Donald Trump Archives - Page 3 of 51

January rambling: Lebensraum

Monroe Doctrine

We’ll get to Lebensraum in a bit.

Global temperatures in 2024 shattered records, soaring past 1.5°C as extreme weather devastated millions. 26 Climate-Fueled Extreme Weather Events Killed at Least 3,700 People.

Big Agriculture Is Leading Us Into the Bird Flu Abyss: The federal government’s deference to agriculture industry interests has put the US at risk of a public health crisis.

How The Polio Vaccine Destroyed Trust In Healthcare (a bit of a misleading title, but not entirely wrong)

Bernie Sanders’ Prescription to ‘Make America Healthy Again’: “Our real problem is not so much a healthcare crisis as it is a political and economic one.”

A Disastrous Development in Our Response to Disasters

Veterans rights and discrimination: a guide

New VIP+ Special Report: Generative AI: Deepfakes & Digital Replicas

Aaron Brown, CNN Anchor During the Sept. 11 Attacks, Dies at 76

Ask Arthur 2024: Racism and change; Miscellany

The art of monotasking: “Being busy” doesn’t necessarily mean we’re doing what matters. Focusing your attention on only one task at a time is the secret to performing tasks correctly.

The Best Reviewed Broadway Shows of 2024

A book on Albany’s railroad history? Yes, please…

Embiggen – defined earlier than the Simpsons

“Explain a Movie Plot Badly” — A Fun Party Game

What era?

A real meditation on American greatness

When people would talk about MAGA, liberals wanted to know which era was the “great” one they wanted to go back to. Many thought they were talking about the 1950s before integration. Or the 1920s before the Great Depression and FDR regulations. Maybe they meant the 1880s and 90s during the Gilded Age.

I would have picked any of those. But I did not have on my bingo card the 1820s. We’re going back to the Monroe Doctrine era. The Daily Signal, a right-wing online publication, favorably suggested the same. The piece by Jarrett Stepman ends: “If Trump does revive some form of the Monroe Doctrine, it could represent a much-needed return to tradition and to a stronger foundation for U.S. security in an increasingly dangerous world.”

Suddenly, the January 7 press conference made sense. djt said he’d be renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”

“The once and future president also doubled down on his aims to acquire Greenland, retake control of the Panama Canal, and put pressure on Canada to change its trade relations with the United States” which he voiced before Christmas.

Here’s former Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien on Fox News:

It’s strategically very important to the Arctic which is going to be the critical battleground of the future because as the climate gets warmer, the Arctic is going to be a pathway that maybe cuts down on the usage of the Panama Canal.

Or MAYBE we’re going to become 1930s Germany. Lebensraum is “the policy of Nazi Germany that involved expanding German territories to the east to provide land and material resources for the German people while driving out Jewish and Slavic people.”

The Corporate Giants Bankrolling the Inauguration: PAY to play.

The President Can Self-Pardon, but It Would Be an Impeachable Offense (CATO Institute, Dec 2020)

MUSIC

Bemba Colorá-Sheila E. ft. Gloria Estefan on Jimmy Kimmel; I see Rebecca Jade!

Coronation Procession by Ruth Gipps

You Get What You Give – New Radicals

Love In Action – Utopia

Rocket 88 – Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats

Coverville 1516 and 1517: The 2024 Coverville Countdown

Down By The Riverside – Elvis Presley · Carl Perkins · Jerry Lee Lewis · Johnny Cash. I bought this CD after I saw the Million Dollar Quartet musical

The theme from the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon show – Midtown

Tomorrow – Julie Benko and Cantor Azi Schwartz

Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 21: The final notes – all of the US pop #1s

Peter Yarrow Dies at 86. Leaving On A Jet Plane – Peter, Paul, and Mary

Sam Moore, who died at age 89, was more than a Soul Man – he was one of the 20th century’s great live performers. When Something Is Wrong With My Baby – Sam And Dave.

US “Bregret” already?

