price through the roof and immediately making a ton of money for Trump, who makes money off of every transaction. Trump knows who this person is, no doubt, but American citizens do not.
“January 20th, he is now sworn in and he fulfills a campaign promise to the oil and gas industry. There’s a report from the campaign that says they came down to Mar-a-Lago, I think, and said ‘We’ll give you a billion dollars in campaign contributions.’ This is not me alleging this, this is an open report. The oil and gas industry says we’ll give you a billion dollars in campaign contributions if you do what we want when you are sworn in. And the day he’s sworn in, Trump issues an executive order gutting environmental rules so that the oil and gas industry can start making bigger amounts of money.
“On January 25th, Trump eliminates the Inspectors General, the ethics officials in government and whistleblower offices. It’s a late-night purge, so you know it’s fishy. On January 25th, 17 Inspectors General get fired, clearing the way for the president to engage in even more corruption because that’s what the Inspectors General do. They sit in these agencies and they look for corruption. Now the Inspectors General are gone. They’re just gone.
“But that’s not good enough because on that same day, Trump fires the head of the Office of Special Counsel. Why would you do that? Well, that office is an investigative and prosecutorial office that works to end government and political corruption and protects government employees who become whistleblowers. That office is gone now, along with all of the whistleblowers.
“Two days later, Trump illegally fires NLRB member Gwen Wilcox. This effectively shuts down, illegally, the NLRB for a period of time. Why is that important? Because the guys who were standing behind Donald Trump on Inauguration Day, people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, they are being investigated at the moment by the NLRB for massive workplace violations. Now the NLRB is shut down, a big gift to the people who financed Donald Trump’s inauguration and stood behind him to give him political endorsement and cover on his inauguration day.
“On January 31st, a trend begins: enforcement actions are paused against Trump loyalists. This is Representative Andy Ogles from Tennessee. He was being investigated for illegal, or potentially illegal, loans made to his 2022 campaign. But right after Rep. Ogles introduces a bill to amend the constitution to allow Trump to serve for a third term, what happens? Trump makes the investigation go away. Because as you will see, Trump’s justice system will often look the other way if you cheat or steal but you are a friend of Donald Trump.
“At the same time, another of Trump’s friends, his IRS nominee Billy Long, gets his donors – almost all of them have direct interest before the IRS – to pay off his six-figure campaign debt. It’s a fabulously corrupt thing to do, but it’s just all normal now. So when Trump is showing you the way, then the folks who work for him follow suit.
“Alright, we’ll jump to February now. February 4th. We’re into Week 2 of the Trump White House. Trump hauls the PGA and the Saudi government into the White House to broker an agreement between the two rival golf leagues so that Trump can make more money hosting golf tournaments. He’s in business with one of the entities, the Saudi-owned LIV league. In a normal world, the president of the United States wouldn’t be in business with any foreign government. But the president is, and not only is that okay, but it is also apparently okay for him to bring the golf league that he’s in business with into the White House and pressure the other golf league, the rival golf league, to cut a deal. And guess what happens? The PGA, which had long said they were not going to host events at Trump’s courses, after being hauled into the White House, looking the president of the United States in the eye – somebody they clearly have to do business with – they announce that they’re going to start allowing their tournaments to be held at Trump courses. Big benefit to Donald Trump’s personal bottom line.
“February 6th, two days later: Trump ends the criminal enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Do you know what this is? You should. It requires people who are being paid by foreign governments to register. It’s no longer going to be enforced, so now members of the Trump administration can get backdoor payments from foreign governments and nobody is going to enforce the law. This isn’t theoretical. There were people who got arrested for doing this exact same thing, getting paid by foreign governments while working for the Trump administration, in term one. He wants to make sure it’s not a problem in term two, so he pauses enforcement of the actual act.
“Four days later, Trump eliminates the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This is just a magnificent present to all of his billionaire enablers because this is the agency that stops big businesses, banks, and other financial firms from ripping off consumers and now it is just shut down.
“The same day, DOJ drops charges against Eric Adams in a mind-blowingly public and brazen quid pro quo. Adams says he will pledge loyalty to Trump and support Trump’s political priorities in New York City, Trump drops the corruption charges against Adams. Just like the Ogles case, the door is now wide open to engage in corruption or criminality as long as you support Donald Trump. The thing that makes this one so egregious is that Adams and the White House go on TV to announce the corrupt deal. They don’t hide it. They just say that Adams is now supporting Donald Trump and we’re now going to drop the charges against him, and everybody gets the message. There’s a lot of stuff I can get away with as a corrupt official as long as I am in bed politically with Donald Trump.
