How is it not a cult then?

It is fully a cult.

*Loyalty Tests
*Own language and key words that are used.
*High control
*Full devotion to a single individual.
*Anyone who leaves is an enemy.
*Only one person can 'save' the group.

Trump's cult would happily accept getting a leg cut off if they got to see someone else get both chopped off.

Just as long as it's not attached to whoever's boots they're licking today.

Totally a cult

The story on some of the J6ers that were pardoned is wild. We have one killed by police after trying to pull a gun during a traffic stop, one arrested on gun charges that already has 3 felony convictions (not including J6) 1 was pardoned despite having charges pending for soliciting a minor, and 2 others are wanted on child porn charges.

Gotta get those migrants to GITMO though.

Lost in the rescinded memo fiasco (at least to me) was the reason why they rescinded the memo - they actually thought that because one of the courts had issued a TRO against enforcement of the memo, that if the memo didn't exist, the case was moot. A government attorney tried to make that argument, at which point the press secretary's tweet saying the freeze was still in place was raised in court.

Not surprisingly, the childish attempt to pretend that the memo, and not the freeze, was the lynchpin of the case against the freeze, failed horribly.

You couldn't pay me enough to embarrass myself daily in front of courts like Trump lawyers do.

His lawyers are like everyone else around him, completely unqualified and incompetent because anyone with a brain knows not to go near him.

So like I thought DEI was about the hiring process and hiring diverse people. Not about protecting people from being fired. I mean you can't just fire someone for no reason. THey can still sue for wrongful termination. Just firing people from important departments isn't smart either.

In the commercial, non-union world, pretty much for any reason.

It's an interesting state of affairs in which we concern ourselves with people being fired for no reason, but not with them quitting for no reason.

What, can we force them somehow not to quit?

**Points gun at employee** "You'd best get back to work, son."

Feels like having no head of the FAA and a guy from the Real World who voted to increase air traffic in charge of Transportation should be a bigger part of this story.

Theres been executive orders related to attemps to pull funding from schools that teach content Trump finds objectionable (which is illegal but not sure that will stop them) along with one that pertains to prosecuting school personell who support trans or non binary students.

Project 2025 is definitely in full force trying to be put into place.

North Korea style shit....

I saw this last night. This was my favorite.


I'm not sure how this is even possible. You can't be honest and accurate about our founding while always being inspiring and ennobling.

I wonder what would happen if a President issued an executive order and most people just quietly agreed to ignore it?

Also, why does the EO linked above read like it was *written* by a high school student?

I'd like to see an EO more focused on fixing that problem in people who work for the government writing EOs.

Because they're using chatgpt to write them. Not a joke. The formatting and grammar issues in these EOs are clear signs of AI.

So does that mean we finally get to welcome our computer overlords? I've been waiting practically since the internet started and/or The Matrix came out.

Trump on the crash. Can we talk about Trump's mental state?

He's talking about people who didn't get air traffic controller jobs, probably. You know, the true victims.

Just the white ones.

I thought that went without saying. The is the Trump Presidency thread, after all!

Think I’ll top off the gas tank tomorrow and stock up on some bananas & avocado.

"Concepts of a plan"

I was reading how the government is only funded until mid-March so any promise to pay employees until the end of the fiscal year is being made on faith. I wonder if the plan is to get people to accept deferred resignation and then refuse to fund it past mid-March. There's no way I would trust these fuckers.

I'm not looking forward to the 25% tariffs for Canada which apparently start tomorrow, but no one knows what they'll actually be yet. I guess ChatGPT "what tariffs should I charge Canada?" will give the answer.

Well, this guy's a downer.

Bluesky

(I mean, not for the fascists here, but for all the rest of us.)

So, when some president blames the guys before him doing stuff the wrong way, and he himself had a term in between, doesn't that basically mean he's blaming himself as well?

The wife kicked off the talks with the Trump supporters in our circle last night in a conversation with her brother. They got into an argument and she told him if he didn't reevaluate his views she would be reevaluating their relationship. He tried spitting out MAGA talking points and she swatted each one away with facts. He ended the conversation admitting that he's not educated enough on these issues. The talk with my mom will be this weekend. The big one will be the rest of her Texas family. Specifically her mom and stepdad. I don't see that one going well at all.

