2025 Political Thread

[bjdeming]

When Hegseth made his "fog of war" comment -- the dude should read up on real war to understand what that really means -- I realized that when you look underneath all the important complexities he is a LARPer.

To switch metaphors, so are the other tugs guiding the ponderous USS Biden and USS Trump (which age, after long and respectable journeys, has made captained each only by the ship's figurehead).

It's not real for them. But they are, behind the scenes, the real decision-makers on many important things, including international affairs now.

And they haven't a clue about the real world.

As a result, Russia is wiping the floor with us. Putin got away with murdering his opposition leader under Biden, and with Trump, well.

He aims higher:



Has something changed? Or are we in the same state of denial we were in before December 7, 1941? And this time have the clueless power-trippers who really run things figured that there won't be another "Pearl Harbor" because they've already cut a deal, perhaps in Alaska this year but possible even earlier, even during Biden times: the US gets the Americas, in their Risk-game model of the world, and Russia gets as much of Eurasia as China will allow?

Only it won't happen that way. Real life never does, and the more greed there is, the more it messes you up.

So will the US, I hope -- the one we live in, that is, not necessarily the one in the power-trippers' heads. I hope. This is NEXTA, though, and not 100% reliable:



Can we please not hold WWIII, Congress, and just impeach Trump out of the cockpit? RIGHT NOW. Or at least act like grownups? Good things happen that way sometimes, good things for everybody:



Meanwhile, in the other half of the Free World...

Europeans stunned and challenged by new US security strategy

In the document published on Friday, the Trump administration took the extraordinary step of weighing in on the domestic politics of its European allies. Across the EU and in London, reactions remain muted to avoid deepening an already growing rift.

www.lemonde.fr

Breakingviews - Here is how Europe can get its act together

The continent is menaced by Russia, bullied by the US and squeezed by China. Brexit divided it, while far-right nationalism rots it from within. Europe can still pull itself together. But it needs to act fast, starting with help for Ukraine and beefing up its own defences.

www.reuters.com

 

[bjdeming]

As for Europe and the world, I'm old enough now to realize that Lincoln himself was human, not "Lincolnesque," but he stated what I feel now in a different context on his way to his first inauguration (emphasis added):

...all the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated and were given to the world from this hall. I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here, and framed and adopted that Declaration of Independence. I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who achieved that Independence. I have often inquired of myself, what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland; but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. This is a sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence...

Nice jujitsu use of the "C" word there.

But seriously, if we let the rest of the Free World go today, we have failed all those Americans who have suffered and died for really believing in that sentiment expressed in the Declaration, from the 1700s right on down.

 

[andyhb]

Hi, yes, this is a crime against humanity as described here. What the actual f*** man.

 

[andyhb]

In other words, the claim that he incited the Jan 6th riot was absolutely legitimate and he's hiding a large amount of information because it would be relevant legally.

 

[bjdeming]

Personally, I think these domestic dramas are useful to the administration because they distract Americans from the fact that we are totally walking back our commitment to the Free World.

During this process, all We The People can do about the dramas is fume, maybe file some lawsuits, and wait for 2026 and 2028. It's nothing that effectively stops the abuses done by people who don't give a d--n about elections now that they got in..

And the bigger and much more tragic/harmful fait will be accompli by then, so to speak -- if not under the uniparty's Republican™ wing by this time next year, then definitely under its Democrat™ wing before 2028.

They see us as suckers, like those Tesla decision-makers who gave Musk a huge pay increase this year after his Chainsaw DOGE Man performance permanently tanked the original brand.

What will we care then -- say, in 2029 --about a Free World on the ropes, if it's even still around, when all is right with us as a superpower run by the Nomenklatura best people of either brand, and Russia is our pal not someone we need worry will attack us in a "Pearl Harbor" way?

We will actually fear Freedom, more than we do today even, for its unpredictability, nagging of the conscience we would prefer to completely bury, and presentation of The Other not as a hate object but as a human being like ourselves but different, too, and yet a potential friend or ally.

