With his infamous thin skin, he would not survive that shine at Mirage a Loco without umbrellas and mounds of sun screen. Although the idea of sending him up there on one of Elon's rockets does have its appeal.
I don't know about in the US, but in the UK you can sometimes find in antique shops old chamber pots with pictures of Hitler in them. Sometimes if you are really lucky you can find one from the Peninsula Wars with Napoleon's face.
Pity we don't use them so much nowadays - although I understand you CAN get DJT toilet rolls. . .
Totally right- since he already considers himself the center of the universe. However, suns end up dense red dwarfs. Well, I guess that'll work, too. To describe him then.
I for one am willing to pony up for the flight for him to etch his name on the sun. He just needs to get really close to nail those letters on. What else are taxes for?
When we talk about the debt, both parties are only in favor of half measures. Democrats are convinced that simply raising taxes will get us to a balanced budget. Republicans are convinced that earned benefit reform and tax cuts are the only way to get to a balanced budget. Often times, for simplification, folks will talk about the federal spending in terms of a household budget. Do any of you know of a household that doesn’t look to increase revenue while also cutting expenses? I’m a pretty progressive fellow and this is my most conservative belief. If we DON’T change how social security and Medicare are paid out, not only will we not have changed the debt trajectory, the programs won’t be solvent by the time my 42 year old ass gets to use them.
Simple solution to SocSec solvency - kill the FICA limit. Means testing and benefit fade out would have to exclude the upper middle class to gain any traction.
Also start including people who live off capital and loans based on the value of their stocks. No one has ever explained why people who live off income from legal gambling in stocks don't have to pay the same taxes as the people who work for the companies named in those stocks.
I'm unconvinced that there is a practical and enforceable means of implementing a wealth tax. That said, capital gains should be taxed the same as wages and there should be a small transaction tax (say, 0.1%) on securities trading.
absolutely...but you have to remember that every dollar spent to ensure a minimum standard of living is $5 taken away from an oligarch...can't have that...
While I'm fine with killing the FICA limit, that won't come close to fixing the pending insolvency of Social Security. Only a small percentage of Americans hit the FICA limit.
by itself, eliminating the cap fixes 50% of the SSA shortfall according to the The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (https://www.crfb.org/about-us).
I would say partial fixes are a step in the right direction. We should look at nations whose social spending is high but national debt is low for more ideas. I am always frustrated that the US won’t look afield for solutions to problems not unique to us.
But those that do are taking millions out of the program every year. There are lots of people who make 200K. That's $1625 per year per person that would be added to SS just on that group of earners alone. If there a million 200K earners across the country that is $1.6 billion with a b that SS is not getting every year. From people who can very easily afford it.
Additonal stats. In 2024 approximately 10 million HHs made 200K or more. If we half that to account for dual income households that combine to make 200K that would still leave 5 million individuals that SS stops taxing at an arbitrary limit. That is insane to me, especially since it would seem to be a really easy political sell to say hey, maybe we should eliminate this tax gift to people who make way more than the average income so we can help keep an essential program solvent.
Whether solo or dual income HH, that $200k annual income is bare minimum to qualify for a median home in Los Angeles, so not to sound like Ezra Klein, these solutions don’t exist in silos.
There's a nifty calculator that shows basically balancing Social Security is doable just, you know, why would a congress person do something now that doesn't need to be addressed in the next 48 hours?
You can fix 68% of the SSA shortfall just by doing two things: (1) eliminate the current limit that caps the tax at the first $184,500 in earnings, so folks earning more than that continue to pay in and (2) keep the cap so that SSA payouts are only calculated up to the cap of $184,500.
This seems extremely sensible to me and goes a million miles to fixing the problem, but it runs into a purely political/philosophical problem where this makes SSA more progressive and more of a benefit program and less attached to getting out what you paid in for high income earners (i.e., it moves to expressly supporting lower income earners). Since its inception, Social Security has been marketed as "earned insurance," not a "welfare handout." This is why it is so popular across the political spectrum, because everyone feels they "bought in." If high earners pay hundreds of thousands of dollars into a system and see their benefits capped at a level that returns less relative to their contribution, they (and the politicians they fund) may begin to view the program as a wealth-redistribution scheme. Once it is viewed as "welfare," it becomes much easier for future congresses to cut or means-test further, potentially eroding the broad-based political protection the program currently enjoys.
BUT! It isn't like the math is hard to do. It's the politics that are hard to do.
I'm no expert, but it certainly seems to me that the lion's share of the problem is simply how expensive medical care can be combined with the following:
1) There are a bunch of truths that seem to be politically unpalatable to the point of being unspeakable to most everyone in America and which are barriers to dealing with this problem including a) that a very large amount of money is spent on the last 6 months of the lives of many people who live to older ages b) health care is ALWAYS rationed SOMEHOW it is not in fact possible to have a system which provides infinite care to everyone c) culturally America seems very very very uncomfortable with both death and aging compared to some other cultures in the world
2) We have one party that does want to talk about and try to manage the upsides and downsides of different health care systems and try to control the costs of procedures. They might have good ideas or bad idea, but they want to talk about it. Their one bedrock principle seems to be that we need to make sure everyone HAS health care or, barring that, our guiding principle ought to be as many people have similarly comprehensive coverage as possible.
3) At the same time we have another party who, as best I can tell, is kind of at war with itself about this topic but where a very common view boils down to a principle not plainly stated. That principle being "Poor people don't deserve anything because they're only poor because they're lazy. That's a moral failing and I don't want to be compelled through taxes to help immoral lazy people till they straighten up." Further there seems to be no interest in or thinking at all about how to control the costs of procedures.
Until one of more of these things changes we will keep on keeping on. I don't expect one of them to change until someone is forced to do so when the music stops, someone is left without a chair, and the pain of not changing is greater than staying the same. I just hope to God the one that changes is number 3.
It's really interesting on the r/medicine subreddit when American doctors talk about end of life care, and other global doctors are like "why are these terminal patients and their families even offered these choices that are so unlikely to have any benefit whatsoever".
I think it comes down to cultural fear of mortality/discomfort with aging, the medical culture fear of liability (you have to at least offer everypossible treatment), our general consumer mindset about medicine.
Why not how SS is paid in? There is a ceiling that many rich people hit in one day, and then do not pay into the system for the year. SS needs revenue for investments. Your payments do not last as long as you do when you start receiving them. More revenue allows for greater investments to keep up with payments being paid now. Drop the ceiling.
President Biden ramped up the IRS and $1.2b was recovered from tax cheats. According to what I have read, that is a start not an end to tax cheats. I’ve said this before, Ross Perot paid federal taxes of 8.?% on $15m. I paid a lot more on a fraction of my income. This was 1991, and his tax plan would further reduce his rate. This is not how progressive taxation should work. If Perot paid what I paid, he probably wouldn’t have known the difference, but I certainly would. This is just two of the many changes that could be enacted for true tax reform, but won’t because elected officials are wedded to “The trickle down effect,” and won’t give it up.