“Same day, February 10th, DOJ pauses enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. This is the law that stops American companies from bribing foreign governments in order to get business. On February 10th, Trump suspends enforcement of an antibribery statute, paving the way for his friends in corporate America to start bribing foreign governments again.
“Two days later, the State Department forecasts that they are going to dramatically upscale the amount of money that they’re going to send to Tesla. This is the first time that Elon Musk shows up in this story. By February 12th, Elon Musk is pretty well embedded in the White House, and guess what? The State Department is now going to spend $400 million for armored Teslas – its largest expected contract in the upcoming year.
“February 12th, the same day, Musk infiltrates the Department of Labor and OSHA, giving him exclusive secret access to labor law violation data against him and his competitors. Unethical, corrupt, but this stuff is just happening every single day. A few days later, on February 15th and 16th, Musk now starts really testing the limits of what his boss will let him get away with. He fires a specific set of regulators at the FDA that are reviewing one of his medical products, Neuralink. The message is clear: you’ve got to do right by my applications or you risk getting the ax too.
“Three days later, on February 19th, Trump’s new U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Ed Martin, starts to use his government power to harass Trump critics. He launches something called Operation Whirlwind and is pretty unapologetic about the fact that this is going to be an enforcement operation against anybody who just seeks to get in the way of DOGE. He doesn’t say he’s going after people who are acting illegally. He says anybody who tries to stop or protest or harass DOGE’s work is now going to be the subject of Operation Whirlwind, and he starts trolling critics of DOGE online. The U.S. Attorney for D.C. is now trolling DOGE critics online, obviously threatening criminal enforcement.
“You see what’s happening here? We’re 30 days into the administration, and everybody in Trump’s world, including the supposedly independent U.S. Attorneys, are getting the message: that it is now part of your job, if you work for Trump, to use your government powers to either enrich yourself or Trump or to help Trump politically.
“February 21st, two days later, the SEC drops a major investigation into a company called Robinhood. Why does this matter? You guessed it: this firm donated $2 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. 30 days later, the SEC drops an investigation into that firm.
“Put a pin in that, because you’re going to hear stories like it over and over again.
“Throughout February, we watched the rich guys that are surrounding Trump come up with new ways to monetize their positions. Kash Patel is a perfect example. He’s the nominee to head the FBI – maybe the most important independent bureau in the federal government – and while he’s going through that process, he is selling merchandise online ranging from T-shirts to playing cards, with the proceeds supposedly going to whistleblowers’ education and defamation cases.
“February 26th, news breaks that the FAA is considering giving a $2.4 billion contract to Elon Musk’s Starlink. But it’s not like a regular contract that’s up for bid. It’s a contract that was already awarded to one of Musk’s competitors, Verizon, and word leaks that the White House is thinking of just ripping the contract away from Verizon – because Verizon is not a political supporter of Donald Trump in the way Elon Musk is – and just giving it to Elon Musk. Now, that doesn’t happen. As reported, the contract has not been canceled yet. But there are regular reports of the administration still relentlessly attacking Verizon in a clear attempt to try to undermine their contract.
“February 27th, the next day, Trump drops a lawsuit against Capital One. Why does this matter? Capital One donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. It’s now just kind of automatic. You donate a big amount of money to Trump’s inauguration, and you can ask him for something.
“We’re not done. That same day, the SEC drops a lawsuit against Coinbase. You got the story now. Coinbase donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. They are now told it’s okay to keep cheating consumers.
“We’re not done. On February 28th, a day later, the DOJ announced that it would drop a complaint against SpaceX, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, for labor discrimination. Elon is like wait a second, all these other big donors to your inauguration are getting out of jail free, I want my get out of jail free card as well. He gets it from DOJ.
“We’re now into March. March 1st, a report breaks – this is maybe second to [the meme coin], the most stunning act of corruption. On March 1st, word breaks that Trump is selling meetings at Mar-a-Lago. On at least one occasion, Trump charged guests $1 million to dine with him at Mar-a-Lago. According to the same report, business leaders can secure a one-on-one meeting with the president of the United States for a $5 million payment to Donald Trump.
“If you were mayor of a medium-sized town and it was reported that you were selling meetings for like $200, you would be arrested. You would be run out of town. But not Donald Trump. He’s selling meetings for $5 million, according to this report. And because the corruption in this White House is daily and normal, he gets away with it.
