The goddamn Trump Administration

I don’t think I have enough time here to be able to set up a new thread, but go to it, if you are authorised.

13 Likes

Yeah idk. I’m actually curious does anyone know what pace of upkeep is better under a coup/dictatorship/violent civil war or whatever is happening now? I imagine there is a need to keep up with it but when the zone is flooded with lies and fake news as a deliberate tactic, what is the best countermeasure and/or what is the best way to approach it?

For me there is only so much I can expose myself to before my own sanity is compromised and that seems to be typical. Perhaps it is better for individuals to specialize and track just one small thing if the goal is preserving a usable information channel?

Over the next 30-50 days we can expect it to get worse and worse. It may even become dangerous to talk to people openly in any public forum about facts if they run counter to a particular narrative.

14 Likes

A good thing is that there are more of us, than there are of them. So as much crap as they throw around, there are more than enough people to keep track of it all.

14 Likes

I think anyone here is authorized. I too think it’s a great thread idea.

12 Likes

I’ll see if I can

11 Likes

Please don’t ignore it. If and when you can, please be like her!

(2 minutes)

13 Likes

Reporter: You blamed the diversity elements but then told us you weren’t sure that the controllers made any mistakes.

Trump: It’s all under investigation.

Reporter: That’s why I’m trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash.

video

Trumps answer:

“Because I have common sense”

25 Likes

Just ran across this, which makes me very sad, but explains a lot.

RFK jr is trusted 2x more than CDC or FDA on health matters. We have fallen so fucking far…

25 Likes

Okay.
Doing it.

10 Likes

giphy-2529421980

ETA: Looks like @OWYAC got er done.

12 Likes

that’s statistically a figure which may be presented (for clickly type bait) if you average sensible folks with fox"news" deluded zombies. i’d tend to say “a mere 7% of people anchored in reality trust RFKjr more than federal agencies” - but then i’m frightfully biased [wink]

one of my hackneyed ol’ lecture quips is to ask how representative is the computed annual worth if an average is taken of the two dozen people in this lecture hall after Bill Gates has happened by to sit in?

14 Likes

There’s a new topic on this.

12 Likes

Whoops; already done.

12 Likes

Forgot to add the “of Republicans” to that. Considering that any “Republicans” who might qualify as reality based have been run out of the party, it does make sense.

MAGA delenda est!

15 Likes

Oh, that’s cool.
Saved me some trawling, thanks.

:+1:

11 Likes

I hope this fucking numb-brain zombie holds several press conferences every week. What a shitshow. What a display of self-serving empathy-free evil.

“Are you saying this crash was somehow caused and the result of diversity hiring? And what evidence have you seen to support these claims?” a reporter asked Trump during a press briefing.

“It just could have been,” said Trump, offering no evidence. “We have a high standard. We’ve had a much higher standard than anybody else and there are things where you have to go by brain power.”

The implication here is that diverse hires are somehow lacking in brain power — an assertion that is certain to please Trump’s racist base.

“You have to go by psychological quality and psychological quality is a very important element of it,” he continued. “These are various very powerful tests that we put to use and they were terminated by Biden and Biden went by a standard that’s the exact opposite.”

It must be pointed out that Michael Whitaker, the FAA’s leader, stepped down from his role on January 20th after Elon Musk demanded that he leave.

And Trump wasn’t done there…

“We don’t even yet know the names of the sixty-seven people who were killed and you are blaming Democrats and DEI policies and air traffic control and seemingly the member of the U.S. military who was flying that Black Hawk helicopter. Don’t you think you’re getting ahead of the investigation right now?” asked CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

“No, I don’t think so at all,” said Trump. “I don’t think were the names of the people— You mean the names of the people that are on the plane? Uh, you think that’s going to make a difference?”

“Does it comfort their families to hearing you blaming DEI?” asked Collins.

“There are a group of people that have lost their lives. If you want a list of the names we can give you that, we’ll be giving that very soon,” said Trump. “We’re in coordination with American Airlines. We’re in coordination very strongly obviously with the military but I think that’s not a very smart question. I’m surprised coming from you.”

And it just kept getting worse…

“What plan do you have? Are we going to see some fired? Are you going to fire some of those diversity hires in the federal government? What plan do you have?” asked a reporter.

“I would say the answer is yes if we find that people aren’t mentally competent,” said Trump. “You see the language. The language is put out by them and if you see that— I’m not going to bore you by reading it again but these are not people that should be doing this particular job. They’d be very good for certain jobs but not people that should be doing this particular job.”

In reality, the real problem is that the FAA is understaffed. We need more air traffic controllers, not fewer. By firing hardworking individuals just because they’re diverse, Trump will make it even more likely that another tragic crash occurs.

The catastrophe of a press briefing just kept going…

“Today, you blamed the diversity element but then told us that you weren’t sure that the controllers made any mistake. You then said that perhaps the helicopter pilots were the one’s who made a mistake,” said a reporter.

"Yup. It’s all under investigation, " said Trump.

“I understand that,” said the reporter. “That’s why I’m trying to figure out how you can come to the conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash?”

“Because I have common sense, okay?” said Trump. “And unfortunately a lot of people don’t. We want brilliant people doing this. This is a major chess game at the highest level. When you have sixty planes coming in during a short period of time and they’re all coming in different directions and you’re dealing with very high-level computer, uh, computer work and very complex computers…”

“And one of the other things I’ll tell you is that the systems that were built, I was going to rebuild the entire system and then we had an election that didn’t turn out the way it should have,” he claimed.

The most telling part of the briefing came next, when Trump was brutally fact-checked by a reporter.

“The cited FAA text that you read is real but the implication that this policy is new or that it stems from efforts that began under President Biden or the Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is demonstrably false, it’s been on the FAA website—” said a reporter.

“Who said that? You?” interjected the president.

“No it’s on the website, the FAA’s website, it was there in 2013. It was there for the entirety of your administration too. So my question is why didn’t you change the policy during your first administration?” asked the reporter.

“I did change it. I changed the Obama policy,” insisted a flustered Trump. “And we had a very good policy. And then Biden came in and he changed it and then when I came in two days, three days ago, I signed a new order bringing it to the highest level of intelligence. Okay?”

Trump then abruptly moved on to another reporter, clearly worried that a followup question would further expose his lies.

30 Likes

Made a better job of it than I had planned, honestly.

12 Likes

But I managed to get posted. New skill unlocked!

19 Likes
15 Likes

Good; they’re finally asking hard questions.

18 Likes