"Over the past century, in many nations, fascist movements and authoritarian coups have sought justification in the need to save their respective countries from the Communists."
As an ever-learning citizen of the world, it is becoming clear to me that the "communist" label usually has nothing to do with Marx or economic systems. As Trump and others have made clear, it just means anyone in the anti-authoritarian population who believes power resides with the people - that is, the majority of the people themselves.
Being able to accurately describe it is unrelated to being able to use it to your political advantage. Trump and his cult also don't know how a cruise missile finds its target.
Sure, but the success is a function of the intended audience's inability to sniff out such bullshit. The same people who are being activated by claims of communism are seemingly untroubled that Trump's ideal economy is centralized and he (and he alone) decides winners and losers and tax policy.
In other words, Kotzsu, the intended audience is stupid.
Folks complain for generations about how half the citizenry won’t bother to vote, and then someone comes along to activate those non-voters by appealing to their most fundamental passions, and you’re still not satisfied. I mean, heck, they’re even active on social media, chatting among themselves about issues of the day, doing their own research, etc. Why, to hear the cognoscenti tell it, they’re just a rabble with torches and pitchforks - and who uses a word like “cognoscenti” anyway?
I'm "satisfied" in the sense these voters are getting what they voted for good and hard. These people put a moral degenerate back in the Oval at a time of economic expansion and low unemployment because they voted based on their "fundamental passions". And in return for selling what was left of their souls, they got the destruction of the post-WWII world order that brought us prosperity and stability for 80 years while Trump and a select few are raking in billions of dollars.
Excuse me, I personally complained for years about how half the citizenry won’t bother to vote, and then someone came along to activate those non-voters by appealing to their most fundamental passions, and now I've never been so unsatisfied. Can I get that on a t-shirt please?
Also, where do I go to pick up my torch and pitchfork?
The only thing giving me hope these days is that you are also describing our current commander-in-chief. His own stupidity may be his downfall, regardless of the intelligent minions trying to control him. The fact of the matter is, they wanted someone they could control to advance their agenda, and they chose someone who does not like being controlled. I hope it amounts to the total destruction of their plans to rule the country by force.
I've been having fun lately watching documentaries about the Soviet economy. The workers didn't control anything. Not one single damn screw or hammer. The "representatives" of workers did. Just like us, really!
I re-read that recently too, and I highly recommend it. It's super short. I read it in a couple of hours, and it's written so well that reading it is effortless. But man does it stick with a person.
Yes, this is what I wonder about as well. Controlling and centralizing the means of production is, according to Marx, a necessary path ("socialism") to true "communism", which is a stateless entity of people freely working together.
What I see in the current administration is the socialism part, e.g. the US Government buying shares in private companies, etc.
Communism, socialism, capitalism, liberal, conservative.... yada yada yada. All these terms have been stretched and kicked in so many different directions whatever common threads exist among their multiple definitions are much outweighed by the differences. This is just kind of how the language of rubrics works in general, but especially so in politics (broad sense of the term, not just electoral/party politics.)
Is Xi somehow not a communist because he's hardly following the spirit of the Manifesto? Well, at some point, we wind up using whatever people with power or influence call themselves, no matter how it diverges what other people of some gravity call or have called themselves.
If only it were that simple though. We also have the common phenomenon of people grabbing some existing label and employing it as a designator of viewpoints they abhor. Which too often devolves into mere name-calling, referencing, if anything, stereotypes that have no actual material referent.
So, there are both many and no accurate descriptions of what 'communism' is. The problem is acting like yours is the one and only and covers all the bases. And even if we're not so pig-headed or unscrupulous, it's hard to clarify without coming off as pedantic and/or digressing off-topic.
FWIW, the culty right-wing base may not be able to articulate a definition of 'communism' but there's a consistent vibe evoked by the term: the worst possible nightmarish modern security state, Stalinism extended orders of magnitude. Trump, I'd wager, knows that what the term
evokes, and is quite aware that he is leveraging any pejorative available against his enemies, "transactionally" as they say, with no concern of how well they fit the way his target audience understands the terms.