I wonder if at least this current IRS is interested in collecting on tax cheats. Paul Walczak was sentenced in April to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay over $4 million to the IRS after pleading guilty to tax crimes and agreeing to pay restitution to the IRS. His pardon came 12 days after sentencing, relieving him of paying that $4 million. Trump has a soft spot for crooks who score big.
In 1991 when I was 42 years old we were told Medicare and Social Security were doomed. There was a Libertarian Party candidate, Johnson, who in his 2012 presidential run wasn't concerned about global warming because the sun would go nova in a billion years. Communists are under the bed and don't worry be happy.
Meanwhile we have chosen a buffoon to lead us. We don't need sympathy or charity.
I have a close friend who worked on Johnson’s 2012 campaign. I saw him speak to all sorts of different constituencies- rich LA donors, pot legalization advocates, you name it. He always stayed on message re balanced budgets, and had the proof of the work he did as New Mexico Governor 1995-2003. What stood out to me is he actually stood for *something*.
When Johnson’s final term as Governor ended, New Mexico was one of only four states with both a budget surplus and a balanced budget, so I think it does him a disservice to be so dismissive about the rarity of the accomplishment in real time.
No governor can create money. That is a power of the federal government. Every state has to find a way to balance its budget. It is not a rare thing it is commonplace. On occasion severe economic downturns require all sorts of short term juggling. A thinly populated state like New Mexico without a diverse economy has a far easier task predicting what it's revenue stream and expenses will be. Simple solutions are attractive but are the stuff of fairy tales.
Johnson didn’t “create money”- his policies at the state level- which were well-defined and deliberate- not “simple”- led to the fruitful outcome. A good prescription for New Mexico’s demographics and state economy- not one size fits all.
If we want to change *any* of the "debt trajectory" of the country when it comes to tax-financed government programs, we might start by creating a tax code that doesn't allow Jeff Bezos to claim and receive a child tax credit in 2021:
One of the problems is that most of the very rich don't have any income or minimal income, as income is currently calculated for tax purposes.
They state various BS reasons for this being so, but the real reason is tax avoidance. It is also why a lot of corp executive pay/bonuses shifted into things like stock options.
Jeff Bezos salary for running Amazon is LESS than I make.
They also borrow money against their stock. Frankly, my thought is that, as soon as you borrow mony against that you have just realized its value, so you should pay taxes on that.
Changing that stuff is not going to wipe out the deficit, but it would come across as more just.
Yeah, that piece I linked to in The Conversation gave a pretty good brief overview of the low salary / no salary tax strategy employed by those wealthy enough to use it.
I think Bezos listed an income from salary of $81K or so, IIRC, while Zuckerberg was the lowest paid guy at Meta at only a $1 yearly salary. And I guess absolutely everyone at Tesla is better paid than Elon, since he reports $0 in salary.
When trying to wrap my mind around the meaning and scale of the kind of wealth the 900+ current American billionaires now possess and control and how they came by and maintain it, it pretty much comes down for me to the fact that any or all of them could lose 99% of that wealth overnight and still be "worth more" than I ever would be if I somehow managed to live and work to the age of 150. Or far longer, for that matter.
And my own job - or rather *jobs*; I was a skilled tradesman in tool and die both in and around the auto industry for nearly 5 decades, and they don't call guys like me a Journeyman for nothing - while not having made me anywhere near rich or wealthy did pay me enough to live a fairly decent all-around life for the most part while raising and college-educating three kids and giving them the best start in life that I could. All on a single income and, for a number of years, as a single parent.
And all done somehow without a "child tax credit". Although more than a few 90-to-100-hour work weeks were involved along the way. Which is what I hear a few billionaires clock from time to time in order to amass their wealth.
So, I do sort of feel for ol' Jeff. Must be pretty tough to raise a kid if you need that child tax credit to get by.
If we want better budget decisions, then we need to improve a process that is remarkably dysfunctional. The states could be a source of good ideas.
For example, in Washington state we have a biennial budget process, so the governor and legislature don't have to reinvent the wheel every year. The budgets are also easier to organize because they are broken down into operating, capital and transportation. In addition, pork-barrel proposals go through a vetting process to avoid funding a "bridge to nowhere." Revenue projections are made by a bipartisan committee, so no dueling forecasts from the executive and legislative branches. And to avoid the phenomenon of "Christmas treeing," all policy bills are allowed to have only one subject -- you can't shoehorn in unrelated stuff. There is also a freeze on accepting campaign donations during the legislative session.
I don't mean to suggest that process reforms like these could single-handedly solve the federal government's budget problems, but they could create more room for better decision making.
Speaking of Washington State do you recall Bobby Jindal? He pointed out the ridiculous federal expenditures re 'Volcano Monitoring'. Being from Louisiana volcanoes weren't on his radar - so to speak. Too many of the nincompoops who bloviate about waste and fraud have no ideas or knowledge just opinions.
Imagine a volcano swatting down aircraft like flies or flattening a forest, preposterous.
I don't know how we could change SS and Medicare without inducing suffering other than to stop giving it out to rich people, but they paid into the system too. And for some reason, we have to justify giving SS to people so they don't starve by saying they paid into the system.
I just wish they would stop calling SS an entitlement since we all pay into it our entire working lives. Speaking of lives, they don't call payouts from life insurance an entitlement.
I think people misunderstand the meaning of the word "entitlement." It means something to which you are entitled, ie you are owed, in this case because you paid in. Somewhere along the line that word came to mean "something that you get but you don't deserve." I don't know how we fix that, but the plain meaning of the word has been lost.
I looked into that because so many people feel that entitlement is not the correct word. When the SSA used that term when Social Security went live, it was because the government was entitled to pay. It did not mean us, it meant the government’s responsibility for the taxpayers. In the 1980’s when Reagan was President he started using that word to denigrate poor people who received relief - Welfare. They were the lazy, grifting people who were entitled to receive a handout from the working class. Then some brilliant person started using the term to denigrate those receiving SS benefits as a wedge to end the program. Republicans hate Social Security.
In our current political climate there would be no SSA or Medicare. Indeed republicans are eager to eliminate both and would do so in a heartbeat if they thought they could get away with it. What they will do is obstruct and delay any real solution to questions like this and immigration in order to generate votes. Witness Obamacare subsidies. Our current deficit took off under GW Bush as a combination of tax cuts and creative bookkeeping re the war over 9-11.
The idea that every man is an island is analogous to childless people objecting to education and birth related medical expenses as part of their taxation/cost burden.
There are islands and remote places and no doubt some long for a life on Mars. Those of us who do enjoy being human and the company of other humans wish them bon voyage.
We have to contend with the fact that Americans live much longer now than when Social Security was enacted. And when you add that there are fewer workers per beneficiary now than back then, we have to examine when people start collecting benefits.
