akt1985
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With the growing tensions between the U.S. and Canada, it will be interesting to see how The World Series plays out this year as the Toronto Blue Jays are the American League representative in the series.
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2025 Political Thread
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This AP article on the upcoming trial in Portland about deploying the National Guard goes into details about excuses for a crackdown that will be used in other cities by any US administration, at any time, from now on for such a move against officials who stand up for their rights.
If the control freaks can get away with it now.
Trump is all about precedent, nothing more. And the socialists and other left-wingers know it and are waiting. Some people here are wise to the threat, too, as is that North Carolina Congressman mentioned earlier, but I wish more Trump supporters would wake up and smell the tear gas.
As for Portland itself, after they broke out the frog costumes I decided that it's not in my universe, let alone my state. What they need up there is grown-ups, not boots on the ground, and that has probably been true for a long time.
It's a nice city -- reminds me of Birmingham, but with a huge river (the Willamette, not the Columbia; the two rivers meet a little farther downstream).
But the last time I was up there, in 2015, I saw so much urban dirt and dysfunctionality and, as mentioned, just the two extremes: snobs and homeless camps/broken people.
All the "middle" folks have fled to the suburbs and washed their hands of the urban decay, apparently, though they seem willing enough to bask in Portland's "quirkiness" and snobbery about personal wealth (which is a widespread malady out here anyway).
Little, if any, real soul.
But they don't deserve to get a gut punch from Trump (who could have turned this state red in 2020, if he had looked beyond Portland and been willing to work at recognizing and organizing his many Oregon supporters that year; apparently even then he had a different agenda).
If the control freaks can get away with it now.
Trump is all about precedent, nothing more. And the socialists and other left-wingers know it and are waiting. Some people here are wise to the threat, too, as is that North Carolina Congressman mentioned earlier, but I wish more Trump supporters would wake up and smell the tear gas.
As for Portland itself, after they broke out the frog costumes I decided that it's not in my universe, let alone my state. What they need up there is grown-ups, not boots on the ground, and that has probably been true for a long time.
It's a nice city -- reminds me of Birmingham, but with a huge river (the Willamette, not the Columbia; the two rivers meet a little farther downstream).
But the last time I was up there, in 2015, I saw so much urban dirt and dysfunctionality and, as mentioned, just the two extremes: snobs and homeless camps/broken people.
All the "middle" folks have fled to the suburbs and washed their hands of the urban decay, apparently, though they seem willing enough to bask in Portland's "quirkiness" and snobbery about personal wealth (which is a widespread malady out here anyway).
Little, if any, real soul.
But they don't deserve to get a gut punch from Trump (who could have turned this state red in 2020, if he had looked beyond Portland and been willing to work at recognizing and organizing his many Oregon supporters that year; apparently even then he had a different agenda).
It's hard to stop caring. Anyway, applause to Senator Murkowski and her Republican colleagues.
Wonder if they have some clues as to how SCOTUS is likely to go when the tariffs case comes up soon.
Wonder if they have some clues as to how SCOTUS is likely to go when the tariffs case comes up soon.
akt1985
Member
I’ve heard rumors of possible riots this weekend with SNAP benefits running out on Saturday with the government shutdown. Hopefully the food banks can step up for those who rely on SNAP.
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This is 100% on the Democrats. 100%.
Trump lost an opportunity to score political points by not getting out ahead of the SNAP funding prior to 11/1/25. Regardless, the Democratic people want people to starve and that is sad.
Trump lost an opportunity to score political points by not getting out ahead of the SNAP funding prior to 11/1/25. Regardless, the Democratic people want people to starve and that is sad.
It is for us to step up for the food banks, not out of fear rooted in the experience of past riots that were based on hate, typically but not always race-based (in Russia they riot for bread), but out of a neighborly concern.
Most banks have websites and even online donation forms, but a visit to one with bags of groceries, personal hygiene products, infant supplies, and/or pet supplies will never be rejected.
And, of course, there's also United Way, etc.
I didn't get those ordered right but will respond to the older one first just to say how much I admire you, Mike, for that objectivity. Can't do that yet myself for such a hate magnet but I'm working on it.
As for the kings, you're right but it's always a challenge. We're so used to it that we have forgotten or never realized just how unique the American experiment is.
Human beings have always set up royal lines and courtiers under various labels all through history. The honest, if often bad, ones called such things by their true names.
