[Winstonm]

What is that scent coming from the presidency? It smells like musk.

[Winstonm]

I was going to wish everyone Merry Christmas but there is no joy in Mudville tongiht and Casey's train has crashed.
I can hardly wait for Donald Trump to become a past tense.

[Zelandakh]

Winstonm, on 2024-December-30, 15:30, said:

I was going to wish everyone Merry Christmas but there is no joy in Mudville tonight and Casey's train has crashed.
I can hardly wait for Donald Trump to become a past tense.

You need Flynn and Blake to step up first - but where are they?

[pilowsky]

Woody Guthrie discussing Fred Trump's social housing policy.

[pilowsky]

OK, it's time to take bets on which of the new Trump appointees will be first out the door.
You can answer in multiples of Scaramuccis.

[benellis58]

The worst president ever was #45. It looks like #47 will be much worse. What a jerk!

[thepossum]

This forum has been so quiet for a while
I imagine shock
I follow as a disinterested but very interested outsider - or am I looking for another word like curious or the like

[Cyberyeti]

UK satirical magazine Private eye hit with this cover

https://www.huffingt...4b0c94316ec47ba

(they paywall it, so linking the huffpost article about it, scroll down)

[kenberg]

thepossum, on 2025-January-24, 04:32, said:

This forum has been so quiet for a while
I imagine shock
I follow as a disinterested but very interested outsider - or am I looking for another word like curious or the like

Shock, or something like it. I hear what is happening and I cannot imagine where a discusson would go. Should we discuss whether or not it is a good idea to make Canada our 51st state? What is my opinion on pardoning violent criminals who invaded the Capitol on Jam 6 and whose actions led to destruction and death? Do I think it is a good idea to threaten the imposition of massive tariffs unless countries do exactly what our president tells them to do?

Cyberneti links to an amusing satire in a British journal but our current everyday news outdoes any possible satire.

From South Pacific

They say the human race
Is falling on its face
And hasn't very far to go
But every whipperwill
Is sellng me a bill
And telling me it just ain't so

Where is that whipperwill, I need to talk to him.

[thepossum]

I don't know where such a conversation can go - maybe it's all been said, Ken

Dare I comment on the apparent contradiction between so many upstanding conservative citizens supporting release of violent insurrectionsists who attacked police and other officers

[PassedOut]

thepossum, on 2025-January-27, 22:42, said:

I don't know where such a conversation can go - maybe it's all been said, Ken

Dare I comment on the apparent contradiction between so many upstanding conservative citizens supporting release of violent insurrectionsists who attacked police and other officers

We've got J6 thugs released and pardoned. We've got inspector generals responsible for identifying waste and fraud fired illegally in the middle of the night. We've got Trump posting that McConnell has a "DEATH WISH" for voting against Hegseth for Secretary of Defense. We've got Trump removing security from people under credible death threats from Iran. We've got election officials and people on the "deep state enemies list" hiring security guards, buying weapons for protection, and preparing to flee the US with their families.

Conservatives face real threats pressuring them to buckle under to Trump and to proclaim that his actions reflect the will of the American people. Not surprisingly, most do.

[pilowsky]

Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy four years.

[Cyberyeti]

PassedOut, on 2025-January-28, 10:14, said:

We've got J6 thugs released and pardoned.

Did you see the liberal schadenfreude about the guy who was pardoned by Trump, and was then shot by police in a traffic stop.

[kenberg]

Cyberyeti, on 2025-January-29, 03:57, said:

Did you see the liberal schadenfreude about the guy who was pardoned by Trump, and was then shot by police in a traffic stop.

I am not sure that I qualify as a liberal, I am wary of labels, but if "schadenfreude" implies I get pleasure from this guy being shot, no, I don't..

I was not that much of a rebel in my adolescence but I did have occassional trouble with the cops. I quickly learned that it is best to stay as calm as possible. An early example: Whem I was 12 we were playing catch with a softball in the street. I saw the cop car coming so I hurled the ball into a yard a couple of yards away (a likely penalty was that they would confiscate the ball). The cop started scolding me and I pointed out that he had pulled his car to a stop on the wrong side of the street. This was followed by a discussion of how I would feel about being taken down to juvenile custody so that my parents sould come get me out. I became much more polite and all went well.

[Cyberyeti]

kenberg, on 2025-January-29, 08:25, said:

I am not sure that I qualify as a liberal, I am wary of labels, but if "schadenfreude" implies I get pleasure from this guy being shot, no, I don't..