In this, his shameless disregard of believability separates him from typical practice (and theory) of skilled propagandists. This stuff isn't supposed to work for populations beyond a tiny fringe. What we're discovering is how a cult-of-the-person suspends conventional wisdom. We can guess there has to be limits, that it has to crash if it goes too far or too long, but we haven't found that point yet.
Garvin - funny how DJT’s bosom buddies Putin, Xi, & Kim are card carrying commies (ok maybe Putin lapsed after USSR dissolved, but once a commie…). But then we have it used as a curse word here, or like Tom Cotton’s attempted gotcha moment for the Singaporean capitalist TikTok CEO. As a child of 1950s-‘60s myself, the term feels as dated as calling my hybrid ride a flivver. Unc
I think I understand where you are coming from, J AZ. Back in 1970, when I was in high school, we had to take a course in the "Four Isms" - communism, capitalism, fascism, and socialism. The neat definitions I learned then hardly seem to line up with what we are living in now, where capitalism in both the USA and China, at least, takes a little bit from each ism and mixes it up - mostly to secure power to the few (surprise surprise).
Senator McCarthy and Roy Cohen were much more effective at red baiting and scare mongering. They had the USSR and spy’s among us. They also had a strong secure middle class who were afraid of losing what they had.
It's no great surprise that oligarchs who are stripping the country clean of its resources and wealth would want to fear monger about Communism, since if Communism actually came, they would be the first lined up against the wall.
1. Any person or organization that needs to be treated as an enemy. It is often used as a "buzzword" on the political right to use against anyone who doesn't believe as extremely as you do.
2. A political boogeyman, or baba yaga, to be used to generate fear in the voting populace.
3. A person who believes in the political movement of communism and a socio-economical environment where goods and services are distributed equally in society.
First they set up a false choice between fascism and socialism. That made the country embrace socialism, so now they're using the term communism. But it's a false choice. We don't live on a continuum where we constantly adjust the slider from communism to fascism. It's all propaganda.
I'm shocked that NOW he's gone from calling those on the left radical now we're all communists. Do you think "HE" really knows what he's talking about. Sounds a bit like Joseph McCarthy way back when. When in doubt just call them all communists and prosecute them for being so.
The President is right, the House's resolution DOES weaken his bargaining position with Iran. Shame he didn't consider this possibility BEFORE starting a war of choice without Congressional approval.
TBH, whare really weakens Trump's bargaining position is that Iran can see that he has no effective leverage to force them to settle (because bombing has not forced them to collapse, and Iran has equal or more leverage via closing the Strait), nor can we really escalate without equal retaliation from Iran against Gulf neighbors. And everyone knows he is desperate for a deal. So Iran is mostly sitting there saying "wake us up when you are ready to stop".
If Trump had asked for buy-in before starting, not only might he have gotten approval and/or support, but more importantly he might have gotten feedback enabling him to actually have a plan, which has been sadly lacking all along.
1. It has never "worked" since 1922? It's a shallow pool. What is there to "work?"
2. I could design a shallow pool 5 times the length of the Empire State Building in literally an hour or two. It would take thousands of hours to design a skyscraper.
The world's greatest builder is beyond clueless. He should go back to identifying pictures of elephants.
You may have seen the NYT article that points out that the water pipes for the pool have been problematic from the beginning, since the area is marshy and the pipes break.
Of course, he’s not fixing the pipes. That would require actual engineering expertise. You know, science.
Paint the shallow walls of the reflecting pool in golf leaf! Now there s a nice combination, Ultra marine blue and gold. Come to think of it, that is what he wants to repaint air force one.
Bill: "Trump seems to be at the stage of his authoritarian project when the mask comes off, when he increasingly disdains to conceal his aims."
The mask came off on January 6, 2021 for all to see. 77 million of us saw Trump without the mask in November 2024 and affirmatively wanted more. A good chunk of that 77 million absolutely love the idea of Blanche as a "permanent" AG. How many times is it necessary to point out that we are where we are because a plurality of the electorate is morally vacuous and civically desiccated?