Al Gore spoke about that when he was running for president. The Republicans either laughed at his plans or ignored them. They were too busy “Swift boating” him to care.
The programs people pay into ARE NOT THE Problem...giving billions away to the 1% are the biggest reason is the debt balloons...when the average working person is paying a hirer tax rate than the individual buying the whores under the Capitol dome, that is where the core of the problem...Kristol is part of the people who supported Grover Norquist's crusade to kill the government...
I think if we had a much more progressive tax system and used the money to invest wisely - for example in children, and safe neighborhoods that give them a great start in life - we'd be a long way in that direction. Would be great to see the numbers, but I do recall an interview where someone said if we will simply collected all the taxes people owe, it would bring in $x. And if we wanted to bring everyone in America above the poverty line, the amount is.... Also $x. This is not as hard as our current politics makes it seem.
The classic Newt Gingrich/Paul Ryan GOP fiscal conservative leadership and big donors like the Koch brothers never wanted to fix social security, which would have been easy if they started now 10 or 15 years ago (the farther back, the easier) and is still doable today. They don't really believe in any kind of social safety net (except for their wealthy friends and donors). They want people to be forced to work at suppressed wages until they drop dead, or at least until they are 80. Nor do they want to take the political heat of the any changes. Most importantly, they know if they don't fix Social Security, and the trust fund runs out, there's an immediate 20 percent cut in benefits across the board. So they get to cut the benefits without any blame. They can have their cake and eat it too.
(I think 20 percent is the number but it might be slightly different.)
Simple beginning of a solution: End the “cap” on earnings taxed by Social Security. Why should a “normal”, “average” American see their entire annual earnings (6.2% - up to $176K per year) fully taxed at 6.9% but a person who earns $1 Million only subject to such tax on the first $176 K? Eliminate such a cap, or, more generously to the poor shmuck making “only” $1 million Be subjected to some form of ‘sliding scale’. EX: full 6.2% on the first million, followed by 5% on the next $10 Million, 4% on the next $50 Million, etc. etc. I would argue the millionaire class should actually be subject to an INCREASED scale as opposed to a Decreased scale, but thats just me.
I wish all airports were simply named after their location. I live in Orange County and the airport, named John Wayne, is in Santa Ana. How many people know or care who John Wayne is anymore?
I know far too much useless trivia, but this fact is tangentially related to your comment. The name of the Seattle-Tacoma airport was shortened, either officially or by common use, to Seatac. The area around the airport incorporated into a city named Seatac.
Weird how decades of coddling degenerate, cruel, sex offending, rich guys, didn’t turn out better. Ya know, how could anybody have known?
IMHO, Epstein files will not be released, an excuse will be made.
As to Trump becoming Caligula…..he always was, it’s just he never had the support of a political party (that has always pretended to give a shit about values but never really did) in his pocket.
Funny, somehow I still keep hearing about how men aren't allowed to look at women in the workplace without being reported to HR. And yet centering their complaints and worries didn't cut down on sex crimes?
Oh, now you want to trust people to self-report their gender? No, we post genital inspectors to make sure you are using the proper room. The Donald J. Trump Throne Inspectors.
Time to remember that under Reagan, the national debt at that time - tripled! Yes - tripled. Most of that was directly due to the huge lowering of taxes during his administration - on the higher earners. Later Clinton actually balanced the budget and left a surplus for GW Bush - who quickly spent it and more and -again - hugely increased the national debt while also lowering taxes on the very rich. It does seem obvious that while certainly, spending - especially on defense - should be better controlled, the debt can only be materially addressed by raising taxes - including estate taxes.
Good morning! I hope you are all enjoying your holidays. Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and I look forward to the days getting longer.
I suspect the New York Times' announcement on David Brooks being in the Epstein photos will be the template going forward. "He never spoke to anyone while he was there. In fact, we taped his mouth shut and he wore a blindfold. As a newspaper, we have never heard of this Jeff Epstein guy, but we are sure his business associates are totally above board, especially the business associates who are also somehow our reporters. Who we employ because they are blind, deaf, and dumb. We will not be taking questions at this time. Thank you for your attention to this matter."
Anyway, I love everything Bill has to say on the subject of Epstein. So this is a very minor quibble, but when you say "We can seek to honor the survivors by coming to grips, honestly and forthrightly, with what Epstein did. We can seek to build a more decent society by coming to grips, honestly and forthrightly, with the fact that we let him get away with it." I must remind you that the chances of several of your readers being victims of sexual assault as children is very, very, very high. "We" let him get away with it overlooks that "we" includes victims. The FBI let him get away with it. The Florida courts let him get away with it. Victims of child rape, not so much.
John Brockman is a literary agent that used to have conferences kinda tired to the TED Talk calendar. He sponsored dinners funded by Epstein that included scientists, public intellectuals, entrepreneurs, etc., ya know the "smart" people. So many of them have never been asked about their participation.....
It's reported by the Guardian. I should be a good person and provide the Times' actual quote to offset my GenX sarcasm:
“As a journalist, David Brooks regularly attends events to speak with noted and important business leaders to inform his columns, which is exactly what happened at this 2011 event,” a Times spokeswoman said. “Mr Brooks had no contact with him before or after this single attendance at a widely-attended dinner.”
As someone pointed out, Brooks should have mentioned the extent of his participation IN HIS ARTICLE, in keeping with journalistic standards. Also, IIRC, this was after one of Epstein's trials, when it was already public knowledge that he was a pedophile. And you have to ask yourself: how many of his guests were, too? I think the Times is still being slightly disingenuous.
Everyone I know, now inserts a "Donald J Trump" (or DJT) ahead of anyone's name prior to saying it and it is used as a precursor to any notable event, signatory reference, or day/date/time (ie: "Good Morning DJT Bob! How are you on this fine Trump day?").
Bill, the reason they are dodging Epstein, is because they KNOW the kinds of people that are in there. CEOs, tycoons, Heads of State. They KNOW what shit storm is there should all of the details really come to light. Epstein is an indictment of America and the "leaders" around us. It shows just how ineffective America has been in policing its own. The more I look back on the last 50 years, the more I realize that America gave up on being exceptional. It gave up on being accountable for actions. We decided that we were special. That we didn't do the horrible and fucked up things that we know were happening.
We are nothing to the billionaire class. We are mere playthings for them. Vessels to service their desires and vassals to provide labor. You can see it in how we address healthcare, housing, incarceration, and on and on. We have to stop playing with kid gloves with the true enemies of the American people - the billionaires, CEOs, and other tycoons that envision themselves as more worthy of living than you or I. We have to put them in check. If we don't we are entering the age of tech feudalism. If you want to see how that looks in 50 years, play Cyberpunk 2077 and see what it is like when the world is governed by militaristic corporations.
