The goddamn Trump Administration (Part 2)

Politics
6573

he doesn’t even know if Alaska is in Russia or the US, and he’s already demanding praise (“well of course he is”); while it’s generally accepted that if this “summit” (really? ‘summit’?) accomplishes nothing that’ll be as good as we can hope. @#$!

Donald Trump has lashed out at his former national security adviser and “very unfair” media who have warned that he may be entering a trap at his high-stakes meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

In an angry tirade on Wednesday morning, Trump accused the press of conspiring against him in the lead up to Friday’s Russia summit, claiming the “fake news” was “working overtime” to give him less than favorable coverage.

will he even have his own translator this time? naaaah, that would only be someone who could leak the foul deals made

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6574

What are the odds of the Texas Senate having two house Democrats named Chamberlain? Isn’t that wild?

(No, as far as I know, that is not actually their last name.)

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Everyone who lives in [big cities] knows [high crime]. They program their entire lives around it.

I lived in Chicago for 13 years and I still visit quite regularly – not in the suburbs, but in Chicago proper. (For those that know the city, when I first moved there I lived in an SRO in Lake View for over a year and then moved to Rogers Park.) I can’t really say I programmed my life around any such thing. I walked around my neighborhood late after dark and even late at night, I’ve had pancakes at the Golden Nugget at 03:00 (great time for people watching!), I’ve gone to midnight shows. I never lived my life in fear there nor did I “program my life” around this menacing It from which these craven beings proudly quiver.

For contrast, I grew up in a very rural area in North Carolina. I lived about seven miles from the nearest town, a sprawling bump in the road of just under 5,000 people. It was in the small town, while visiting my grandmother, that I experienced my one and only attempted mugging.

On a different occasion I had a man show up at my house while my parents were out and start to come up on the porch once he heard they weren’t available. That’s the only time I’ve ever threatened anyone with a gun and luckily I didn’t have to shoot nor really even show it to him – that “click” was very loud. I’m really glad it didn’t go farther and I shudder to think what could have happened because there’s no good result past that point if he hadn’t left then.

My mother was at home one day when her landlord stopped by, seeming a little dazed and babbling a bit. He didn’t seem to want anything in particular and she said he left after about ten minutes without ever really making any sense. She thought he might have just been high on something stronger than usual (back meth, perhaps?) and didn’t think anything of it until she heard the sirens from the police and EMT services about a hour later. He’d gone back to his home less than half a mile away and killed his wife with a shotgun blast to the head, then took his own life.

But yeah, Stephen, please do tell us all about the crime, chaos, and dysfunction of the big scary blue cities.

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6579

That immediately started playing in my head and will be there the rest of the day!

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6580

The most likely place out here to experience crime is…remote trailheads and boat ramps. You know, the parking lots far away from observers where your boots crunch as you walk across broken car window glass. The opposite of “urban.”

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6581

:thinking:

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6582

I haven’t noticed any redistribution of wealth, not even to the MAGA faithful.

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6583

:rage:

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6584

They’re making arguments on different grounds, such as a particular relationship to corporations and to imposing a particular culture on the country (Cultural Revolution). It’s State Capitalism with private corporations… :woman_shrugging:

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6585

But that’s post-Mao. There are similarities to the Cultural Revolution currently, but the parallels to fascism seem more pertinent.

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6586

Grew up on the south side of Chicago, visit often enough since I’m only 20 minutes outside of it, and my son lives in the city.

Yes, absolutely, there’s a place or two you probably shouldn’t go at certain times and/or if you look a certain way, but the overwhelming part of the city is remarkably, boringly, safe.

Heck, growing up, Cabrini Green was the no-go place. We drove through there the other day - completely gentrified now. I was in shock. The most dangerous thing in most of the area looked like overpriced coffee.

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6587

Yeah, I agree with you, but I think the intent there is to try and use the same tactics used by Republicans for years, just throw terms that Americans have been trained are scary to connect him with… Certainly, a bit of lazy analysis on what’s happening with regards to the kind of central planning Trump is doing, but the association is more the point. I didn’t read the WSJ article they mention, so I don’t know if they do a better job… It does seem clear that despite China being our “biggest rival” Trump holds a high level of admiration for the current government there.

Agreed, but far too many Americans seem just fine with some level of fascism, it seems. While it’s not a majority, they are okay with rounding up brown people that they don’t think are “real” Americans and putting them into literal concentration camps. But the same people still view China as the real existential threat to the US, so I can see that as a tactic to equate Trump’s policies with the policies of China right now…

And of course, most people don’t have a firm understanding of communism, the various different practices over the course of the 20th and early 21st century, and how China specifically evolved since the 1950s… Even educated people who should know better probably don’t.

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“We have had the police knocking on every door,” said a dog walker and resident of Dean, as a helicopter buzzed overhead. “They wanted the names of everybody living there and details of their social media. I know several people refused. We asked them if they were protecting us, or Vance. At least they were honest and said it is for him and that it will all be passed on to the American security people.”

I know what my social media would start saying…

But Vance, unlike the unsuccessful Democrat candidate, will be plugged into a network of like-minded VIPs based in the area for part of the summer. Nearby lives not just Cameron, his neighbour for the stay, but also the Trump-curious media doyen, Piers Morgan, and the Libertarian farmer and TV personality Jeremy Clarkson, although he has recently been critical of Vance, calling him a “bearded godbotherer” and so may well be lying low. (Rumours also abounded in Charlbury watering holes that Richard Tice and his partner, journalist Isabel Oakeshott, might visit Vance in a break from their Dubai home.) Blur’s bassist, the Tory-friendly Alex James, is also an artisan cheese-roll away, although Vance is unlikely to be around long enough to drop into his Feastival event later this month.

Although, come to think of it, I’m unlikely to be a neighbor in those parts.

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6591

Totally weird that ICE is having staffing issues and has to get reassignments to fill the gap.

/s

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6592

Why are American liberals more scared of imaginary communism that they are of the fascism happening right in front of them?

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