I'm going to disagree on a few points. There are not 77 million MAGAs. Many 'low information' voters didn't truly see January 6. Nor did they necessarily affirmatively want more. Some just voted against the pandemic, or against the perceived status quo, or against the black woman with a funny laugh... or for the guy with the swagger because all that other stuff is just noise.
Of course, there is a MAGA base, and it's insanely bigger than we ever imagined such crapola could get, but it appears to be somewhere around 35% of the electorate. They did see Trump with the mask off and with a Rebel yell cried more more more. But they don't love Todd Blanche. They don't see Todd Blanche. All they see is Trump. Trump is what they want. They did not vote for this policy or that. They voted for Trump to do whatever Trump would choose to do.
IOW, a frighteningly substantial minority of the electorate is actually beyond morally vacuous and civically desiccated into the Upside Down. How that base gets augmented into an electoral plurality is a bit more complicated than the easy derisive formulae so common in the comments here would have it.
"He then pivoted to an extended personal attack on Collins."
While outside the scope of Egger's article, this scene in the Oval Office merits more detail. Trump started with, "CNN's a very corrupt organization, with a corrupt reporter standing right there, never smiles. Young, beautiful woman, never smiles. I never see a smile on her face. I see her standing with such hatred in her eyes."
He then went on to say, "You used to be a conservative, she was a conservative from Alabama. Can you believe it?"
With a smile on her face, and talking over him no less, Collins, quipped back, "I'm still from Alabama, Sir." ZING!
As a male, I am ashamed of my gender. Everyone is crying about 'masculinity'. Well, being an honorable man means not allowing other men to bully women. I would not tolerate that shit for 1 second. I can't stand the fact that other males in the room say nothing.
In a world where sheer physical force rules, then, yes, men probably should stand up for women. But the oval office is no such place, despite how the orange creep might think. Women could defend each other too in this space. Imagine the Dumb One's response if more women piled on too.
I know it smack of 'the patriarchy' but it was just how I was brought up. I have a daughter and know she can stick up for herself, but it still helps to have some allies, male or female.
For me, being a man entails being responsible for my own behavior and sticking up for those who can't stick up for themselves. Trump's not a man. He's a disordered child.
LOL...I once wrote "Bless his heart." in a comment about Speaker Johnson's belief that there were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark, and many people here thought I was being nice to him!
I heard that Republicans may still confirm Todd Blanche to be the next AG. This would be one of the biggest kicks in the face to the rule of law in American history. This is the guy that Pam Bondi threw under the bus as the biggest pedophile protector in history.
In order to rescue the rule of law in America, the Department of Justice needs to be removed from the Executive Branch and become completely independent. The AG should be appointed from a list of qualified candidates selected by law school deans, then confirmed by Congress. The new agency should report only to Congress. The new AG should get a 6 to 10-year term and can't be fired by the president. All Inspectors General should report to the DOJ and not be subjected to the whims of a president. The FBI should be included in the independent DOJ. There should be NO political appointments to this department.
The main feature is that the new DOJ would be walled off from any kind of political influence. There would be no more charges of “weaponizing,” real or imagined.
Both the DoJ and the appointment of Justices need to be de-politicized and independent. The selection process should NOT involve the executive. Frankly, I think they should do away with permanent SCotUS justices and institute some sort of random assignment from the larger body of federal judges for each term of the court.
We also badly need an independent IG system that is also non-political.
It's my opinion that Blanche has already had Trump's tax returns "disappeared." He will have used the excuse that the agreement to immunize the returns against prosecution makes them moot, so why keep them? Unless there was a hero in the IRS, ala Daniel Ellsberg, who made sure permanent copies were saved somewhere, I am afraid the deed has already been done and whether Blanche is confirmed or not, he has served his purpose. I have no doubt they would have shown close financial ties to Epstein, which Sen. Ron Wyden's investigation was getting ever so close to exposing. (Another reason Wyden was attacked by Scott Bessent in his most recent Congressional testimony).