"Much of this is taking place at the White House itself, which Trump is busy tricking out as his own personal palace/man cave, paving over the Rose Garden to make himself a Mar-a-Lago-style patio and knocking down the East Wing to build himself a ballroom. This week, the president amused himself by installing trollish plaques beneath a row of presidential portraits at the residence, sketching out a brief narrative that reads all of U.S. history as mere prelude to the capstone project of his reign. (Sample text: President Andrew Jackson “was unjustifiably treated unfairly by the Press, but not as viciously and unfairly and President Abraham Lincoln and President Donald J. Trump would, in the future, be.”)"
"Trollish plaques"... can you imagine ANY American president do something SO simultaneously ridiculous and immoral?
What these plaques, in The Donald's HALL OF INFAME, write about Presidents Biden and Obama ("highly unpopular"... when Obama's approval rating today is STILL twice Trump's approval rating) is such an ERASURE of AMERICAN CIVILIZATION that it's just incomprehensible how the GOP indulges in it all.
Those stupid bronzed Truth Social bleats need to not only be removed by the next president but immediately melted down, as well. That's assuming DJT doesn't take them with him to install in whatever presidential library embarrassment he ends up building for himself.
The hyper-rococo ultra-wide gold frames around the portraits and the gold swooshy shapes above them manage to be MORE offensive than the trolling on the plaques.
It is funny though that Trump couldn't get his whole dis of Biden on the blank plates they'd ordered, and instead of just getting a bigger plaque, they added a second plaque below, like a page jump in a newspaper.
I'm honestly surprised they came up with a name so reminiscent of "Walk of Shame," which is what it is now. Malicious compliance, or lack of self-awareness?
Caligula looks like a Platonic Philosopher King next to Trump.
I think this is the thing, right here:
>> "These renamings are also just the latest assertion of a particular kind of presidential authority over truth itself"
For all the talk among conservatives about fighting "postmodern" ideology, there is no more Postmodern president than Trump. Not because Trump embraces pluralism of course, but because he treats truth as performative rather than epistemic.
Trump’s relationship to truth is not about justification or belief. For Trump, truth comes into being through repetition and dominance. Hannah Arendt called this the 'defactualization of reality.' The attack on the shared factual ground necessary for a healthy, productive politics.
Trump shows us that life is but a dream, or maybe, a nightmare.
Correct, except doesn’t a lot of this comes from the fact he has never had to take responsibility for anything in his life. Trump has never personally had to adjust his views to reality, but those around him have always adjusted to him. He has been extraordinarily lucky and those who could have held him to account treated him far too leniently. For the party which used to talk abbot personal responsibility, they’ve been happy to embrace the liberation of having none.
It does seem though as if the sway of gravity is starting to hold when it comes to the economy and affordability. He hasn’t been able to control the narrative in this arena, and he is flailing to come up with a coherent response.
They did promise us a return to the past but never explained the past included fewer material goods which it did, at least for the plebes. Of course with Trump his background is in television a world where reality has always been the performance. They are now saying the economy will turn around next year, but they’ve invested very little on selling a utopian future to explain the austerity of the present. Regimes such as the Soviets and Nazis were better at articulating a utopian future than this administration, but they were actively selling the future not the past.
Old enough to remember the Ron Suskind essay in NYT Mag Oct 17, 2004, with the infamous quote from an anonymous senior Bush official (widely believed to be Rove, tho he has vehemently denied it), that guys like Suskind “lived in what we call the reality-based community. That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality”.
I am very disappointed with Bernie. Sacrificing the doable for the perfect is a brain dead political strategy and in this case it's also cruel. This is the opposite of John McCain's thumbs down move to save ACA. Nice way to devalue your legacy Bernie.
Finally! The reason for Trumps relentless harassment of Venezuela and Madura makes perfect sense. Trump wants the f***ing Nobel Prize offered by Maduro’s adversary. He’ll get that Peace prize, no matter how many people he has to kill to get it!
Something I'd like to see with his name on it: the section of CECOT where Trump's cell will be located.
With his infamous thin skin, he would not survive that shine at Mirage a Loco without umbrellas and mounds of sun screen. Although the idea of sending him up there on one of Elon's rockets does have its appeal.
Now THAT I can support 100%
If I had a farm, I would build an outhouse on it and put Donald J. Trump Memorial Outhouse in cheap plastic letters on it.
All outhouses should be renamed the Trump. Take a dump at the Trump.
After he does the mortal coil shuffle they better keep the location of his grave secret. It would become the biggest privy pit ever.
I would expect him to wish to be buried at Arlington - Ugh. Unless his wife decides to toss his ashes on a golf course.
Omg! Not Arlington
Maybe in NJ next to his deceased wife Ivana.
Actually I think I would install that plaque at the bottom of the out house pit and see how good my pooping aim was.
I don't know about in the US, but in the UK you can sometimes find in antique shops old chamber pots with pictures of Hitler in them. Sometimes if you are really lucky you can find one from the Peninsula Wars with Napoleon's face.
Pity we don't use them so much nowadays - although I understand you CAN get DJT toilet rolls. . .
I suspect a lot of people are already doing that, or have plans to do it. And posting it to Instagram.
The Trump wing of Guantanamo Bay, where he and his cronies will be locked up.
You gave him another idea to rename something close to the dearless leader's heart.
Also...the moon is only a satellite, let's rename the sun after him. it's already the right color.
But... The Sun revolves around galactic central point! Let's go all the way and name that the "Trump Black Hole"!
Quite appropriate since everything Trump touches dies.
Tell him his name is already on it and watch him stare to try and see.
Good one...
And he is our Sun King.
And if you're a star they let you do it
And give him a free trip to the sun!
and he may just be a modern-day Icarus, after all
Except the heat would make his makeup run.
Totally right- since he already considers himself the center of the universe. However, suns end up dense red dwarfs. Well, I guess that'll work, too. To describe him then.
I for one am willing to pony up for the flight for him to etch his name on the sun. He just needs to get really close to nail those letters on. What else are taxes for?
When we talk about the debt, both parties are only in favor of half measures. Democrats are convinced that simply raising taxes will get us to a balanced budget. Republicans are convinced that earned benefit reform and tax cuts are the only way to get to a balanced budget. Often times, for simplification, folks will talk about the federal spending in terms of a household budget. Do any of you know of a household that doesn’t look to increase revenue while also cutting expenses? I’m a pretty progressive fellow and this is my most conservative belief. If we DON’T change how social security and Medicare are paid out, not only will we not have changed the debt trajectory, the programs won’t be solvent by the time my 42 year old ass gets to use them.
Simple solution to SocSec solvency - kill the FICA limit. Means testing and benefit fade out would have to exclude the upper middle class to gain any traction.
Also start including people who live off capital and loans based on the value of their stocks. No one has ever explained why people who live off income from legal gambling in stocks don't have to pay the same taxes as the people who work for the companies named in those stocks.