The Indivisible:

As early as late November, I was reading about some voters for the Republican candidate for President feeling regret about their vote. It’s similar to how many people in the United Kingdom felt after the Brexit vote in 2016; they had Bregret.

djt has promised huge tariffs on goods from China. Somehow, Americans didn’t understand that that would likely result in retaliatory tariffs on American goods. Now, he’s suggesting a tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico, our largest trading partners, even though we are in a USMCA (NAFTA successor) agreement that would preclude that from taking place until 2026.

This is presumably to”teach them a lesson” about US border security. The first rule of tariff wars is that no one wins a tariff war. If they respond in kind, which Mexico has already promised, this will increase the pain in Americans’ wallets.

Some contractors and farmers who supported him have talked about how they don’t know what they’re going to do if half of their workers are deported.

12 People Who Had Literally No Idea What Their Trump Vote Meant.

We don’t need no education

Hey, if the federal Department of Education is eliminated – a bill to do so has already been introduced – many of its services will also disappear. That’s the subtext of this link, which notes that Oklahoma has nevertheless found money to buy Bibles, optimally for every classroom.

Now, he says he can’t promise he’ll be able to lower grocery prices. An article in WaPo, behind a paywall, is titled, “After backing Trump, low-income voters hope he doesn’t slash their benefits.” It begins:

“NEW CASTLE, Pennsylvania — Lori Mosura goes to the grocery store on a bicycle because she can’t afford to fix her Ford F-150 truck.

“The single mother and her 17-year-old son live in an apartment that is so small she sleeps in the dining room. They receive $1,200 each month in food stamps and Social Security benefits but still come up short. Mosura said she often must decide whether to buy milk or toilet paper.”

Reaganomics redux

Here’s a fun fact from Heather Cox Richardson: “Laura Mannweiler of U.S. News and World Report estimated the worth of Trump’s current roster of appointees to be at least $344.4 billion, more than the gross domestic product of 169 countries. That number does not include Scott Bessent, whose net worth is hard to find. In comparison, Mannweiler notes, the total net worth of the officials in Biden’s Cabinet was about $118 million.

“The incoming administration will advance a different economic vision. Instead of trying to expand the economy through investment in infrastructure and manufacturing [as the Biden administration did], his team has emphasized cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations and slashing regulations. The argument behind this approach to the economy is that concentrating wealth in the hands of investors will spur more investment while creating an environment that’s ‘friendly’ to business will create jobs.”It’s classic Reaganomics trickle-down, crony capitalism at its finest.

“Don’t test us.”

After Barack Obama was elected in 2008 and inaugurated in 2009, with solid majorities in the popular and Electoral College votes, Republicans served as the “loyal opposition.” This concept “indicates that the non-governing parties may oppose the actions of the sitting [government] while remaining loyal to the formal source(s) of the government’s power, such as the… constitution.”

I jest. The Tea Party movement simmered up in 2009, clearly a disloyal opposition designed to thwart his efforts at every turn. That he got anything done, especially after his first two years, was pretty miraculous.

Yet the message from this incoming administration and their allies is that the Democrats just should shut up, get out of the way, and let Orange be Orange. Senator Tom Cotton sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin: “You issued a message to the department the day after the election commenting that the military will follow ‘lawful orders’ from the new president—a thinly veiled and baseless insinuation that [djt] will issue unlawful orders.” Baseless? Eh. Yet, Pete Hegseth, the choice to head Defense, is a train wreck.

Tom Homan, the incoming border czar, “plans to bring harsh consequences to any sanctuary city leader who threatens to hinder efforts by immigration authorities from mass-deporting illegal aliens.”

djt’s sometimes wacky Cabinet nominees shouldn’t need to be confirmed by the Senate! His words should be sufficient for the process. His media censorship arsenal is growing.

Resistance

So what is the response? The Union of Concerned Scientists notes: “We—and our supporters across the country—have a vital role to play in defending the progress we’ve made at the federal level, advancing our goals at the state level, and exposing and pushing back against the abuses that are likely to come. We’re clear about the threats we face, but we must move forward with hope and determination.” A key tenet is “Protecting democracy, state-by-state.” California is on board.