When I read that Blanche was still committed to shielding Trump, his sons and his businesses from IRS audits, I knew that he would be nominated to be the Attorney General. If Trump can't pay off his minions, he might be sad, but ultimately fine with that. But try to take a penny out of his grasping paw, he will rain down hell and Blanche is happy to be the guy to open the gates. Well done, Blanche, well done!
The DOJ was created after the civil war, largely to police the South and to protect Black Americans. I guess the failure of imagination was by Ulysses S. Grant & his people.
Yes, but Garland went out of his way to not appear to be political, and Trump still compained of have been a victim of weaponizing. He will do that again if the next AG decides that the many crimes of this administration need to be prosecuted.
We need to create an agency that is clearly above politics. We should have done that for the Supreme Court, but once Congress eliminated the filibuster for Justices people got confirmed on straight party votes, often by one vote.
>> "Trump wants these public fights. Authoritarianism needs to come into the daylight in order to socialize the acceptance not just of particular measures, but of the overall project, and to justify what might need to be done to seize power or stay in power..."
Also, Trump long ago learned something that too many people still don't realize. If someone does something, and they hide it or cover it up, people assume it was wrong. If someone does something openly, flagrantly, willfully, intentionally, etc., a good portion of the public seems to shrug and say, "It must be okay if they did it openly like that and didn't even try to hide it."
Trump knew this back in 2016; "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK? It's, like, incredible."
He didn't say he'd do in a back alley or in secret. If it happens in the middle of a busy street, it must be OK. OK, at least, according to a critical mass of folks in the country.
“We will only know that that fund, that slush fund, is dead when we make that the law that the president cannot do this.”
Like Trump will follow the law. Like Republicans will make Trump follow the law. Like the Supreme Court will make Trump follow the law.
Four Republicans "rebuked" Donald Trump. Four. Only Four. There are no good Republicans left. The big question is, how many "good" Americans do we have?
"The House of Representatives delivered a remarkable rebuke to the White House yesterday, passing a war powers resolution that would require the president to withdraw forces from Iran or seek congressional approval for ongoing military action. Four Republicans broke ranks to support the measure, which now heads to the Senate."
This will be interesting, especially because I think trump is looking for a way out now - ie: Congress forcing him out of his Iran War. But he also HATES being told what he can or cannot do, so this might end up being a schizophrenic dilemma for him - wanting a graceful way out that isn't on him, but wanting to dare HIS Republican Reps and Senators to cross him!
Once again, I'm wondering if the Trump Intellectuals don't ever feel a twinge of embarrassment about the idiocy they have committed themselves to defending. But as long as he's attacking their ideological enemies, they'll keep portraying his stupidity as genius.
I won't bother with the obvious oxymoron crack, but if they were a bit less committed to helping to create and promote the idiot and the idiocy themselves, they might have at least a little bit less of it they'd need to defend.
Murphy did a good job, but I wanted him to ask Markwayne, "So you claim you won't "break the Constitution. Who decides if the court got it wrong? You? Markwayne Mullin, alone, can determine if a court is acting in an unconstitutional manner and, if you make that determination, you can ignore it? Is that how it's going to work now?"
And how about, "Are you a lawyer, sir? No? So, again, you, Markwayne Mullin, non-lawyer, are the final arbiter of what is legal and what is not? What the law means and what it does not mean? That the court, where judges and lawyers from both sides argued the merits of a case and where, in some cases, a jury, rendered a verdict? None of that matters if Markwayne Mullin says the outcome wasn't right? Is that what you're saying?"
Democrats need to drive this point home. There are rules we've all agreed to follow as American citizens. That's the Rule of Law. If you don't like a decision, you can appeal it. If a court rules against you, you need to abide by that ruling. You don't get to just decide, on your own, that the court got it wrong and you don't need to abide by its decision.