I'm unconvinced that there is a practical and enforceable means of implementing a wealth tax. That said, capital gains should be taxed the same as wages and there should be a small transaction tax (say, 0.1%) on securities trading.
I've been saying this for years. There should be no upper limit on SS taxed wages.
absolutely...but you have to remember that every dollar spent to ensure a minimum standard of living is $5 taken away from an oligarch...can't have that...
While I'm fine with killing the FICA limit, that won't come close to fixing the pending insolvency of Social Security. Only a small percentage of Americans hit the FICA limit.
by itself, eliminating the cap fixes 50% of the SSA shortfall according to the The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (https://www.crfb.org/about-us).
I would say partial fixes are a step in the right direction. We should look at nations whose social spending is high but national debt is low for more ideas. I am always frustrated that the US won’t look afield for solutions to problems not unique to us.
But those that do are taking millions out of the program every year. There are lots of people who make 200K. That's $1625 per year per person that would be added to SS just on that group of earners alone. If there a million 200K earners across the country that is $1.6 billion with a b that SS is not getting every year. From people who can very easily afford it.
Additonal stats. In 2024 approximately 10 million HHs made 200K or more. If we half that to account for dual income households that combine to make 200K that would still leave 5 million individuals that SS stops taxing at an arbitrary limit. That is insane to me, especially since it would seem to be a really easy political sell to say hey, maybe we should eliminate this tax gift to people who make way more than the average income so we can help keep an essential program solvent.
Whether solo or dual income HH, that $200k annual income is bare minimum to qualify for a median home in Los Angeles, so not to sound like Ezra Klein, these solutions don’t exist in silos.
Since current withholding goes to current recipients , a FICA fix should kick in very quickly .
There's a nifty calculator that shows basically balancing Social Security is doable just, you know, why would a congress person do something now that doesn't need to be addressed in the next 48 hours?
https://www.crfb.org/socialsecurityreformer/
You can fix 68% of the SSA shortfall just by doing two things: (1) eliminate the current limit that caps the tax at the first $184,500 in earnings, so folks earning more than that continue to pay in and (2) keep the cap so that SSA payouts are only calculated up to the cap of $184,500.
This seems extremely sensible to me and goes a million miles to fixing the problem, but it runs into a purely political/philosophical problem where this makes SSA more progressive and more of a benefit program and less attached to getting out what you paid in for high income earners (i.e., it moves to expressly supporting lower income earners). Since its inception, Social Security has been marketed as "earned insurance," not a "welfare handout." This is why it is so popular across the political spectrum, because everyone feels they "bought in." If high earners pay hundreds of thousands of dollars into a system and see their benefits capped at a level that returns less relative to their contribution, they (and the politicians they fund) may begin to view the program as a wealth-redistribution scheme. Once it is viewed as "welfare," it becomes much easier for future congresses to cut or means-test further, potentially eroding the broad-based political protection the program currently enjoys.
BUT! It isn't like the math is hard to do. It's the politics that are hard to do.
For an administration that thinks it will reduce pharmaceutical prices 700%, math could be hard to do.
I'm no expert, but it certainly seems to me that the lion's share of the problem is simply how expensive medical care can be combined with the following:
1) There are a bunch of truths that seem to be politically unpalatable to the point of being unspeakable to most everyone in America and which are barriers to dealing with this problem including a) that a very large amount of money is spent on the last 6 months of the lives of many people who live to older ages b) health care is ALWAYS rationed SOMEHOW it is not in fact possible to have a system which provides infinite care to everyone c) culturally America seems very very very uncomfortable with both death and aging compared to some other cultures in the world
2) We have one party that does want to talk about and try to manage the upsides and downsides of different health care systems and try to control the costs of procedures. They might have good ideas or bad idea, but they want to talk about it. Their one bedrock principle seems to be that we need to make sure everyone HAS health care or, barring that, our guiding principle ought to be as many people have similarly comprehensive coverage as possible.
3) At the same time we have another party who, as best I can tell, is kind of at war with itself about this topic but where a very common view boils down to a principle not plainly stated. That principle being "Poor people don't deserve anything because they're only poor because they're lazy. That's a moral failing and I don't want to be compelled through taxes to help immoral lazy people till they straighten up." Further there seems to be no interest in or thinking at all about how to control the costs of procedures.
Until one of more of these things changes we will keep on keeping on. I don't expect one of them to change until someone is forced to do so when the music stops, someone is left without a chair, and the pain of not changing is greater than staying the same. I just hope to God the one that changes is number 3.
It's really interesting on the r/medicine subreddit when American doctors talk about end of life care, and other global doctors are like "why are these terminal patients and their families even offered these choices that are so unlikely to have any benefit whatsoever".
I think it comes down to cultural fear of mortality/discomfort with aging, the medical culture fear of liability (you have to at least offer everypossible treatment), our general consumer mindset about medicine.
Why not how SS is paid in? There is a ceiling that many rich people hit in one day, and then do not pay into the system for the year. SS needs revenue for investments. Your payments do not last as long as you do when you start receiving them. More revenue allows for greater investments to keep up with payments being paid now. Drop the ceiling.
President Biden ramped up the IRS and $1.2b was recovered from tax cheats. According to what I have read, that is a start not an end to tax cheats. I’ve said this before, Ross Perot paid federal taxes of 8.?% on $15m. I paid a lot more on a fraction of my income. This was 1991, and his tax plan would further reduce his rate. This is not how progressive taxation should work. If Perot paid what I paid, he probably wouldn’t have known the difference, but I certainly would. This is just two of the many changes that could be enacted for true tax reform, but won’t because elected officials are wedded to “The trickle down effect,” and won’t give it up.
I wonder if at least this current IRS is interested in collecting on tax cheats. Paul Walczak was sentenced in April to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay over $4 million to the IRS after pleading guilty to tax crimes and agreeing to pay restitution to the IRS. His pardon came 12 days after sentencing, relieving him of paying that $4 million. Trump has a soft spot for crooks who score big.
"The trickle-down effect" is when elected officials are pissing on our collective boots while telling us it's just a passing rain shower.
You got that one right!
What trick/les down from the Republican tax cuts are the toilets from the C-suites and the penthouses on the workers and peasants below.
In 1991 when I was 42 years old we were told Medicare and Social Security were doomed. There was a Libertarian Party candidate, Johnson, who in his 2012 presidential run wasn't concerned about global warming because the sun would go nova in a billion years. Communists are under the bed and don't worry be happy.
Meanwhile we have chosen a buffoon to lead us. We don't need sympathy or charity.
We need courage not platitudes.
The federal debt in 1991 was less than $4T.
And we had three straight years of a budget surplus in the late 99, 2000, 2001.
I have a close friend who worked on Johnson’s 2012 campaign. I saw him speak to all sorts of different constituencies- rich LA donors, pot legalization advocates, you name it. He always stayed on message re balanced budgets, and had the proof of the work he did as New Mexico Governor 1995-2003. What stood out to me is he actually stood for *something*.