“March 2nd, Trump launches a crypto reserve fund. This is going to involve government taxpayer dollars purchasing and holding a variety of digital assets in a strategic reserve fund –a move that definitely inflates and protects Trump’s investment portfolio, [which], by now, you understand, [is] very heavily dependent on crypto assets. This normally wouldn’t be a problem because normally when somebody takes a high position like president or governor or mayor, they divest from their own personal assets, or they put it all in a blind fund. Trump does none of that. He’s controlling his own assets, his family is controlling their own assets, while he makes policy that benefits himself and his family financially.
“On March 3rd, a really curious thing: DOJ intervenes in an obscure but open-and-shut 2020 Colorado elections case. This is the case of Tina Peters, who tampered with voting machines on Trump’s behalf in Mesa County, Colorado. She was convicted by a jury of her peers, open and shut. But because Peters is a MAGA loyalist, now DOJ, on March 3rd, said it’s going to step in and review the case because there are concerns about how it was prosecuted. This is just President Trump again clearly shielding those that violated the law to help him from consequences.
“Same thing, different day. No, not even a different day. This is actually still March 3rd. Yuga Labs, a blockchain company, donated $100,000 to the Trump inauguration fund. They now get in line. They get what everybody else is getting. The SEC closes an ongoing investigation into the company.
“On March 4th, DOGE lays off thousands of IRS employees. This is bad for a lot of reasons, but it certainly helps Trump’s Mar-a-Lago friends because the IRS now cannot enforce the law against the big, giant tax cheats in the way that it could have when it had those personnel on the books. Mar-a-Lago is celebrating.
“March 4th – same day – word breaks that the Commerce Department is considering changes to this very specific rural broadband program and who’s eligible. Why? Because Elon Musk wants to dominate that program. Under the program’s original rules, Starlink was capped at $4.1 billion. This curious change now will allow Elon Musk’s company, Starlink, to receive between $10 billion and $20 billion from the rural broadband program.
“This is like a broken record, but six days later, the CFPB – which is basically shut down but exists in name only – drops a lawsuit against the Bank of America and J.P. Morgan. Bank of America donated $500,000 to the inauguration. J.P. Morgan donated $1 million to the inauguration.
“On March 11th, a day later, Trump and Musk hold this now very well-known advertisement for Tesla on the White House lawn. This is just taxpayer dollars used to support the personnel at the White House and the White House being used to sell cars for Elon Musk, and the message again is pretty simple here: if you are loyal to me, and you pay any kind of price for your loyalty to me, I will use government resources to help you, to get you out of trouble, even including free advertising.
“On March 19th – we’re eight days later – the GEO Group donated $500,000 for Trump’s inauguration fund. This is a private prison company, and the NLRB drops its investigation into this company. It’s really getting disgusting at this point. I don’t know that there’s anybody left that made a major donation to the inauguration fund that has not gotten their favor from Donald Trump.
“On March 24th, the Treasury Department guts something called the Corporate Transparency Act. This is the regulation that requires businesses to reveal their true owners to the government. These new rules now make it easier for billionaires to hide money, to avoid taxes, to engage in corruption – less accountability for corporations.
“March 25th, a day later, the SEC reduces, from $125 million to $50 million, an existing fine. So, this has already been litigated: this company, Ripple, it’s a blockchain-based digital payment company. It’s been fined, and Trump comes in and reduces the fine from $125 million to $50 million. You know the story by now. These guys made a big investment in the inauguration. Most of these companies that got a get-out-of-jail-free or had their investigations terminated were giving $500,000, $1 million. Ripple wanted to make sure they got it right. They made a $5 million donation to Trump’s inaugural fund, and they got their fine reduced by $75 million.
“March 28th, Trump pardons the founder of Nikola Autos, one of his campaign mega donors. Again, this is a pardon for one of his major campaign contributors. When asked about the pardon, Trump said ‘They say the thing they did was wrong, but he was one of the first people who supported me for president.’ He just tells you what he did. He said, ‘yeah, they said what he did was wrong, he did something that was probably pretty wrong, but he supported me for president, so I’m giving him a pardon.’ I’m not saying that there hasn’t been a lot of really bad stuff that’s happened in the pardon program under Democratic and Republican presidents, but let’s just name it when Donald Trump names it.
“April 8th, we’re into April. Trump issues an executive order to expand coal mining. This is part of his down payment on the promise he made to those oil executives. The shares of the company owned by Joseph Kraft, the billionaire coal magnate who helped lead those Trump fundraising efforts during the presidential campaign, immediately shoots up.