Okay, but it's bothering me, so I just gotta point out that he's also oversized the pool on his chart. It's scaled to 2,300 ft, not the 2,030 ft the chart claims. Impeach him and remove him from office.
“Unless Trump plans to remain permanent president.
Which, it seems, is something Trump increasingly seems to have in mind.”
I disagree… I think he is getting more frustrated by and bored with the presidency by the day. This year is no fun compared to last year.
That said, more and more, he will *definitely* want his stooge-of-choice to be the next president. And I’m still terrified of what he would be willing to do to make that happen.
He may be bored with the actual work, but he adores the pomp and circumstance. And he made America great in both 2016 and 2024- it’s only great when he is President. His ego won’t be able to let go of all that. The closer ‘28 gets, look to hm to claw harder.
He has always been bored with the actual work of the presidency, I think, but he really loves all the money he's been able to grift. That would be what would cause him to want to stay in the presidency, in my opinion.
Since I believe he will be using his ballroom as a bunker to rule from when he refuses to leave office in 2028, it makes sense that they will be building a putting green and indoor driving range for him, as well.... I mean, it's supposed to be like 6 stories deep or something, isn't it?
"Over the past century, in many nations, fascist movements and authoritarian coups have sought justification in the need to save their respective countries from the Communists."
As an ever-learning citizen of the world, it is becoming clear to me that the "communist" label usually has nothing to do with Marx or economic systems. As Trump and others have made clear, it just means anyone in the anti-authoritarian population who believes power resides with the people - that is, the majority of the people themselves.
We are all "communists."
I'm curious as to how many people can accurately describe what communism is. I know Trump can't. I know most of his cult can't.
I think it has just become a scare word for "opponents," Tim.
I know.
I thought immigrants were the new communists.
Migrants are being imported by the Communists to overturn our Way of Life.
He has discovered a new way to call Democrats, left wing lunatics, judges immigrants, you name it.
Being able to accurately describe it is unrelated to being able to use it to your political advantage. Trump and his cult also don't know how a cruise missile finds its target.
Sure, but the success is a function of the intended audience's inability to sniff out such bullshit. The same people who are being activated by claims of communism are seemingly untroubled that Trump's ideal economy is centralized and he (and he alone) decides winners and losers and tax policy.
In other words, Kotzsu, the intended audience is stupid.
Folks complain for generations about how half the citizenry won’t bother to vote, and then someone comes along to activate those non-voters by appealing to their most fundamental passions, and you’re still not satisfied. I mean, heck, they’re even active on social media, chatting among themselves about issues of the day, doing their own research, etc. Why, to hear the cognoscenti tell it, they’re just a rabble with torches and pitchforks - and who uses a word like “cognoscenti” anyway?
“VOTE, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.”
― Ambrose Bierce
The Devils Dictionary . 👍👍
I'm "satisfied" in the sense these voters are getting what they voted for good and hard. These people put a moral degenerate back in the Oval at a time of economic expansion and low unemployment because they voted based on their "fundamental passions". And in return for selling what was left of their souls, they got the destruction of the post-WWII world order that brought us prosperity and stability for 80 years while Trump and a select few are raking in billions of dollars.
Excuse me, I personally complained for years about how half the citizenry won’t bother to vote, and then someone came along to activate those non-voters by appealing to their most fundamental passions, and now I've never been so unsatisfied. Can I get that on a t-shirt please?
Also, where do I go to pick up my torch and pitchfork?
I'd like a bumper sticker.
It's essential to them that we have a semi literate population with zero critical thinking skills .
The only thing giving me hope these days is that you are also describing our current commander-in-chief. His own stupidity may be his downfall, regardless of the intelligent minions trying to control him. The fact of the matter is, they wanted someone they could control to advance their agenda, and they chose someone who does not like being controlled. I hope it amounts to the total destruction of their plans to rule the country by force.
Objective achievement level: 30%
Spot on. I've been expecting Trump to announce a series of five-year plans since last year.
The workers control the means of production. A true horror show!