All governors' run balanced budgets.
Most plan on tighter schedules than billions of years.
We currently have a politician who stands for 'something'-himself.
When Johnson’s final term as Governor ended, New Mexico was one of only four states with both a budget surplus and a balanced budget, so I think it does him a disservice to be so dismissive about the rarity of the accomplishment in real time.
No governor can create money. That is a power of the federal government. Every state has to find a way to balance its budget. It is not a rare thing it is commonplace. On occasion severe economic downturns require all sorts of short term juggling. A thinly populated state like New Mexico without a diverse economy has a far easier task predicting what it's revenue stream and expenses will be. Simple solutions are attractive but are the stuff of fairy tales.
Johnson didn’t “create money”- his policies at the state level- which were well-defined and deliberate- not “simple”- led to the fruitful outcome. A good prescription for New Mexico’s demographics and state economy- not one size fits all.
If we want to change *any* of the "debt trajectory" of the country when it comes to tax-financed government programs, we might start by creating a tax code that doesn't allow Jeff Bezos to claim and receive a child tax credit in 2021:
https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-claimed-tax-credit-for-children-propublica-2021-6
Another brief read on the fundamental unfairness and absurdity of our tax code...
https://theconversation.com/billionaires-with-1-salaries-and-other-legal-tax-dodges-the-ultrawealthy-use-to-keep-their-riches-271714
And if you really want to raise your blood pressure, take a deeper dive...
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax
One of the problems is that most of the very rich don't have any income or minimal income, as income is currently calculated for tax purposes.
They state various BS reasons for this being so, but the real reason is tax avoidance. It is also why a lot of corp executive pay/bonuses shifted into things like stock options.
Jeff Bezos salary for running Amazon is LESS than I make.
They also borrow money against their stock. Frankly, my thought is that, as soon as you borrow mony against that you have just realized its value, so you should pay taxes on that.
Changing that stuff is not going to wipe out the deficit, but it would come across as more just.
Stock options are taxed when exercised. It's the loans against the value of those stocks that makes the loophole.
Yeah, that piece I linked to in The Conversation gave a pretty good brief overview of the low salary / no salary tax strategy employed by those wealthy enough to use it.
I think Bezos listed an income from salary of $81K or so, IIRC, while Zuckerberg was the lowest paid guy at Meta at only a $1 yearly salary. And I guess absolutely everyone at Tesla is better paid than Elon, since he reports $0 in salary.
When trying to wrap my mind around the meaning and scale of the kind of wealth the 900+ current American billionaires now possess and control and how they came by and maintain it, it pretty much comes down for me to the fact that any or all of them could lose 99% of that wealth overnight and still be "worth more" than I ever would be if I somehow managed to live and work to the age of 150. Or far longer, for that matter.
And my own job - or rather *jobs*; I was a skilled tradesman in tool and die both in and around the auto industry for nearly 5 decades, and they don't call guys like me a Journeyman for nothing - while not having made me anywhere near rich or wealthy did pay me enough to live a fairly decent all-around life for the most part while raising and college-educating three kids and giving them the best start in life that I could. All on a single income and, for a number of years, as a single parent.
And all done somehow without a "child tax credit". Although more than a few 90-to-100-hour work weeks were involved along the way. Which is what I hear a few billionaires clock from time to time in order to amass their wealth.
So, I do sort of feel for ol' Jeff. Must be pretty tough to raise a kid if you need that child tax credit to get by.
Then there's the one Trump return we've had a peek at--the year he paid $700-something in taxes... .
Wealthy people like the US. For example the Canadian tax code doesn’t have as many loopholes for the rich. Some move to the US just for this.
If we want better budget decisions, then we need to improve a process that is remarkably dysfunctional. The states could be a source of good ideas.
For example, in Washington state we have a biennial budget process, so the governor and legislature don't have to reinvent the wheel every year. The budgets are also easier to organize because they are broken down into operating, capital and transportation. In addition, pork-barrel proposals go through a vetting process to avoid funding a "bridge to nowhere." Revenue projections are made by a bipartisan committee, so no dueling forecasts from the executive and legislative branches. And to avoid the phenomenon of "Christmas treeing," all policy bills are allowed to have only one subject -- you can't shoehorn in unrelated stuff. There is also a freeze on accepting campaign donations during the legislative session.
I don't mean to suggest that process reforms like these could single-handedly solve the federal government's budget problems, but they could create more room for better decision making.
Speaking of Washington State do you recall Bobby Jindal? He pointed out the ridiculous federal expenditures re 'Volcano Monitoring'. Being from Louisiana volcanoes weren't on his radar - so to speak. Too many of the nincompoops who bloviate about waste and fraud have no ideas or knowledge just opinions.
Imagine a volcano swatting down aircraft like flies or flattening a forest, preposterous.
We knew this time was coming, when the baby boomers are retiring (don't worry, most are done), one of the largest generations to receive SS.
I agree with Karl, raise the income limit, WAY UP. It's currently $176K.
Eliminate the cap altogether.
I don't know how we could change SS and Medicare without inducing suffering other than to stop giving it out to rich people, but they paid into the system too. And for some reason, we have to justify giving SS to people so they don't starve by saying they paid into the system.
I just wish they would stop calling SS an entitlement since we all pay into it our entire working lives. Speaking of lives, they don't call payouts from life insurance an entitlement.
I think people misunderstand the meaning of the word "entitlement." It means something to which you are entitled, ie you are owed, in this case because you paid in. Somewhere along the line that word came to mean "something that you get but you don't deserve." I don't know how we fix that, but the plain meaning of the word has been lost.
I looked into that because so many people feel that entitlement is not the correct word. When the SSA used that term when Social Security went live, it was because the government was entitled to pay. It did not mean us, it meant the government’s responsibility for the taxpayers. In the 1980’s when Reagan was President he started using that word to denigrate poor people who received relief - Welfare. They were the lazy, grifting people who were entitled to receive a handout from the working class. Then some brilliant person started using the term to denigrate those receiving SS benefits as a wedge to end the program. Republicans hate Social Security.
Live insurance requires dying. If that be an entitlement, I'll have none of it.
In our current political climate there would be no SSA or Medicare. Indeed republicans are eager to eliminate both and would do so in a heartbeat if they thought they could get away with it. What they will do is obstruct and delay any real solution to questions like this and immigration in order to generate votes. Witness Obamacare subsidies. Our current deficit took off under GW Bush as a combination of tax cuts and creative bookkeeping re the war over 9-11.
The idea that every man is an island is analogous to childless people objecting to education and birth related medical expenses as part of their taxation/cost burden.
There are islands and remote places and no doubt some long for a life on Mars. Those of us who do enjoy being human and the company of other humans wish them bon voyage.
We have to contend with the fact that Americans live much longer now than when Social Security was enacted. And when you add that there are fewer workers per beneficiary now than back then, we have to examine when people start collecting benefits.