We will be encouraged, perhaps with one or two false-flag attacks, if propaganda alone doesn't work, to see the Free World die-hards in Europe and elsewhere, or any country in the Americas that resists being absorbed by us, as threats to our domestic tranquility, our need for lebensraum.

If and when the US degenerates to that point, that's when these relatively minor-scale (but still damning) totalitarian practice runs occurring now will become real for every American, regardless of ethnicity or citizenship status, who doesn't go along with or who tries to but doesn't fit into this New World Order.

That latter category will be huge because, of course, those who make it into the privileged class will try to shut out as many others as possible. Y'know, like things are and have been for quite a while in Russia and its satellites.

It doesn't have to be that way in the US, according to its founders AND its overall traditions for some two centuries after its founding, but it will be that way, sure as G-d made little green apples and Josef Stalin, if we don't all wake up and take a better path RIGHT NOW.

It's testing time.

I hope that Mike is right and that the Republicans have reached a turning point. I still think they are our best hope.

But we cannot afford to wait until late 2026.

An optimistic note: Have you noticed how things always keep coming back to the Ukraine war and Putin, Trump, Europe? It started with the Alaska "summit," possibly, if not earlier (and Trump brought in a distracting drama -- mail-in votes -- before he even left Alaska!), and now the control freaks are trying to wear us down, since the distraction they want has not yet taken root.

All we have to do is keep standing up to longstanding, bipartisan, common-sense US principles of freedom and shared interests that include but aren't limited to national security -- by supporting Europe and, as possible, Ukraine, one additional time more than the control freaks can bring their same-old same-old "Might Is Right" power trip to a head, and we will have beaten back this two-pronged attack on the long-united Free World as well as regained our title as its leader.

It's doable. Trump is pushing 80; Putin is almost a year older than me and undoubtedly much more steeped in dark kamma; and these two are key to the whole thing. Their acolytes, particularly in this country, are not so charismatic, to say the least.

-- Pollyanna, doing the best she can to be among the first up against the wall in case things go belly up.

 

[andyhb]

Hope you don't get hit by a disaster soon, because FEMA is essentially screwed with this clown at the helm.

 

[bjdeming]

Meanwhile, in the Big Picture...

<Fugitive-era Tommy Lee Jones>

I...



don't...



get...



distracted.



</Fugitive-era Tommy Lee Jones>

A little lagniappe:

This was a daring move back in the day; if the US leaders had supported it, even unofficially, rather than criticized it for mocking a world leader, SO much trouble and many, many lives might have been saved.



(And that lion wouldn't have faced probable food poisoning, poor thing. )

Now history is repeating itself, and We The People cannot walk back our common interests and history with Europe and the rest of the Free World.

Even if that makes profits for the Billionaires Boys Club dip a bit for 2025. In the long, medium, and short run, the continuation of a united Free World profits everyone immensely.

 

[bjdeming]

PS: Good for the House! (I file that Venezuelan boat seizure under "Distraction," but time will tell...)

Client Challenge

www.lemonde.fr

US House backs massive defense policy bill, Senate next

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a massive defense policy bill authorizing a record $901 billion in annual military spending, paving the way for the must-pass measure to become law for a 65th straight year.

www.reuters.com

 

[andyhb]

She is just unbelievably vile.

 

[andyhb]

Here's Trump openly pining to be a dictator sitting in the Oval Office, no filters, no editing, no nothing.

 

[bjdeming]

No widespread public outrage, either.

Per some reports, 50% of those who supported him in 2024 still approve of him. Hitler got high ratings, too, and apparently life under El Salvador's Dictator-for-life Bukele is terrific...if you support him (otherwise, you might find yourself, say, naked except for a diaper in the background of a US DHS Secretary's vacation video).

Meanwhile, in the southern part of Trump's game of Risk board, another career ends.

..."We must always be there for like-minded partners, like-minded nations who share our values: democracy, rule of law and human rights," Holsey said.