I've been having fun lately watching documentaries about the Soviet economy. The workers didn't control anything. Not one single damn screw or hammer. The "representatives" of workers did. Just like us, really!
"Animal Farm" is the best description of the Soviet system.
I re-read that recently too, and I highly recommend it. It's super short. I read it in a couple of hours, and it's written so well that reading it is effortless. But man does it stick with a person.
It's been too long for me, but it's a favorite!
Communists! :)
For rich capitalists, sure.
Does anyone else matter, really? :)
Not anymore - or at least, not once they get the voting system fixed.
."Communist" is what Democrats are every two years between September and November
Yes, this is what I wonder about as well. Controlling and centralizing the means of production is, according to Marx, a necessary path ("socialism") to true "communism", which is a stateless entity of people freely working together.
What I see in the current administration is the socialism part, e.g. the US Government buying shares in private companies, etc.
Communism, socialism, capitalism, liberal, conservative.... yada yada yada. All these terms have been stretched and kicked in so many different directions whatever common threads exist among their multiple definitions are much outweighed by the differences. This is just kind of how the language of rubrics works in general, but especially so in politics (broad sense of the term, not just electoral/party politics.)
Is Xi somehow not a communist because he's hardly following the spirit of the Manifesto? Well, at some point, we wind up using whatever people with power or influence call themselves, no matter how it diverges what other people of some gravity call or have called themselves.
If only it were that simple though. We also have the common phenomenon of people grabbing some existing label and employing it as a designator of viewpoints they abhor. Which too often devolves into mere name-calling, referencing, if anything, stereotypes that have no actual material referent.
So, there are both many and no accurate descriptions of what 'communism' is. The problem is acting like yours is the one and only and covers all the bases. And even if we're not so pig-headed or unscrupulous, it's hard to clarify without coming off as pedantic and/or digressing off-topic.
FWIW, the culty right-wing base may not be able to articulate a definition of 'communism' but there's a consistent vibe evoked by the term: the worst possible nightmarish modern security state, Stalinism extended orders of magnitude. Trump, I'd wager, knows that what the term
evokes, and is quite aware that he is leveraging any pejorative available against his enemies, "transactionally" as they say, with no concern of how well they fit the way his target audience understands the terms.
In this, his shameless disregard of believability separates him from typical practice (and theory) of skilled propagandists. This stuff isn't supposed to work for populations beyond a tiny fringe. What we're discovering is how a cult-of-the-person suspends conventional wisdom. We can guess there has to be limits, that it has to crash if it goes too far or too long, but we haven't found that point yet.
You mean the "Commie Socialist Nazis"?
Difficult one to untangle, that. . .
Could possibly be referring to islamo-atheist-commie-nazis.
DJT has trouble defining most everything.
You should search "drinking and driving communist country" on youtube.
Never felt more like Hermione Granger in my life. 😂🙋♀️ Me in Leningrad in 2013
Garvin - funny how DJT’s bosom buddies Putin, Xi, & Kim are card carrying commies (ok maybe Putin lapsed after USSR dissolved, but once a commie…). But then we have it used as a curse word here, or like Tom Cotton’s attempted gotcha moment for the Singaporean capitalist TikTok CEO. As a child of 1950s-‘60s myself, the term feels as dated as calling my hybrid ride a flivver. Unc
Let's fire up that hybrid flivver of yours and go score some bathtub gin !
Huzzah old sport!
I think I understand where you are coming from, J AZ. Back in 1970, when I was in high school, we had to take a course in the "Four Isms" - communism, capitalism, fascism, and socialism. The neat definitions I learned then hardly seem to line up with what we are living in now, where capitalism in both the USA and China, at least, takes a little bit from each ism and mixes it up - mostly to secure power to the few (surprise surprise).
Senator McCarthy and Roy Cohen were much more effective at red baiting and scare mongering. They had the USSR and spy’s among us. They also had a strong secure middle class who were afraid of losing what they had.