Because of US sensibilities and the institutional framework, there is dishonesty about it in this country.
Democrats, back in the 1960s, indulged in and exploited this human tendency with Camelot imagery. Power grabbers today, currently headed by but not limited to Trump or the party he has grabbed, just do it (act royally, not in accordance with checks and balances) -- but still cautiously.
I think if millions hadn't coincidentally turned out on the 18th to use -- as an expression of frustration with the way things are going -- the No-Kings framework that progressivists had set up, today's power grabbers would have felt a little better and would ramp up their efforts.
Instead, Trump was miffed enough to knock down the White House East Wing. America, punching itself in the face again.
But what else can anyone do? The first Tuesday in November is coming up in this no-general-election year and thinking about that briefly made me wish we could do the 2024 election over again.
Waste of time. We'd never get it right again because there would again be the no-alternative (Biden)/Harris block.
Interesting that both times, when Trump won, he was running against a leftist woman connected either by marriage or political administration to a very powerful man. Coincidence or (VERY deep) conspiracy?
In any event, the man just cannot stand on his own, even against Joe Biden, but he is very good at focusing attention on himself, even in his dotage. This is bad when it's in the bully pulpit.
Actually, we need to look at the puppeteers behind the scenes for all administrations this century, except possibly that of W. Bush.
But most of all, we need to govern ourselves again.
The principles that our country is based upon were very radical, back in the 1700s when Christianity, and therefore a sense of personal responsibility on the path of redemption, was taken for granted as the norm for western civilization even by those who practiced it under another label, like "deism."
Our fellow revolutionists really did drop it and consequently got Napoleon, etc. We have managed to stagger on along that path (which runs through Main Street USA, not through DC) even through today.
But the "just do it" ethos is easy and occasionally fun (if we ignore the bad stuff that always accompanies it) and so, as a nation right now we are rather fat and lazy.
And so We The People have the government we deserve.
We can do better than this. But it's on our shoulders as responsible citizens and human beings, not on The Other who we are encouraged to fear and hate.
The Other is just Us, in a mirror.
Viet-Nam 2.0.
NEXTA is useful in a general way but not always 100% impartial. Reuters, however, is laying the basis for in-depth reporting of this coming land war in Latin America.
This is all so familiar, so awful. And the generations who will fodder the machine cannot see it coming on. (When troops are in the field and a draft is on, such things as being a lardbutt don't matter so much: you WILL fill that desk job and you WILL diet and exercise as ordered, or else. Then they send you in, not a drone. And people will be in such a patriotic fervor that they will show you no sympathy at all. Until the casualty lists come in. By then, though, the thing has its own momentum and is almost impossible to stop...)
It is coming. Again. Are we great yet? Or are we gone rogue? (With Russia's tacit assistance.)
NEXTA is useful in a general way but not always 100% impartial. Reuters, however, is laying the basis for in-depth reporting of this coming land war in Latin America.
This is all so familiar, so awful. And the generations who will fodder the machine cannot see it coming on. (When troops are in the field and a draft is on, such things as being a lardbutt don't matter so much: you WILL fill that desk job and you WILL diet and exercise as ordered, or else. Then they send you in, not a drone. And people will be in such a patriotic fervor that they will show you no sympathy at all. Until the casualty lists come in. By then, though, the thing has its own momentum and is almost impossible to stop...)
It is coming. Again. Are we great yet? Or are we gone rogue? (With Russia's tacit assistance.)
The sort of thing Kamala Harris could have done?
I don't know. There was no similar wide-based ideological movement that could support a demagogue behind Biden/Harris. It felt more like "let the Obama good times roll" -- nothing to stand for. And that's still the case, only now it's more something to stand against; Trump is playing the hate-magnet role quite well.
And hate never brings about good (though, as Tolkien put it, rather confusingly, evil will often evil mars).
As for troop movements, the Caribbean is down there, too, wiith the European connection with England, France, and the Netherlands (did I miss anyone?).
Trump and Putin already, in my opinion , have deniably challenged Europe's sovereignity with that proposed summit in Hungary.
Hungary shouldn't have agreed to it because they are a signatory to the International Court that issued an arrest warrant for Putin as a war criminal a while back.
But Hungary did, and both Putin and Trump seemed determined to make the summit happen.
Putin was safe traveling to Alaska, just across the Bering Strait. We haven't signed up for the ICC. Europe was another matter, both on land and in the air since Putin would need to fly to Hungary.