That didn't used to be a controversial position that US military leaders could catch 7734 for.

The so-called "Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine" is NOT great.

 

[bjdeming]

And Wyden noted a few days earlier (link is to a free Forbes article but there are popups):



And I couldn't help but post this:

 

[thundersnow]

We’re living in a perfect storm of ideological echo chambers… lots of blind spots and distorted perceptions to go around.

 

[bjdeming]

It's a bit more than mere perceptions, at least for our neighbors and traditional allies. Canada politely didn't mention Trump or the USA in its decision to build a defense force, but here's one opinion from Substack that does.

Other countries in the Free World are concerned about the US going rogue under Donald Trump and his pals.

(Fixed first link.)

 

[bjdeming]

I think that substacker was unfair to MAGA, but then I'm on the inside looking out; I have several years' experience of living in the South as well as good insights from posts here at TW; and I am American and do at least try to understand that everyone else's opinion is just as valid as my own, and can at least contemplate the fact that different opinions are an opportunity to reevaluate my own.

From the outside looking in, though, the US must appear very scary right now even if you discount some of what the Bully in the Pulpit says but doesn't act on (and it might be best to always take his word seriously, given how this year has gone).

Extrajudicial murders off both coasts of South America ongoing; PROPAGANDA MACHINES BLARING 24/7/365 over all platforms (and most congressional Republicans doing an excellent impersonation of the Stepford Wives and going along with it); that scary concentration of power in the executive branch; all the immigration and visa moves; bad-mouthing European allies; Do-Si-Do with Putin over Ukraine again and again; military uniforms in operation on our streets and Border Patrol agents batmanning their way through Chicago -- these are just some of the things that come to mind quickly (and I don't want to even think about Chainsaw DOGE Man)...it must look to foreign eyes as though the US is willfully trying to turn itself into a banana republic and American citizens are too shocked by it all to do anything but stand there with a deer-in-the-headlights look on our faces.

That's not actually the case, as we all know quite well. We are awake now and responding as best we can (and demonstrations like "No-Kings," although I like them, are not the only or even the necessarily best way to respond -- the most earth-shaking response to date IMO was Honorable Taylor Greene's sacrifice).

What seems very cruel is how Trump's antics turn so many people off this nation's excellent resource: people who are good and really do want to see America great.

It isn't all Republicans or Democrats or conservatives or liberals or whites or other ethnicities or this and that: most of us do want to see America great, and I think a lot of the ranting and echo-chambering, etc., could be intentional by the Billionaire Boys Club and their mooks, under the divide-and-conquer principle.

Anyway, getting back to Canada, they are so terribly vulnerable, if the US does go rogue. What are they going to do if Russia bristles against them on one side and the US swaggers in like a gangster on the other side, saying, "Nice and rich little country you've got here -- shame, if anything happened to it. Wanna be the 51st state?"

Tell me we can't imagine Trump or one of his current pals -- the current version, not the Donald Trump of earlier years, who I liked -- doing something like that.

And what's the UK going to do about it, with Russia poised on Europe's borders and already shadowing British ships?

I don't like the fact that Canada now feels that it needs to put some boots on its ground. I don't like foreigners misunderstanding my fellow Americans.

I don't like the French, basically -- Quebec, Louisiana, and the Napoleonic Code excepted, along with other admirable people and things -- but they certainly have a way with words:

How the Trumpist world is projecting its own obsession with decline onto Europe

NEWS ANALYSIS. Published on December 5 by the American administration, the national security strategy – essentially a political manifesto of the MAGA movement – criticizes Europe and reveals a narrow, exclusionary vision of Western civilization, one rooted in the traditional white family and in...

www.lemonde.fr

But I can see better now how we have gotten to this very sorry pass.

How do we find our way back to good things again?