The Indivisible Guide: A Practical Guide to Democracy on the Brink is encouraging. It acknowledges the need to grieve for a while. I can’t live in despair for the next two or four years, and trust me, it would be very easy for me to do so. I’m holding onto the frankly uncomfortable thought that there will be a backlash to higher prices and other bad outcomes.

I know that some people are not there yet. Heck. I may not be there myself, but I pride myself on hoping I’ll get there eventually because the alternative is too dismal. There needs to be a response to what Cornel West called “American gangsterism crystallized, honest about itself, unashamed and bold.”

How djt Inverted the Violent History of Jan. 6

‘A Day of Love’: The president-elect and his allies have spent four years reinventing the Capitol attack — spreading conspiracy theories and weaving a tale of martyrdom for their ultimate political gain.

Joe pardoned Hunter and I don’t care

Kash Patel at the FBI?

Joe pardoned Hunter, and I don’t care.

Gavin Newsom: “With everything the president and his family have been through, I completely understand the instinct to protect Hunter. But I took the president at his word. So, by definition, I’m disappointed and can’t support the decision.”

A Republican senator said that he understood why Joe executed the pardon and admitted that he would likely pardon his own child in similar circumstances but that the problem is that Joe lied.

The editorial in my local newspaper, the Albany Times Union, suggested that the pardon has ” provided a measure of bipartisan cover for [djt] to use his pardon power to exonerate anyone in his immediate sphere – family, friends, political donors, alleged co-conspirators – on the stated basis that their investigation or prosecution was ‘political persecution’ or the more current ‘lawfare,'” as though they hadn’t 45 hadn’t already done that. This is disingenuous.

On his way out of office in 2021, djt “displayed both nepotism and vengeance. Amid dozens of dubious (and worse) acts of clemency in those final days, he pardoned his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, who had been convicted of 18 counts of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering. (Last week, Mr. Trump announced he plans to nominate Mr. Kushner as ambassador to France.)”

The other guy

Joe’s predecessor and successor posted on social media that the pardon was “Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!” He mentioned the rioters from Jan. 6, 2021, some of whom he has suggested could be pardoned when he takes office. This is what he had said long before Joe’s pardon of Hunter.

Cory Doctorow wrote, in a different context: “Remember the 2016 debate where [Hillary] Clinton accused Trump of cheating on his taxes, and he admitted to it, saying, ‘That makes me smart’? Trumpism is the movement of ‘that makes me smart’ life, where if you get scammed, that’s your own damned fault. Sorry, loser, you lost.”

The comparison between Joe’s “sin” and the wealth of distortions told by 45 is not even in the same ballpark. According to the Washington Post, during 45’s four-year term, his false or misleading claims totaled 30,573.

This time around, his insistence that he knew nothing about Project 2025 and then appointed people who wrote the document is classic. He… what is the word I’m looking for? Oh, yeah… lied. (And polling suggests that 1) his voters know he’s lying, but 2) they either don’t mind or actively appreciate it, which hurts my head.)

Retribution

But sometimes, he does tell the truth. His nominee to head the FBI, Kash Patel, is being very open about how he’ll persecute MAGA’s enemies. A shrewd observer of autocracy explains how far he’ll be able to get—and why there’s cause for serious worry.

From ABC News This Week for 1 Dec 2024:

KASH PATEL, DONALD TRUMP’S NOMINEE FOR FBI DIRECTOR: I am going to go on a government gangster’s manhunt in Washington, D.C., for our great president. Who’s coming with me?

JONATHAN KARL, ABC NEWS: The president-elect names Kash Patel to serve as FBI director. A loyalist who said Trump’s political opponents should be very afraid. And may be the toughest confirmation battle yet.