Trump and Putin, basically, were daring Europe to enforce that arrest warrant.
It soon became clear that Europe would and that to do so it has the muscle, as well as the will, to "escort Putin's aircraft to the ground" over very willing countries in his unavoidable flight path, notably Poland.
Of course that's just a euphemism for shooting him down.
And rather than start a hot war there right now, the two connivers (as I will call them) backed off. The summit was canceled for other alleged reasons that gave Trump positive media coverage at home, and Trump applied his first sanctions on Russia this term -- sanctions that I read in a BBC article on an unrelated topic were not at all harmful to Russia.
So now Trump's putting US soldiers into the Caribbean as a strike force. All eyes are on Venezuela, but it could be a deniable challenge to European sovereignty there, too, if Trump wants to play his magic "drugs!" card that way.
And a little bit of a Russian presence is there, now, to harden home support if he does that or just goes ahead and starts murdering South Americans on land instead of picking them off boat by boat on the sea.
It's awful. None of this was indicated by his campaign speeches. And Trump also is playing a game I've seen many demagogues of all persuasions play: doing or saying outrageous things that provoke a backlash against their supporters, guaranteeing that demagogue loyal support no matter what comes next.
Out of public sight, I still think, there is a "Business Plot 2.0" but I wonder how the billionaires' boys' club feels about the growing possibility that the Cold War only paused in the Nineties and now is finally ending with the two superpowers (one of them former) uniting and taking over the world (which they can't succeed at but which will be terrible and perhaps civilization ending all around).
Of course it's much more complex than that, but still....
I don't know. There was no similar wide-based ideological movement that could support a demagogue behind Biden/Harris. It felt more like "let the Obama good times roll" -- nothing to stand for. And that's still the case, only now it's more something to stand against; Trump is playing the hate-magnet role quite well.
And hate never brings about good (though, as Tolkien put it, rather confusingly, evil will often evil mars).
As for troop movements, the Caribbean is down there, too, wiith the European connection with England, France, and the Netherlands (did I miss anyone?).
Trump and Putin already, in my opinion , have deniably challenged Europe's sovereignity with that proposed summit in Hungary.
Hungary shouldn't have agreed to it because they are a signatory to the International Court that issued an arrest warrant for Putin as a war criminal a while back.
But Hungary did, and both Putin and Trump seemed determined to make the summit happen.
Putin was safe traveling to Alaska, just across the Bering Strait. We haven't signed up for the ICC. Europe was another matter, both on land and in the air since Putin would need to fly to Hungary.
Trump and Putin, basically, were daring Europe to enforce that arrest warrant.
It soon became clear that Europe would and that to do so it has the muscle, as well as the will, to "escort Putin's aircraft to the ground" over very willing countries in his unavoidable flight path, notably Poland.
Of course that's just a euphemism for shooting him down.
And rather than start a hot war there right now, the two connivers (as I will call them) backed off. The summit was canceled for other alleged reasons that gave Trump positive media coverage at home, and Trump applied his first sanctions on Russia this term -- sanctions that I read in a BBC article on an unrelated topic were not at all harmful to Russia.
So now Trump's putting US soldiers into the Caribbean as a strike force. All eyes are on Venezuela, but it could be a deniable challenge to European sovereignty there, too, if Trump wants to play his magic "drugs!" card that way.
And a little bit of a Russian presence is there, now, to harden home support if he does that or just goes ahead and starts murdering South Americans on land instead of picking them off boat by boat on the sea.
It's awful. None of this was indicated by his campaign speeches. And Trump also is playing a game I've seen many demagogues of all persuasions play: doing or saying outrageous things that provoke a backlash against their supporters, guaranteeing that demagogue loyal support no matter what comes next.
Out of public sight, I still think, there is a "Business Plot 2.0" but I wonder how the billionaires' boys' club feels about the growing possibility that the Cold War only paused in the Nineties and now is finally ending with the two superpowers (one of them former) uniting and taking over the world (which they can't succeed at but which will be terrible and perhaps civilization ending all around).
Of course it's much more complex than that, but still....
It's more about the things she wouldn't have done at this point.
Doctors muffled as Florida moves to end decades of childhood vaccination mandates
Florida plans to end nearly a half-century of required childhood immunizations against diseases that have killed and maimed millions of children. Many critics of the decision, including doctors, ar…
www.orlandosentinel.com
Killing kids and just making them less safe to own the libs.