I was not that much of a rebel in my adolescence but I did have occassional trouble with the cops. I quickly learned that it is best to stay as calm as possible. An early example: Whem I was 12 we were playing catch with a softball in the street. I saw the cop car coming so I hurled the ball into a yard a couple of yards away (a likely penalty was that they would confiscate the ball). The cop started scolding me and I pointed out that he had pulled his car to a stop on the wrong side of the street. This was followed by a discussion of how I would feel about being taken down to juvenile custody so that my parents sould come get me out. I became much more polite and all went well.

I saw the article on the huffpost website, and some of the comments there were something else.

[kenberg]

Cyberyeti, on 2025-January-29, 09:21, said:

I saw the article on the huffpost website, and some of the comments there were something else.

I can imagine.

When I was young, 10 or so, we had a woman and her two daughters living in our upstairs after she had left here abusive husband. One evening, when my father was out, the woman's husband came around drunk and banging on our screen door at the side of the house, demanding to see his wife. My mother was in the basement, at the foot of the stair leading up to the screen door, holding my foather's shotgun in her hands, telling him that he was not coming in. Wisely, he left.

That's the only time I have been close to actual or potential deadly violence. It happens, but it is not my way if there is any onther choice at all.

[mycroft]

Not exactly schadenfreude, but "criminal shot by police while criming" is frequently touted as a "to be expected", if not desired, outcome by people who also thought the J6 criminals should be pardoned. I don't believe that should be how justice works, but they do (at least for "criminals" - [insert Simpsons traffic stop meme here]) - so, yeah [insert Jeremy Clarkson Top Gear meme here].

Now, the reactions (back when they "didn't have a statement on that" and now that they *do* have a statement on that) from the FOP - yeah, 100% schadenfreude.

Having said that, there is a good chance there will be a GDL-YYC direct flight in the fall. Which will avoid travel through another airport, which means I won't have to go looking for ways for it not to be IAH or DFW. Not having to deal with the people who couldn't feel safe - In Canada! - working without their "shoot criminals when criming" crutch was already a big plus in my book; and that was in the Before Times.

(I will note that La Policía here are ever-present (if I'm outside, even just outside my very residential front door, there isn't an hour that goes by without one of the 7, I think, services going past in a marked car. On the main road I'd say 10 minutes?), and for *very* good reasons. And they are *very* well and publicly armed. Also for *very* good reasons. But they're always carrying safe, and clearly aware of what they have. I feel safer (from that, anyway) with the police around here than I do in Calgary, never mind TrumpWorld.)

[kenberg]

Ok the pause in grants has been itself paused. But I will make a simple obsevation.

I read the original memo. Various people in charge of variios things were instructed on Monday to cease funding things by the close of busibness on Tuesday, but there was a caveat. They should only cease funding if the law allowed them to do so. Think about that.

Imagine Joe, just plain Joe, who is in charge of somehthing., He gets this memo.If he does not suspend funding he risks getting into a lot of trouble wioth Trump. But if he does suspend funding, his action might be illegal and Trump has protected himself by telling Joe that he, Joe, should not suspend funding if the suspesion would be illegal.


So, as I get it, Joe had about 24 hours to determine if it would be legal or illegal for him to take the responsibility of ending funding. If he chooses wrong, either way, he is in deep stuff.

My point: Of course this massive suspension is crazy. But I am willing to believe that some funding of some things could, in due time, be terminated. But the problem here is more basic. Regardless of the merits of suspending the funding of whatever Joe's agency funds, Joe has been put in an impossible position.Even if Joe were a legal expert, and many Joes are not, the legality is sure to be in dispute and the outcome uncertain. But Joe was told to decide by 5 o'clock Tuesday whether he would suspend funding based on Trump's order and the legality of the suspension, or not suspend funding even though Trump said it should be suspended, but Trump said he should not suspend funding if it was illegal to do so.

This is Trump, from beginning to end. Whatever the merits of suspending the funding of what Joe funds. it is clearly impossible for Joe to discover in 24 hours whether or not the suspension is legal. So Joe must guess, and suffer the consequences of guessing wrong.

A person does not have to be a liberal or a conservative nor need he even know what is being funded to see that this approach is irresponsible on Trump's part. Well, that's an understatement. Words fail me.

We are in deep stuff.