If there was any doubt that President-elect Donald Trump intends to follow through with his promises of radical change and retribution, both here at home and abroad, those doubts have been erased…

Unqualified

“Patel is so controversial that when President Trump talked about making him the deputy FBI director in 2020, then-Attorney General Bill Barr said it would happen, quote, ‘over my dead body,’ according to his memoir, adding, quote, ‘Patel had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency. The very idea of moving Patel into a role like this showed a shocking detachment from reality.’”

[h/t Paul Rapp] “Ron Filipkowski of MeidasTouch notes that Biden’s pardon came after [djt’s announcement of Patel]… Filipkowski studies right-wing media and points out that Patel’s many appearances there suggest he is obsessed with Hunter Biden, especially the story of his laptop, which Patel insists shows that Hunter and Joe Biden engaged in crimes with Ukraine and China.

“As legal commentator Asha Rangappa noted: ‘People criticizing the Hunter Biden pardon need to recognize: For the 1st time, the FBI and Justice Department could literally fabricate evidence, or collaborate with a foreign government to ‘find’ evidence of a ‘crime,’ with zero accountability. That’s why the pardon goes back to 2014.'”

Context

Having watched Joe Biden for half a century, I don’t think he intended to lie at all. When he made his initial comment that he wouldn’t pardon Hunter, it was with the thought that he would be President and wouldn’t take action to subvert his own Justice Department. Similarly, when Kamala Harris took over as the Democratic nominee, he didn’t worry about retribution from the Department of Justice.

But with Kash Patel potentially heading the FBI, all bets were off. Moreover, I think that Jill Biden had an outsized hand in this. When asked about how she felt about the pardon at a Christmas event, she said, “Of course, I wanted a pardon for my son.”

More pardons!

I’m sure there’ll be many more pardons in the coming weeks. One group he should pardon is most, if not all, of the folks on this list of Patel “enemies,” including Lloyd Austin, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Stephanie Grisham, Kamala Harris, Gina Haspel, Fiona Hill, Eric Holder, Cassidy Hutchinson, Lisa Monaco, Robert Mueller, Jake Sullivan, Alexander Vindman, Christopher Wray, and Sally Yates.

Do you know who else is on the list? Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. Can Joe Biden pardon himself? This is an interesting question. The former /next guy has indicated that he might pardon himself, so why the heck not?

Satirist Andy Borowitz notes that JRB would give “his dog Commander a sweeping pardon in exchange for biting South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.”

American Kakistocracy on steroids

stunningly unqualified

Back in 2017, Norm Ornstein wrote about the American Kakistocracy for The Atlantic. “There’s a case to be made that the United States is governed by the least scrupulous of its citizens.” And now we are an American Kakistocracy on steroids.

2017: “Kakistocracy is a term that was first used in the 17th century; derived from a Greek word, it means, literally, government by the worst and most unscrupulous people among us. More broadly, it can mean the most inept and cringeworthy kind of government. The term fell into disuse over the past century or more, and most highly informed people have never heard it before (but to kids familiar with the word “kaka” it might resonate).”

“As I wrote my new book with E.J. Dionne and Tom Mann, One Nation Under Trump, I kept returning to the term. Kakistocracy is back, and we are experiencing it firsthand in America. The unscrupulous element has come into sharp focus in recent weeks as a string of Trump Cabinet members and White House staffers have been caught spending staggering sums of taxpayer dollars to charter jets, at times to go small distances where cheap commercial transportation was readily available, at times to conveniently visit home areas or have lunch with family members.”

I use the term “on steroids” intentionally. This is a term that djt used to describe the embarrassing failed North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson. He was “like Martin Luther King on steroids.” This is an insult to both Martin Luther King and steroids.

What’s happening now, and it’s changing so rapidly that it’s difficult to encapsulate, is that any sense of guardrails or normalcy is out the window. As I used to say too often, though it’s still accurate, The trouble with normal is it always gets worse.

Another appropriate word for right now is ‘recrudescence’ (17th century): “the return of something terrible after a time of reprieve.”

Elon

Undoubtedly, you’ve heard how the Dems ran too far to the left or too far to the center or were too “woke,” or whatever. What I think is mostly true is that the Republicans were better able to define the Democrats than the Dems.