Al Gore spoke about that when he was running for president. The Republicans either laughed at his plans or ignored them. They were too busy “Swift boating” him to care.
The programs people pay into ARE NOT THE Problem...giving billions away to the 1% are the biggest reason is the debt balloons...when the average working person is paying a hirer tax rate than the individual buying the whores under the Capitol dome, that is where the core of the problem...Kristol is part of the people who supported Grover Norquist's crusade to kill the government...
Whichever list of industrialized countries you consult, US taxpayers are near the bottom in effective overall taxation.
I think if we had a much more progressive tax system and used the money to invest wisely - for example in children, and safe neighborhoods that give them a great start in life - we'd be a long way in that direction. Would be great to see the numbers, but I do recall an interview where someone said if we will simply collected all the taxes people owe, it would bring in $x. And if we wanted to bring everyone in America above the poverty line, the amount is.... Also $x. This is not as hard as our current politics makes it seem.
The classic Newt Gingrich/Paul Ryan GOP fiscal conservative leadership and big donors like the Koch brothers never wanted to fix social security, which would have been easy if they started now 10 or 15 years ago (the farther back, the easier) and is still doable today. They don't really believe in any kind of social safety net (except for their wealthy friends and donors). They want people to be forced to work at suppressed wages until they drop dead, or at least until they are 80. Nor do they want to take the political heat of the any changes. Most importantly, they know if they don't fix Social Security, and the trust fund runs out, there's an immediate 20 percent cut in benefits across the board. So they get to cut the benefits without any blame. They can have their cake and eat it too.
(I think 20 percent is the number but it might be slightly different.)
We need a third party demagogue like Ross Perot to make the issue salient.
Simple beginning of a solution: End the “cap” on earnings taxed by Social Security. Why should a “normal”, “average” American see their entire annual earnings (6.2% - up to $176K per year) fully taxed at 6.9% but a person who earns $1 Million only subject to such tax on the first $176 K? Eliminate such a cap, or, more generously to the poor shmuck making “only” $1 million Be subjected to some form of ‘sliding scale’. EX: full 6.2% on the first million, followed by 5% on the next $10 Million, 4% on the next $50 Million, etc. etc. I would argue the millionaire class should actually be subject to an INCREASED scale as opposed to a Decreased scale, but thats just me.
I'm still ticked about National Airport being renamed for the guy who fired the air traffic controllers.
I wish all airports were simply named after their location. I live in Orange County and the airport, named John Wayne, is in Santa Ana. How many people know or care who John Wayne is anymore?
Because of a stopover, I once flew from Reagan to John Wayne. I was sick fora week.
😄
I know far too much useless trivia, but this fact is tangentially related to your comment. The name of the Seattle-Tacoma airport was shortened, either officially or by common use, to Seatac. The area around the airport incorporated into a city named Seatac.
Same.
Weird how decades of coddling degenerate, cruel, sex offending, rich guys, didn’t turn out better. Ya know, how could anybody have known?
IMHO, Epstein files will not be released, an excuse will be made.
As to Trump becoming Caligula…..he always was, it’s just he never had the support of a political party (that has always pretended to give a shit about values but never really did) in his pocket.
As JVL says, good luck America.
Funny, somehow I still keep hearing about how men aren't allowed to look at women in the workplace without being reported to HR. And yet centering their complaints and worries didn't cut down on sex crimes?
Anyone else remember what happened to Caligula? Not pretty.
The files might be released but heavily redacted.
As a long time student of Roman history, I think he resembles Nero more than Caligula.
Can we rename all the rest rooms in D.C. the Donalad J Trump Throne room?
You do mean to limit that to Mens' Rooms, right?
Just to the urinals.
But, it is to be the Throne room....
Oh, now you want to trust people to self-report their gender? No, we post genital inspectors to make sure you are using the proper room. The Donald J. Trump Throne Inspectors.
Only Epstein class graduates need apply?
Now that we no longer have “transgender for everybody”, that problem has been solved.
Isn't that Nancy Mace's job?
No Trans allowed
The fact that women might expect privacy hasn't stopped him before. See: Miss USA 2001.
Time to remember that under Reagan, the national debt at that time - tripled! Yes - tripled. Most of that was directly due to the huge lowering of taxes during his administration - on the higher earners. Later Clinton actually balanced the budget and left a surplus for GW Bush - who quickly spent it and more and -again - hugely increased the national debt while also lowering taxes on the very rich. It does seem obvious that while certainly, spending - especially on defense - should be better controlled, the debt can only be materially addressed by raising taxes - including estate taxes.
Well, and putting Afghanistan and Iraq on the credit card
The NYT had a detailed article on everything in the Big Ugly Bill.
The tax cuts cost more than everything else put together.
Good morning! I hope you are all enjoying your holidays. Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and I look forward to the days getting longer.
I suspect the New York Times' announcement on David Brooks being in the Epstein photos will be the template going forward. "He never spoke to anyone while he was there. In fact, we taped his mouth shut and he wore a blindfold. As a newspaper, we have never heard of this Jeff Epstein guy, but we are sure his business associates are totally above board, especially the business associates who are also somehow our reporters. Who we employ because they are blind, deaf, and dumb. We will not be taking questions at this time. Thank you for your attention to this matter."
Anyway, I love everything Bill has to say on the subject of Epstein. So this is a very minor quibble, but when you say "We can seek to honor the survivors by coming to grips, honestly and forthrightly, with what Epstein did. We can seek to build a more decent society by coming to grips, honestly and forthrightly, with the fact that we let him get away with it." I must remind you that the chances of several of your readers being victims of sexual assault as children is very, very, very high. "We" let him get away with it overlooks that "we" includes victims. The FBI let him get away with it. The Florida courts let him get away with it. Victims of child rape, not so much.
John Brockman is a literary agent that used to have conferences kinda tired to the TED Talk calendar. He sponsored dinners funded by Epstein that included scientists, public intellectuals, entrepreneurs, etc., ya know the "smart" people. So many of them have never been asked about their participation.....
You know, I wrote about Brooks here: https://sweatyspice.com/tfg-david-fucking-brooks/
Seems totally like I should have said he was in it instead of being inconvenienced by people in his social strata being dogged by the affaire.
(I just searched the NY Times and couldn't find their mea culpa, are they burying it already?)
It's reported by the Guardian. I should be a good person and provide the Times' actual quote to offset my GenX sarcasm:
“As a journalist, David Brooks regularly attends events to speak with noted and important business leaders to inform his columns, which is exactly what happened at this 2011 event,” a Times spokeswoman said. “Mr Brooks had no contact with him before or after this single attendance at a widely-attended dinner.”
As someone pointed out, Brooks should have mentioned the extent of his participation IN HIS ARTICLE, in keeping with journalistic standards. Also, IIRC, this was after one of Epstein's trials, when it was already public knowledge that he was a pedophile. And you have to ask yourself: how many of his guests were, too? I think the Times is still being slightly disingenuous.
