All Things Trump: the story continues...

[Tero]

keithedwards
10h10 hours ago
Elon is about to do to our country what he did to Twitter
It’s already chaos and he’s not even in power yet

jojo.fromjerz
10h10 hours ago
A twice impeached, convicted felon, business fraud, racist, rapist, traitor who bragged about sexual assault is currently rewarding the worst people on the planet with extremely powerful positions of incredible consequence… because eggs were “too expensive.”

jeanannegardner
49m49 minutes ago
Elon Musk said he wants to reduce Social Security benefits by 33 percent. Get ready. Put more money away if you can. Those of us who can help our friends, start a fund to help those who depend on that money. We need to take care of each other.

1elizabeth_jacobs
10h10 hours ago
Ah yes, the Dept of Government Efficiency, another genius move. Because there’s nothing taxpayers love more than giving money to billionaires to cut all of our government services. I’ve seen their motto already. “There will be some pain”. President Musk is off to a great start.

keithboykin
18h18 hours ago
Trump announces reparations for white people.
He says he will ask the Justice Department to penalize colleges and schools that consider diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and fine them so he can pay “restitution” to white people who he considers the real victims of racial discrimination.

[Tero]

“And the thing that’s complicated about this, man, is it’s going to look much different in, say, the Department of Defense versus Social Security,” he continued.

After the clip was republished by a liberal group on X, many users bristled at the implication that the world’s wealthiest man could help make key policy decisions regarding Social Security.

“Who elected Elon to decide ANYTHING?! Look what he did to Twitter & its diligent employees—at a WHIM,” posted one user. Another wrote, “Elon Musk is an arrogant Billionaire. He has no understanding or compassion for those who depend on Social Security. Everyone on Social Security should be very concerned if Musk and Trump are making decisions.”

Republicans have long publicly promised to not touch Social Security, despite creating plans that would imperil the national benefits program.

https://newrepublic.com/post/186061/jd- ... -dangerous

benefits program? entitlement? I paid 40 years into it. Every paycheck.

[Tero]

Musk has already asked Trump to appoint SpaceX employees to top government positions, the New York Times has reported. The president-elect promised to ban bureaucrats from taking jobs at the companies they regulate. Such a rule would seem to bar SpaceX’s lieutenants from the Pentagon’s door. But Trump has never shied away from cronyism. The two are not trying to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest: Musk’s role in the government will be structured so that he can maintain control of his companies, the Financial Times reports.

In his first term, Trump and his team struggled to fill the thousands of government appointments needed to run the federal government.
The former New Jersey governor Chris Christie said the administration never fully recovered from its failure to find those appointees. Perhaps adding Musk to the equation is meant to prevent a repeat of such laggardness.

In an extreme version of the new administration, Trump and Musk simply eliminate any position for which they cannot find a friendly appointee. In John Kennedy Toole’s Pulitzer-winning 1980 novel A Confederacy of Dunces, the idiot hero, tasked with organizing an intractable pile of files at his new job, eradicates the company’s mess. Ignatius J Reilly is no genius of organization, though; he is just throwing cabinets full of records away. It is easy to imagine Trump and Musk following his example.

What will stand in Musk’s way, however, is one of his sworn enemies: labor law. Tesla is the only major US carmaker that does not employ a unionized workforce. The billionaire CEO wants to keep it that way. Federal government employees, by contrast, enjoy strong employment protections that would hinder Musk’s slash-and-burn approach to cost-cutting and possibly render it impossible.

For all the different companies he runs, Musk has little experience managing public sector employees. He may find them less pliable lions than he is used to taming.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -ramaswamy

[Brian Peacock]

Twitter opinions, rants and baiting aren't really political engagement, are they? Seems that vibes-based politics is the only politics left now.

[Tero]

Reaping the crop from the seeds planted by Reagan:

“Most Terrifying Words – ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

[Joe]

Reaping the crop from the seeds planted by Reagan:

“Most Terrifying Words – ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

It sounds much more menacing now, doesn't it?