“On April 9th, this really curious timeline of events plays out, in which Trump posts on his social media, ‘This is a great time to buy.’ A lot of his followers complied; they make investments in the market. There’s reports and speculation that many of his inner circle might have done the same thing, and then a couple hours later, he announces that he’s pausing most of his tariffs, and the market shoots up. People who followed his directions online make a lot of money, and potentially other people who had access to that insider information might have made a lot of money as well.
“On April 17th, Musk steers billions of taxpayer dollars to something called the Golden Dome. Reuters, on April 17th, reports that Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite company, SpaceX, has emerged as the frontrunner to develop Trump’s proposed Golden Dome. This is a really ill-defined, technologically unproven defense system. It supposedly has a price tag of hundreds of billions of dollars, money that now looks as if it will be funneled directly to Elon Musk. At this point it is just head-shaking.
“On April 23rd, now it’s like he can do anything he wants. He has just blown the lid off of any expectations about what a president can and cannot do to enrich himself. On April 23rd, a message appears on the homepage of the website for Trump’s meme coin declaring that the top 220 meme coin holders would be invited for an exclusive dinner with Trump and the top 25 coin holders – these are private investors in Donald Trump’s financial empire–would get a special VIP tour of the White House. After the message went up, the price of Trump’s coin jumped by more than 50%. In the two days following the announcement of the special VIP tour in the people’s house, the White House, Trump and his allies made nearly a million dollars in trading fees alone. They are just selling access to the White House out in the open.
“April 26th, Trump’s family, this is just last weekend, announces the launch of a private club called the Executive Branch, a new private club in Washington. The initiation fee is around half a million dollars. It is advertised as a place where you can hold secret audiences with the Trump administration, as long as you pay Donald Trump’s family and their financial backers over $500,000 in membership fees. It is apparently already sold out.
I agree with Senator Murphy that we need to rally this nation against this corruption and bring it to an end because if we allow our government leaders to openly steal from us, American democracy is not going to survive.
During the first The Trump administration has led an assault on the US Constitution and the rule of law.
Almost nothing that presidents or the federal government does today is within the bounds of the Constitution. And no one even cares. Not even the supreme court gives a shit anymore.
Everything and everyone has been co-opted and bought out, or simply become dumbed-down and distracted enough to be incapable of noticing or even caring. The sooner we realize we are living in actual Idiocracy the more everything makes complete sense.
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..allowing this:
https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/protecting-uacs-from-abuse.html
HHS, DOJ Move to End Sexual Abuse and Harassment of Unaccompanied Alien Children in Shelters Operated by Southwest Key Programs
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced today that it has stopped placement of unaccompanied alien children in shelters operated by Southwest Key Programs, Inc. (Southwest Key) and has moved all children there to other shelters.
“This administration is working fearlessly to end the tragedy of human trafficking and other abuses of unaccompanied alien children who enter the country illegally,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “For too long, pernicious actors have exploited such children both before and after they enter the United States. Today’s action is a significant step toward ending this appalling abuse of innocents.”
Southwest Key has operated 27 residential shelters that provide temporary living arrangements for unaccompanied alien children in Texas, Arizona, and California, and has been the largest provider for such shelters for unaccompanied alien children in the United States. Southwest Key operates such shelters through grants from the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement. Unaccompanied alien children are minors who enter the United States without parents or other legal guardians and without lawful immigration status in the United States.
In July 2024, the Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit against Southwest Key, alleging that it had, through its employees, subjected unaccompanied alien children in its care to unlawful sexual harassment and abuse. Out of continuing concerns relating to these placements, HHS has decided to stop placement of unaccompanied alien children in Southwest Key facilities, and to review its grants with the organization. In view of HHS’ action, the Department of Justice has dismissed its lawsuit against Southwest Key.
“Securing our border and protecting children from abuse are among the most critical missions of the Department of Justice and the Trump administration,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “Under the border policies of the previous administration, bad actors were incentivized to exploit children and break our laws: this ends now.”
..for a start?
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..or not stopping this:
..but @felix_dakat cares.
Why didn’t he care under the Biden administration’s tenure?
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My next door neighbour told me -when we were having a chat about gardening, which then changed to politics- that when West Africa started throwing France out and France called “war”, Nigeria offered to fight on France’s behalf.. how’s that for being [voluntarily] co-opted?