“Muslims in Michigan began seeing pro-Israel ads this fall praising Vice President Kamala Harris for marrying a Jewish man and backing the Jewish state. Jews in Pennsylvania, meanwhile, saw ads from the same group with the opposite message: Harris wanted to stop U.S. arms shipments to Israel.

“Another group promoted ‘Kamala’s bold progressive agenda’ to conservative-leaning Donald Trump voters, while a third filled the phones of young liberals with videos about how Harris had abandoned the progressive dream. Black voters in North Carolina were told Democrats wanted to take away their menthol cigarettes, while working-class White men in the Midwest were warned that Harris would support quotas for minorities and deny them Zyn nicotine pouches.

“What voters had no way of knowing at the time was that all of the ads were part of a single $45 million effort created by political advisers to Tesla founder Elon Musk.”

It doesn’t feel like just another election. The Hollywood Reporter, of all things, notes: “The results came as a shock to large swaths of the nation who had hoped that the election of… Harris would protect the United States from the kind of fascism sweeping across the world. But for some — communities of color and queer and trans people, for example— Trump’s re-election only reaffirmed nightmares about a country whose major civil rights gains are young when compared to its oppressive history.”

Cabinet

It appears there are two types of his Cabinet appointments: the totally unqualified and the merely unfortunate.

47 selected, for his Attorney General, a person who Ben Domenech, a “big noise in conservative circles [who is] a co-founder of The RedState group blog and The Federalist,” despises. The headline of his article, posted to Substack, left no doubt as to the tenor of the piece: “Matt Gaetz is a Vile Sex Pest, and Any Senator Who Votes For Him Owns That.” His selection triggers audible gasps from some Republicans.

Tom Homan

Pete Hegseth is a Fox News TV host who is way out of his league to run an operation as vast as the Defense Department. He had a role in djt’s controversial pardons of men accused of war crimes. He also is waging a war on “woke.”

Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican from New York, was picked as an ambassador to the United Nations but not because of her international expertise.

As governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem has no background in Homeland Security.

The Atlantic called Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic member of Congress from Hawaii, “stunningly unqualified for almost any Cabinet post (as are some of Trump’s other picks), but especially for ODNI. She has no qualifications as an intelligence professional—literally none…. She has no significant experience directing or managing much of anything.”

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s message on vaccines is a medical crisis waiting to happen. And then he says stuff even nuttier.

(Off-topic, but LinkedIn wanted to know if I wanted to follow Vivek Ramaswamy, the “efficiency guy with Musk. “STAND for truth.” No, thank you. )

Here are observations by Common Dreams.

Day 1

Worse than that, Orange is Plotting To Skip The Senate Confirmation Process. He was serious when he said he’d be dictator only on Day 1. This involves the Senate allowing “him to make recess appointments that would skip the otherwise Constitutionally mandated Senate confirmation process.” Reportedly, he “is coordinating with House Speaker Johnson to allow [djt] to force Congress to adjourn under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution so that he can freely make the recess appointments he wants.”

The Senate could block this if it takes its role of ‘advise and consent’ seriously—otherwise, the extremely tenuous Senate integrity is shot altogether.

Meanwhile, per Red State: “Several conservative groups are currently in a campaign to identify federal employees who are partisan or possibly resistant to enacting Trump’s agenda, according to a CNN report. These groups include the Heritage Foundation Oversight Project and the American Accountability Foundation.

“The organizations have flooded federal agencies with tens of thousands of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests demanding access to emails, personnel records, and other communications between government employees. The effort is part of a comprehensive strategy to lay the groundwork for mass firings of civil servants under Trump’s Schedule F executive order issued in 2020, which was later revoked under President Joe Biden.” I wrote about Schedule F here.

So, am I optimistic? Not really. But one needs to fight the fight anyway. I’m just not sure what that looks like yet.