From the Orlando Sentinel article:
From his background, it looks as though he is not someone who has spent any more time on the front lines than was necessary to earn his MD and PhD.
Who is he to go against all his medical predecessors, medical constituents, and a long-term proven record of success?
Oh, wait: that's answered in the first eight words of the quote.
I understand DeSantis can't run for governor again, but we should remember that he owns this (and probably more) if he continues to try for political prominence after his term ends.
And maybe we should check and see if there are any huge decreases suddenly in the population of Miami and its environs. If there were ever to be real riots against ICE, it would be there -- and I haven't read of any.
From his background, it looks as though he is not someone who has spent any more time on the front lines than was necessary to earn his MD and PhD.
Who is he to go against all his medical predecessors, medical constituents, and a long-term proven record of success?
Oh, wait: that's answered in the first eight words of the quote.
I understand DeSantis can't run for governor again, but we should remember that he owns this (and probably more) if he continues to try for political prominence after his term ends.
And maybe we should check and see if there are any huge decreases suddenly in the population of Miami and its environs. If there were ever to be real riots against ICE, it would be there -- and I haven't read of any.
thundersnow
Member
Generations of Americans have been spared the past horrors of diseases like polio, smallpox, mumps, and measles by getting children vaccinated. For some reason, this was never a problem until the emergence of anti-vaccine rhetoric of the past few years.
Maybe, as a society, we deserve what will happen next, and that’s what it will take to remind us all of the importance of these things.
Maybe, as a society, we deserve what will happen next, and that’s what it will take to remind us all of the importance of these things.
Utterly disgusting and blatantly illegal. Basically stealing money from those who are furloughed without pay.
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Disgusting, but hardly surprising. If ending de minimis was any indication, this administration knows a thing or two about coming up with clever ways to steal more money out of Americans' pockets without direct tax hikes.
Why is working without pay, which has been ongoing for a while, used as an excuse to disrupt flights in a major way before T-day?
Oh:
That makes sense. Better to do it now rather than after a tragedy during the transportation flood crest.
It just made me wonder, coming so soon after Democrat gains in the elections and Trump's demolition of the East Wing after the October 18th protests. (Yes, the plans were in the works for a while before, but he jumped the gun and ordered that wrecking ball swung right away.)
For just a moment it felt like We The People were being punished again in the usual deniable but nonetheless painful way.
Must be getting punchy after nine months of this abusive relationship that Chainsaw DOGE Man and the Trump administration have forced us all into.
Sigh. Oh, for the Before Times prior to March 2020...
The hassles in this country since then, what with show trials; Pravda-like double talk from the media about important things like "mostly peaceful" riots (real ones)/looting/arson, gangsterism -- not "youths," and denial of POTUS mental incapacity; a growing nameless fear that America is in trouble; on into the hellish year that we've been having so far; these are reminding me a little of descriptions of life in the Soviet Union. Just a little. Thus far. For this white person, anyway, who is too old to have to worry about having the right ideology and social-media content to get and keep a gig, in this economy, or maybe a job if I'm lucky.
What a break. Till Social Security goes up the chimney in the 30s, anyway.
There should be a lot of 70s and 80s-style serious public discussion going on about the serious problems the US faces domestically and abroad (many more than I've mentioned) -- op-ed pieces, commentary, politicians on the campaign trail doing debates like the DeSantis-Haley debate last year (also a Before Time now), etc.
Instead, all that the Dems seem to want to offer this wonderful and still very strong nation as an alternative is socialism: a bunch of broken eggs and no slice of omelet as well as smaller portions of everything else on each proletarion plate.
Plenty of bacon, etc., up at the top, though. As Chesterton once wrote, the capitalists are accomplishing everything socialists have been demanding.
Speaking of socialists...
I've had this guy pegged as Big Brother long before the 2025 election (source: dmitryshein via Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0):
Start learning to love it now. From here to the White House, barring what would be a welcome upsurge of We The People demanding peaceably and repeatedly that our representatives represent us, we won't be offered much else in the way of alternatives. The message is being taken to us.
That's the carrot; Trump and whoever eventually takes his place are the stick.
The powers that be, you will never see or hear about: these fellow Americans are shy to meet the public but exercise almost absolute power and little to no accountability to us, that power's source.
Sigh.
Oh:
That makes sense. Better to do it now rather than after a tragedy during the transportation flood crest.