They'll probably get delayed. If they were really going into effect tomorrow, the markets would be down like 3%+. Guessing they realize it's just another PR stunt.

My conspiracy theory is that Musk has some really bad financial positions. Tesla is a walking timebomb. Company is regressing and he's running out of things to make up that they'll never do. They're even now starting to go Enron by marking unrealized gains as profits from fucking crypto of all things.

Twitter is still a huge financial drain. Billion a year in just interest on loans.

So my conspiracy is this is all to just gut what he can from the government and he'll do some fucked up things to make it happen.

Well the real conspiracy theory I thought was that they were going to destroy the dollar and make crypto the basis for everything. I don't know the details of how that works exactly, but that's what I'd heard Thiel, etc. wanted to do.

I agree that he probably has bad financial positions.

I think there are people who are overly leveraged and others like Tether that are straight ponzi schemes that desperately need that crypto bailout they've been talking about.

I mean, I never quite get market caps, either. Tesla had $25.7B in revenue, has a $1.3T market cap. GM on the other hand made $180B, has a market cap of $49B. Huh? Just how many cars is Tesla expected to sell?

It's a meme stock. You can't compare it to how traditional companies operate in the market.

I don't think that's a conspiracy theory at all. It's clear that most of Musk's wealth is on paper and he's likely leveraged himself to the hilt* (like Trump, ironically) so he's more sensitive to most to market changes.


*generally, not just to buy twitter

I refuse to do this. It's simply not worth my mental health and the drama, plus my parents are nearing their 80s and my dad has a TBI. What is my ultimatum - enjoy the rest of your lives? Not gonna happen. So I just ignore it all and don't engage on any of it.

Now, my wife's family, outside of her parents (who are Trumpers but low-key about it and not really political) ... I'd be happy to tell each one of them what I think and never see any of them again. But they don't visit anyway. It's been 3.5 years since her parents moved FROM Florida TO Kentucky to live near us due to lack of family support, and her sister still hasn't visited once. Fuck 'em all. Out of sight, out of mind.

Especially when Tesla's owner has been going out of his way to alienate the very people who would be most likely to buy his cars.

Even if you accept the absurd notion that the tariffs are national security related, how is Canada possibly a greater threat than China?

This is just Trump trying to get kickbacks from local businesses that he thinks he can strongarm. There's a lot less of available graft for him with Chinese companies. The message has gone out that if you pay him off before tomorrow he'll cut your tariff.

I refuse to have anything to do with people that support and cheer on someone that's threatening my job. I brought it up to the wife a couple of nights ago and was honestly surprised that she was all in agreement. Her brother just kicked things off early by calling her last night to rant about "illegals".

My mom doesn't follow politics and just gets caught up in all the facebook posts from her circle in WV. The wife's mom and step dad, however, are hardcore Fox News watching Trumpers as is the rest of her family in Texas.

Sounds like Elon is single-handedly in control of the country's payment system.

He's going to tie it into X, isn't he?

We're going the 90's Russia route which I guess we sort of deserve.

So I guess it's official on the tariffs if the press conference is correct. Kind of surprised no one spoke up to tell him what's up.

Just sort of feels like America is out of ideas. China crushing us, biggest growth sectors are scams, institutions crumbling, and falling for economic ideas that were discredited 100 years ago. No real economic plan to make lives better, no foreign policy plans, just hyperfocus on removing pronouns from e-mails or whatever people are worked up about that doesn't matter. A few rich guys completely raiding the coffers and no one has the energy to care anymore (nor can I blame them). And there is no longer even a sniff of an opposition party.

Like I said, it feels a lot like we're going the 1990's Russia route. Except our Yeltsin isn't a drunk, he's just really dumb. I guess the annoying part of this is the uncertainty. One minute there's 25% tariffs on a country, the next it's delayed, then it's back on, then it's going to encompass Europe, then who fucking knows. People are just winging it.

WaPo has the blueprint for the GOP reconciliation bill.

315 billion in cuts over ten years and over 5.8 trillion in tax cuts and new spending. But they plan on saying tax cuts largely pay for themselves so it fits reconciliation rules.

Hard to know what to believe, but it appears Trump ordered a couple dams to release water to get it flowing to LA and all thats happening if farmers fields are getting flooded.