Ah, thanks. I suspect the Times is going to try to memory hole this in true Orwell fashion. George Winston will be hard at work.
Why not? David Brooks has managed to memory hole his entire career. He pretends that everything he did and said before 2016 never happened.
You know, you're right!
The Kennedy Center was originally named in the aftermath of JFK's assassination through a law passed by Congress. How quaint.
Is that “Congress” thing you mentioned something new? I’m not familiar with it.
I want to see somebody with the power and the courage to announce the formation of the Trump-Epstein Center for the Study of Sexual Deviance
Trump’s name is already up on the building, NYT just reported.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/12/19/us/trump-news
Hopefully he lives long enough to see us rip it off.
Definitely.
Everyone I know, now inserts a "Donald J Trump" (or DJT) ahead of anyone's name prior to saying it and it is used as a precursor to any notable event, signatory reference, or day/date/time (ie: "Good Morning DJT Bob! How are you on this fine Trump day?").
PLease, don't give him any new ideas. I swear he would like this bigly
"Under Donald's eye."
Why can't he just be happy with making bigly a thing?
You know some weird people.
I think there’s a joke in there.
Bill, the reason they are dodging Epstein, is because they KNOW the kinds of people that are in there. CEOs, tycoons, Heads of State. They KNOW what shit storm is there should all of the details really come to light. Epstein is an indictment of America and the "leaders" around us. It shows just how ineffective America has been in policing its own. The more I look back on the last 50 years, the more I realize that America gave up on being exceptional. It gave up on being accountable for actions. We decided that we were special. That we didn't do the horrible and fucked up things that we know were happening.
We are nothing to the billionaire class. We are mere playthings for them. Vessels to service their desires and vassals to provide labor. You can see it in how we address healthcare, housing, incarceration, and on and on. We have to stop playing with kid gloves with the true enemies of the American people - the billionaires, CEOs, and other tycoons that envision themselves as more worthy of living than you or I. We have to put them in check. If we don't we are entering the age of tech feudalism. If you want to see how that looks in 50 years, play Cyberpunk 2077 and see what it is like when the world is governed by militaristic corporations.
"Much of this is taking place at the White House itself, which Trump is busy tricking out as his own personal palace/man cave, paving over the Rose Garden to make himself a Mar-a-Lago-style patio and knocking down the East Wing to build himself a ballroom. This week, the president amused himself by installing trollish plaques beneath a row of presidential portraits at the residence, sketching out a brief narrative that reads all of U.S. history as mere prelude to the capstone project of his reign. (Sample text: President Andrew Jackson “was unjustifiably treated unfairly by the Press, but not as viciously and unfairly and President Abraham Lincoln and President Donald J. Trump would, in the future, be.”)"
"Trollish plaques"... can you imagine ANY American president do something SO simultaneously ridiculous and immoral?
What these plaques, in The Donald's HALL OF INFAME, write about Presidents Biden and Obama ("highly unpopular"... when Obama's approval rating today is STILL twice Trump's approval rating) is such an ERASURE of AMERICAN CIVILIZATION that it's just incomprehensible how the GOP indulges in it all.
WHAT. A. SHAME.
Those stupid bronzed Truth Social bleats need to not only be removed by the next president but immediately melted down, as well. That's assuming DJT doesn't take them with him to install in whatever presidential library embarrassment he ends up building for himself.
Let him take ‘em with him, please! I’ll take a crowbar to the wall and pack them myself! And his Presidential Library won’t even contain paperbacks.
His library is being planned already. It will be in Florida and have a “fake news” wing (report from WaPo).
The hyper-rococo ultra-wide gold frames around the portraits and the gold swooshy shapes above them manage to be MORE offensive than the trolling on the plaques.
It is funny though that Trump couldn't get his whole dis of Biden on the blank plates they'd ordered, and instead of just getting a bigger plaque, they added a second plaque below, like a page jump in a newspaper.
I'm honestly surprised they came up with a name so reminiscent of "Walk of Shame," which is what it is now. Malicious compliance, or lack of self-awareness?
Or just sheer incompetence as usual?
Caligula looks like a Platonic Philosopher King next to Trump.
I think this is the thing, right here:
>> "These renamings are also just the latest assertion of a particular kind of presidential authority over truth itself"
For all the talk among conservatives about fighting "postmodern" ideology, there is no more Postmodern president than Trump. Not because Trump embraces pluralism of course, but because he treats truth as performative rather than epistemic.
Trump’s relationship to truth is not about justification or belief. For Trump, truth comes into being through repetition and dominance. Hannah Arendt called this the 'defactualization of reality.' The attack on the shared factual ground necessary for a healthy, productive politics.
Trump shows us that life is but a dream, or maybe, a nightmare.
Correct, except doesn’t a lot of this comes from the fact he has never had to take responsibility for anything in his life. Trump has never personally had to adjust his views to reality, but those around him have always adjusted to him. He has been extraordinarily lucky and those who could have held him to account treated him far too leniently. For the party which used to talk abbot personal responsibility, they’ve been happy to embrace the liberation of having none.
It does seem though as if the sway of gravity is starting to hold when it comes to the economy and affordability. He hasn’t been able to control the narrative in this arena, and he is flailing to come up with a coherent response.
The true test of the Trumpian-Nietzschean-postmodern bullshit artists in the White House:
"Can we convince you that you are happy with only 3 dolls, 3 pencils, and good ol' American made steel for Christmas?"
They did promise us a return to the past but never explained the past included fewer material goods which it did, at least for the plebes. Of course with Trump his background is in television a world where reality has always been the performance. They are now saying the economy will turn around next year, but they’ve invested very little on selling a utopian future to explain the austerity of the present. Regimes such as the Soviets and Nazis were better at articulating a utopian future than this administration, but they were actively selling the future not the past.
Selling the future would entail admitting that the present is short of absolute perfection. Not possible.
Old enough to remember the Ron Suskind essay in NYT Mag Oct 17, 2004, with the infamous quote from an anonymous senior Bush official (widely believed to be Rove, tho he has vehemently denied it), that guys like Suskind “lived in what we call the reality-based community. That’s not the way the world really works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality”.
I am very disappointed with Bernie. Sacrificing the doable for the perfect is a brain dead political strategy and in this case it's also cruel. This is the opposite of John McCain's thumbs down move to save ACA. Nice way to devalue your legacy Bernie.
Bernie is a schmuck.
Finally! The reason for Trumps relentless harassment of Venezuela and Madura makes perfect sense. Trump wants the f***ing Nobel Prize offered by Maduro’s adversary. He’ll get that Peace prize, no matter how many people he has to kill to get it!
RE: Trump-Kennedy Center
For those concerned that DEI is dead... no worries, folks!
Donald's Ego Inflation initiative is alive and well and in full swing.