It just made me wonder, coming so soon after Democrat gains in the elections and Trump's demolition of the East Wing after the October 18th protests. (Yes, the plans were in the works for a while before, but he jumped the gun and ordered that wrecking ball swung right away.)
For just a moment it felt like We The People were being punished again in the usual deniable but nonetheless painful way.
Must be getting punchy after nine months of this abusive relationship that Chainsaw DOGE Man and the Trump administration have forced us all into.
Sigh. Oh, for the Before Times prior to March 2020...
The hassles in this country since then, what with show trials; Pravda-like double talk from the media about important things like "mostly peaceful" riots (real ones)/looting/arson, gangsterism -- not "youths," and denial of POTUS mental incapacity; a growing nameless fear that America is in trouble; on into the hellish year that we've been having so far; these are reminding me a little of descriptions of life in the Soviet Union. Just a little. Thus far. For this white person, anyway, who is too old to have to worry about having the right ideology and social-media content to get and keep a gig, in this economy, or maybe a job if I'm lucky.
What a break. Till Social Security goes up the chimney in the 30s, anyway.
There should be a lot of 70s and 80s-style serious public discussion going on about the serious problems the US faces domestically and abroad (many more than I've mentioned) -- op-ed pieces, commentary, politicians on the campaign trail doing debates like the DeSantis-Haley debate last year (also a Before Time now), etc.
Instead, all that the Dems seem to want to offer this wonderful and still very strong nation as an alternative is socialism: a bunch of broken eggs and no slice of omelet as well as smaller portions of everything else on each proletarion plate.
Plenty of bacon, etc., up at the top, though. As Chesterton once wrote, the capitalists are accomplishing everything socialists have been demanding.
Speaking of socialists...
I've had this guy pegged as Big Brother long before the 2025 election (source: dmitryshein via Wikipedia CC BY-SA 4.0):
Start learning to love it now. From here to the White House, barring what would be a welcome upsurge of We The People demanding peaceably and repeatedly that our representatives represent us, we won't be offered much else in the way of alternatives. The message is being taken to us.
That's the carrot; Trump and whoever eventually takes his place are the stick.
The powers that be, you will never see or hear about: these fellow Americans are shy to meet the public but exercise almost absolute power and little to no accountability to us, that power's source.
Sigh.
Reuters has done a special report on Trump 2.0 and his chosen media and the media in general (notably, and I knew this before reading the article, he maneuvered all press except those who support him out of their Pentagon offices).
They also have an ongoing series of interviews with a group of Trump supporters on various topics, most recently the shutdown.
They also have an ongoing series of interviews with a group of Trump supporters on various topics, most recently the shutdown.
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I've heard that Republicans lately have been trying to play dirty in response to Mamdani's win in NYC, from trying to get him arrested to unconstitutionally revoking his citizenship to prevent him from taking office this January.
I don't like Zohran Mamdani. At all. His tweet a few years back about 'needing to ban all guns' ESPECIALLY doesn't sit well with me.
But if people in this country can be disappeared for their political opinions, we will no longer be living in the United States of America - we will be living in 1984's Oceania.
In other news, President Trump proposed a tariff dividend of $2000 per American, except for the highest-income earners. Not gonna lie, great news if it actually happens (which it probably won't, but that's besides the point). He naturally also used the opportunity to call anyone opposed to his tariffs "fools". Great look for him to call 61% of his fellow Americans fools, but hey, it's exactly the type of hyper-partisan language that his base absolutely loves.
I don't like Zohran Mamdani. At all. His tweet a few years back about 'needing to ban all guns' ESPECIALLY doesn't sit well with me.
But if people in this country can be disappeared for their political opinions, we will no longer be living in the United States of America - we will be living in 1984's Oceania.
In other news, President Trump proposed a tariff dividend of $2000 per American, except for the highest-income earners. Not gonna lie, great news if it actually happens (which it probably won't, but that's besides the point). He naturally also used the opportunity to call anyone opposed to his tariffs "fools". Great look for him to call 61% of his fellow Americans fools, but hey, it's exactly the type of hyper-partisan language that his base absolutely loves.
Are costs actually down like Trump says? Because I have yet to notice that lol
Central Ohio Wx
Member
Nope! It's actually the opposite, unsurprisingly. Waiting for the day he gets out of there, and I'll party when we sweep the midterms. Certainly years of broken promises to the American people won't end well then the power to vote is in our hands, eh?
Interesting, id like to see where this story goes.