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When I was about 8 or so, I realised that adult populations all had ‘handlers’ and that their lives weren’t really their own.. so everything has made complete sense to me, starting from the day I was born.
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That’s a good question. Under Biden the Justice Department filed a lawsuit investigating alleged sexual harassment, abuse and trafficking against migrant children. If such crimes occurred why is the Trump administration dropping the investigation?
The Justice Department filed a lawsuit in July 2024 in the Western District of Texas alleging a “pattern” of “severe or pervasive sexual harassment” going back to at least 2015 in the network of Southwest Key shelters.
WASHINGTON, March 12 (Reuters) - The Department of Justice dropped a civil rights lawsuit filed last year against the national nonprofit Southwest Key Programs alleging its employees had sexually abused unaccompanied minors who were housed in its shelters after entering the country illegally, according to a court filing on Wednesday.
I know you don’t want me to talk to you, but that was not just during the Biden administration, but also the Trump administration.
Also, I had googled it previously and their investigation took two years. I’m sorry, if a child is being hurt, you’re not investigating that for two fucking years — you’re taking care of it right fucking now.
Something for you to look into/see why?
Perhaps there was nothing there. But if that’s the case, why are they dropping Southwest Key shelters? The alleged sexual abuse goes back to 2015. So the first Trump administration could be implicated. Better to let sleeping dogs lie. The salacious allegations of sexual abuse and trafficking of minors already served its purpose as muckraking by the Trump campaign other right wing politicians to stir up the moral indignation of the MAGA folks against Biden and co. Time to move on.
Trump is unsure if he has to uphold the Constitution
As legal battles ensue nationwide over various Trump administration policies, Welker pressed the president on his immigration agenda — specifically the case of Kilmar Armando Ábrego García.
- Ábrego García was erroneously deported to El Salvador by the U.S. government, and the Supreme Court ruled last month that the government should “facilitate” his return.
- Trump said Sunday that he doesn’t believe the administration is defying the court’s order, but that if Attorney General Pam Bondi told him to bring Ábrego García back, then he would.
State of play: Welker pressed Trump that several judges and Marco Rubio, his own Secretary of State, have said citizens and noncitizens are entitled to due process, and that the Fifth Amendment backs it up.
- Trump contended that he’s “not a lawyer” and “it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or 2 million or 3 million trials. We have thousands of people that are some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth.”
If anyone thought that the fact that Trump took an oath to uphold the constitution meant anything to him, this should dispel that illusion. What’s worse is that Trump‘s supporters could care less.
It will be nearly impossible for Republicans to get to $1.5 trillion in spending cuts without touching Medicaid.
This thread focuses on the resistance to President Donald Trump’s assault on democracy and the economy. According to Ken Martin chair of the Democratic national committee Republicans want Amercans to think they’re saving money but all they’ve really done is prepare massive tax gifts for the Rich by imposing petty dangerous and cruel cuts on all kinds of families while lying to the American people and forcing their extremist vision for America on us all. The DNC‘s top priority is to defeat Republicans up and down the ballot in the 2026 midterm elections. Martin claims that the DNC is crafting new groundbreaking state of the art grassroots strategies. The DNC is empowering Democratic state parties, community organizers, and Democrats to stand against Republican extremism on school board’s town council and city governors. Democrats are also fighting Republican lies and policies in the courts and in the US house and Senate. Of course Martin wants my donation. My question has been whether the DNC can reform itself to defeat the billionaire oligarchy in charge or whether a new party needs to rise up to do the job.
Is it humorous when the world’s most powerful man who is actually threatening the sovereignty of other nations posts this picture on the official White House website?
Like Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico, The Gulf of America” I expect him to rename Alcatraz, “The Soul of America”.
The other day, I was researching some things because I misheard previously that Trump was talking to Iran in Rome right before the pope died. Apparently, at the time I watched the confusing newscast about the Pope’s funeral, it said Trump was in Rome for it. I was confused because it didn’t mention that he actually already was in Rome to talk to Iran. Apparently he wasn’t present when his administration was talking to Iran. but before that misunderstanding had been worked out, I was like, how long is he going to stay there …until he can meet the new pope, or they make him pope? The newscast was outdated because further research showed Trump had already gone home. But I said, if you really want to convince me this is bizarro world, Trump will be the next pope. External dialogue stuff, y’see.
…because I had recently relearned of some wacky stuff Hitler did to leverage Christianity for the reich.