November rambling: Hatred is Not the Norm

Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game

Love thy neighbor “Hatred is Not the Norm”: For a 1964 Multi-Faith Civil Rights Rally, Rod Serling Pens “A MostNon-Political Speech” – delivered by Dick Van Dyke

A Pregnant Teenager Died After Trying to Get Care in Three Visits to Texas ERs

Lee Greenwood: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Trudeau announces sharp cuts to Canada’s immigration targets

Sorry, world. The toxic Rep. Elise Stefanik, the next UN ambassador

Landmines

What Now? with Trevor Noah: Have We Missed The Message? Bestselling author Ta-Nehisi Coates joins Trevor and Christiana to discuss his new book about how the stories we tell, and the ones we don’t, shape our realities. They also unpack the jaw-dropping CBS interview that followed the book’s release, and our elusive search as a people to see the humanity in others.

CSICON: Island of Reason in a Sea of Madness

Magic Johnson’s new achievement

Judith Jamison, Alvin Ailey Dancer of ‘Power and Radiance,’ Dies at 81

The Capital Region of New York State will become home to a national semiconductor research center, a major part of the federal government’s effort to boost the semiconductor industry in the United States.

I see your pawn and raise you a queen.

NAICS Changes Will Begin to Be Reflected in the Census Bureau’s Economic Surveys and Programs. Impact of Changes to the North American Industry Classification System. You may be amazed at how interested I am in this particular geeky subject.

Intimacy Coordinators Unanimously Vote to Join SAG-AFTRA

The Copyright Office frees the McFlurry machine.

Tobacco To School and Nightmare on Sesame Street and The Batman of Baltimore

I GOT NOTHING

I have written very little about the topic of the election because I have nothing fresh to say. I’ve read seemingly every single analysis of who’s to blame and what the what is the turning point, blah blah blah. It’s kind of overwhelming and, frankly, a little exhausting.

It’s also true that I’m having difficulty writing anything else, even putting together a links post. Most of the items I’ve posted of late were previously created. I have five blog posts in some form of draft, which is terrible for me because I can’t finish anything. It’s not that I don’t know what I want to write; I just can’t find the energy. I am dumfungled.

I’m sad about the passing of Nancy Frank, our church’s organist emeritus. A group of us will be honored to sing at her funeral on Saturday at 2 p.m. I’ll certainly write about her afterward; writing obit-like pieces should be limited to once a week.

Still, I will recommend Jon Stewart on djt’s win and What’s Next w/ Heather Cox Richardson | The Weekly Show, specifically: 18:14 – Comparison to Steve Bannon’s takeover of Breitbart 21:20 – Groups of voters, motives, and strategies; and 40:40 – Reactionary Movements 41:53 – Propaganda vs. Reality. “Hero is somebody who keeps trying to do the right thing, even when they know the walls are closing in… we can all do that.” Oh, and Last Week Tonight With John Oliver for 11/10/2024.

BILL KENNEDY

Probably the highlight of the month thus far was participating in the 2nd Annual William Kennedy Marathon Reading on November 7, starting at 11 a.m. at the Albany Distilling Co. The reading was of the 1978 novel Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game, “an odyssey through the speakeasies and pool halls of Albany’s grimy and glittering underworld.”

I got to see Mike Huber and Paul Grondahl from the New York State Writers Institute. Bill Kennedy came during the fourth speaker and sat up front. He seemed to appreciate the readings by the 5th (me) and 6th (Frank S. Robinson) readers.

MUSIC

The entirety of Stevie Wonder’s Original Musiquarium I, featuring the hits plus four then-new songs

Subways Of Your Mind – FEX. A mystery solved.

Favorite Songs By Favorite Artists: The Specials

Le Rappel des Oiseaux by Jean-Philippe Rameau

Everybody Wants To Rule The World – Tears For Fears. HQ. Ultimate 12-inch extended mix

Coverville 1508: The Yes Cover Story II and 1509: Covers of Daryl Hall, Low, and Ween and 1510: The Quincy Jones Tribute

Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run) by Billy Ocean

Spooky music

When Do We Stop Finding New Music? A Statistical Analysis