 

[bjdeming]

Just based on what I'm seeing here in town around me, I think that many of us among We The People are going to the dogs under Trump 2.0/Left-wing-Dems-in-waiting -- in a good way:



More specifically, there is this from my generation, after the Yippies and before the Yuppies:



Those lyrics are so poignant now. I can't believe we all took this song for granted at the time, as if it was Muzak.

So many troublemakers today want us to hate them; instead, pity them and don't feed them. Be FOR something that is traditionally and widely accepted as good as well as proven effective. There is so much to choose from.

 

[bjdeming]

Christian nationalist

Like The Youngbloods, I grew up in a Christian nation -- for me, First Congregationalist in New England and then Episcopal in upstate New York (quite a swing there!).

It didn't stick, but it gave me the necessary moral basis/hope to get through some hard times as a young adult and eventually to feel the need for and importance of a really faith-based life (Theravada Buddhism).

It looks to me as though the Honorable Taylor Greene first showed Christian compassion with her support of the Epstein survivors and then had the moral backbone to break with Trump. I hope her faith is helping her and her family and colleagues through this dark time.

Granted, I don't know much about her, so this is only a surficial impression. But these recent moves of hers convinced me that the religious right -- unlike the religious left of fifty or so years ago -- can stay the course despite a sudden hit of secular power.

America needs that. We screwed up big time by declaring "G-d is dead" and then turning politics into de facto religious wars.

Politics doesn't have the power of showing each one of us our faults while pointing to the way to improve/overcome them and gently insisting, "You can do better than that."

Most importantly, politics doesn't show us The Other as a human being. Religious practice is what enables us to finally see and accept the existence of humanity outside ourselves. It underlies the whole social contract of Western civilization, though that is seldom acknowledged. Without it, the hate and pathology just build and build.

Now, whether America's religious right will stay the course...that's another question.

I found this article while exploring a site that I just stumbled into. To read it all requires giving them an email address, but that's free. Here's an excerpt:

...We are at a strange place. Christians, at least of one stripe, have access to power under the Trump presidency perhaps like never before in modern times. Court cases weighing the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses of the Constitution have been shifting in a positive direction for religious expression for years now. Much has been made of the New Theism, with even atheists and agnostics acknowledging the positive contributions Christian ways of thinking have made in forming the cultural and moral underpinnings of the Western world.

But in another sense, the influence of many Christian ideals appears to be in a freefall. In current GOP politics, we hear so much talk about upholding Christianity, but the accompanying public discourse leaves little room forJesus’ teachings: turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. Self-sacrificial love, at the center of Christ’s message, is tough to find in a political vision based on retribution and retaliation. It’s not only a MAGA mindset: Here in blue California, it was unsettling to hear supporters deploy the rhetoric of “fighting fire with fire” in pushing through a skewed redistricting plan in response to Texas’ skewed redistricting plan...

 

[UncleJuJu98]

Sad to hear the news about Rob Reiner

Rob Reiner and His Wife Michele Were Killed by Their Son (Exclusive Sources)

Rob Reiner and his wife were killed by their son, Nick, multiple sources confirm to PEOPLE. Reiner and his wife, Michele, were found dead inside their Brentwood, Calif., home on Dec. 14. Authorities are currently investigating.

people.com

 

[andyhb]

Sad to hear the news about Rob Reiner

Rob Reiner and His Wife Michele Were Killed by Their Son (Exclusive Sources)

Rob Reiner and his wife were killed by their son, Nick, multiple sources confirm to PEOPLE. Reiner and his wife, Michele, were found dead inside their Brentwood, Calif., home on Dec. 14. Authorities are currently investigating.

people.com

And this is what the commander in chief has to say about him. Ffs, he and his wife were likely murdered by their son and this is what he says.

People were fired from their jobs and hunted down for saying much more tame things about Charlie Kirk and even just quoting the guy.

 

[UncleJuJu98]

Wow.

CBP Detained U.S. Citizen For Hours At Houston Airport, Claimed Fourth Amendment Does Not Apply - Live and Let's Fly https://share.google/4uzVRWdpdujWDFemX