So… offensive? No, more like confirming the dude is embarrassingly creepy on that level. Surprising? Obv not in the least. I’m already half-convinced we’re in bizarro world.
Nobody ask what’s next.
Yes, Trump was in Rome for the Pope’s funeral and also had a one-to-one dialogue with Zelinsky there.
The standard right-wing comeback to comparisons of Trump to Hitler is that it is Trump Derangement Syndrome. A more measured response is to look at how Trump is following the authoritarian playbook.
When I was growing up in the 50s, my father was a World War II veteran used to watch World War II news reels on television on Sundays when you have the day off. That was where I first heard about and saw Hitler in the news reels and I remember that people frequently said that Hitler was stupid but I thought to myself if he was so stupid how did he become so powerful? And now people are saying the same thing about Trump.
“So… offensive? No, more like confirming the dude is embarrassingly creepy on that level. Surprising? Obv not in the least. I’m already half-convinced we’re in bizarro world.”
So you don’t find “ embarrassingly creepy”offensive in a president? Okay, that’s you. Trump goes places in his media presentation that no POTUS has ever gone before. During his first admin. his handlers reigned him in somewhat. This time around he has surrounded himself with people who let Trump be Trump. They even amplify the offensiveness or weirdness or Trumpiness or whatever.
The phrase “panem et circenses” (bread and circuses) was used by the Roman poet Juvenal to describe how the ruling class pacified the people in the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. Trump this term is weak on the bread but big on the circuses and by that I mean spectacles —shiny distractions he gives the mesmerized public every day, every hour.
Just one example, in the last months of his term, Biden actually deported more undocumented immigrants than Trump has during his months back in office. But, Trump has made a spectacle of it with videos of the arrests, and dehumanizing treatment of men denied due process and thrown in an El Salvadoran dungeon which gets shown over and over ad nauseam. Whether you love it or hate it, the message of Trump dominance is drilled into your head. Trump dominates the media every news cycle. As Marshal McLuhan said long ago “The medium is the message.”
In Trump, we had the first reality TV president. Somehow, as our entertainment became more real through HD technology, reality became more like a television show. Trump is this simulacrum that has become the reality. We’ve made the transition from representation to fact from television screen to real life to Internet meme. This time around the guard rails are off.
The philosopher, Jean Gebser believed in the 20th century that the west was experiencing what he called the breakdown of the mental, rational structure of consciousness. The worldview based on logic and reason which saw its greatest expression in modern science had entered what he called its deficient mode and was taking itself apart. Gebser died in 1973 just as deconstructionism and postmodernism were beginning to dominate western thinking. We now inhabit a post truth world, which makes possible a president Donald Trump. The Democrats have been mostly stuck to trying to appeal to people’s logic and reason. United States, after all was founded on that kind of thinking. People like George Lakoff a cognitive scientist has tried to convince them that this is a losing strategy in the Internet AI dominated era, but with little success. So here we are.
I knew about the Zelensky meeting, but that’s not Iran. The vice president is just as creepy as Trump. That first meeting between Trump, Vance, and Zelensky was disgusting.
The $5000 being dangled by DOGE is not a lack of bread.
That is bread on steroids.
I did read the rest of your post, and none of it makes me feel any better about Biden or the Democrats. Both sides need a third way.
Wallstreet and New York City along with Martha’s Vineyard is the real power structure of the United States, Washington D.C. is merely where all of their paid for puppets congregate.
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Muddy the waters so thoroughly, that each deportation becomes high drama.
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Conversation
The deportation reporting has gone completely off the rails. News orgs have become transcription services for activist attorneys without regard for the facts or context. It now takes time and research to determine the truth about each case because the reports are so unreliable.
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Examples in the last week:
- see a headline about a man deported to Jamaica after being in America for 21 years only to find out he was a drug dealer who spent 15 of those years in prison for kidnapping
- see a headline about day laborers being picked up looking for work, only to find out that had charges that included assault, DUI, child abuse etc
- see a headline about a judge being arrested only to find out she actively tried to help a violent illegal alien avoid an arrest warrant
- see a headline about a 2 year old US citizen deported only to find out her mom, here illegally, was deported and chose to take the 2 year old with her. This stuff might add to the narrative for some, but it makes everyone else tune these stories and the outlets behind them out.
..same situation here, in activist attorneys having no regard for facts or context regarding those on trial for deportations.
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Our PM:
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The new pope’s lifetime mission has been to help the poor. I expect him to be one who will call out President Trump for his cruelty and neglect of poor Americans and refugees.
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