[Woodbutcher]

Looks like the US is slipping into an authoritarian form of government, a government for the elite by the elite. Screw the masses and keep distributing misinformation. We need to reinforce the border in case politicians from the States try to sneak in.

[Tero]

This?

slugs.jpg (56.64 KiB) Viewed 828 times

[Tero]

Musk to also handle bookkeeping for 60,000 members advising the President and the executive branch.

Trump and Musk have suggested the panel will be able to make dramatic cuts, but generally speaking large budgetary actions are the remit of Congress. They can take advice from outside panels like the proposed efficiency panel, or disregard it.
In an effort to be transparent, Musk said the panel will post its "actions" for public comment.
"Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know!" he said on X.
He also mentioned a list of "dumb" spending, which he noted would be "extremely entertaining".

Reagan era had..the Grace Commission for its chairman J. Peter Grace, the former CEO of W.R. Grace and Co....Grace raised money to fund the effort through a foundation. About 150 business leaders volunteered their time on an executive committee that oversaw 36 Grace Commission task forces, which reviewed agencies or functions.
The Commission issued a report in January 1984 with some 2,500 recommendations, and the various task forces came out with reports as well.
“Most of the recommendations, especially those requiring legislation from Congress, were never implemented,” the Reagan Library said.
The committee would likely operate under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, a 1972 law ensuring panels provide advice that is prompt, objective and open to the public. It also mandates cost controls and record keeping requirements that apply to the roughly 1,000 committees with some 60,000 members advising the President and the executive branch at any given time.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/how-mu ... 024-11-13/

[Tero]

Trump does not need to follow laws to deport people. He can't be charged while doing presidential duties.
https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch ... 9598405764

[Tero]

techydad
1mabout a minute ago
Matt Gaetz as the Attorney General?!!!
What qualifications does he have? Besides kissing up to Trump, of course. Which he does plenty and which seems to be the only qualification needed to serve in the Trump administration.
On the other hand, is Trump going to just drain all the Republicans out of the House?

esa55jarvi
4m4 minutes ago
He will be free to pay Venmo for prostitutes any time now.

This one might not pass the senate.

[Tero]

Trump appears determined to push all cabinet posts through as recess appointments.
https://www.threads.net/@aaron.rupar/po ... Quk_wPHdSg

[NineBerry]

How many clowns can you fit in a clown car?

[macdoc]

Comparison to Mussolini is apt
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-n ... on-1973600
snip

Why does all this bring Mussolini to mind? Because the execution of such a Trumpian second term agenda would be inspired by and modeled on the Italian fascist leader's actions after becoming both prime minister and minister of the interior of Italy in 1922. In the latter capacity, he controlled the Italian police and used them to arrest his political enemies—largely communists, socialists, and anarchists—while his black-shirt squadristi, as the Italian fascist paramilitary gangs were known, continued to kill, brutalize, and generally instill a debilitating fear among the Italian public as a whole. This tactic proved to be a winner.

Within a matter of months following the assassination of the socialist opposition leader Giacomo Matteotti on June 10, 1924, by members of Mussolini's private secret police operating out of his Interior Ministry, it became evident that the man known as Il Duce had successfully placed himself beyond any judicial or parliamentary limitations on his absolute and unfettered power.

Addressing parliament on Jan. 3, 1925, in what The New York Times called "the greatest triumph of Mussolini's whole political career," he reacted furiously to a memorandum authored by a more "moderate" fascist, Cesare Rossi, that sought to hold him responsible for Matteotti's murder. Instead, Mussolini declared that "the opposition describes us as an army of bandits encamped in Italy. We have swallowed their insults and allowed them to call us brigands and assassins. Now before the Chamber, before the whole nation and before God, I alone assume full personal, political, moral and historical responsibility for everything that has occurred in Italy. If Fascism is an association of malefactors, then let it be known that I am head of this association of malefactors."

[Tyrannical]

Gaetz has already resigned from Congress, I hear his un-named replacement could be elected as early as Jan 3rd. Makes me think Trump had long planned to pick him for AG, which means Gaetz has a thought out plan Trump likes. I haven't read up yet on what that plan is but I'm sure it will be