"Socialist" is right there with "society." All governments excepting maybe slave states are socialist, differing only as to what and to what degree.
We have many socialistic parts of the US; Medicare, Social Security, the military to name a few.
It's no great surprise that oligarchs who are stripping the country clean of its resources and wealth would want to fear monger about Communism, since if Communism actually came, they would be the first lined up against the wall.
Woo hoo ! I will get my super soaker and drench the capitalist running dogs .
Communist: (com-mu-nist, noun, Latin/French origin)
1. Any person or organization that needs to be treated as an enemy. It is often used as a "buzzword" on the political right to use against anyone who doesn't believe as extremely as you do.
2. A political boogeyman, or baba yaga, to be used to generate fear in the voting populace.
3. A person who believes in the political movement of communism and a socio-economical environment where goods and services are distributed equally in society.
"A socio-economical environment where goods and services are distributed equally in society."
No wonder Donald's so afraid of them. "What's yours is mine, and what's mine's my own!"
First they set up a false choice between fascism and socialism. That made the country embrace socialism, so now they're using the term communism. But it's a false choice. We don't live on a continuum where we constantly adjust the slider from communism to fascism. It's all propaganda.
I'm shocked that NOW he's gone from calling those on the left radical now we're all communists. Do you think "HE" really knows what he's talking about. Sounds a bit like Joseph McCarthy way back when. When in doubt just call them all communists and prosecute them for being so.
Joe .
My bad you are right Joe McCarthy NOT Eugene.
According to classical Marxist theory, a "truly" communist society is stateless, classless, and moneyless. No nation-state has ever achieved this.
The President is right, the House's resolution DOES weaken his bargaining position with Iran. Shame he didn't consider this possibility BEFORE starting a war of choice without Congressional approval.
*Consider* is not really in his vocabulary.
It's too much like "think".
"My way or the hi way" is
TBH, whare really weakens Trump's bargaining position is that Iran can see that he has no effective leverage to force them to settle (because bombing has not forced them to collapse, and Iran has equal or more leverage via closing the Strait), nor can we really escalate without equal retaliation from Iran against Gulf neighbors. And everyone knows he is desperate for a deal. So Iran is mostly sitting there saying "wake us up when you are ready to stop".
If Trump had asked for buy-in before starting, not only might he have gotten approval and/or support, but more importantly he might have gotten feedback enabling him to actually have a plan, which has been sadly lacking all along.
That should be "wake us up when you are ready to stop and agree to all our terms. . ."
I think the plan is to put it to a vote, then tar no votes as traitors.
Ok, two things about the reflecting pool.
1. It has never "worked" since 1922? It's a shallow pool. What is there to "work?"
2. I could design a shallow pool 5 times the length of the Empire State Building in literally an hour or two. It would take thousands of hours to design a skyscraper.
The world's greatest builder is beyond clueless. He should go back to identifying pictures of elephants.
You may have seen the NYT article that points out that the water pipes for the pool have been problematic from the beginning, since the area is marshy and the pipes break.
Of course, he’s not fixing the pipes. That would require actual engineering expertise. You know, science.
BORING! Can we put some gold eagles on it?
Czarist two-headed would be nice.
No, they're going on the "Arc"
Paint the shallow walls of the reflecting pool in golf leaf! Now there s a nice combination, Ultra marine blue and gold. Come to think of it, that is what he wants to repaint air force one.
I didn't read the NYT article.
The solution to marshy soils is excavating enough to place good bedding underneath. Depending on the particulars, this might not be worth the bother.
If you're worried about pipe breaks, replace with butt welded HDPE. It's basically one really long pipe with no joints to break.
See, Mike, this is why YOU should be handling this!
I'd happily be the lead designer/PM for this project. It'd be a genuine honor, and I wouldn't charge a penny over my usual municipal billing rate.
I can advise you on proper placement of the diving boards !
Or a bloke with a bucket next to a nearby faucet.
That's me ! I can be Baldrick .
Oooh, I want to be Sir Percy Percy. I'll bring the wine.
"excavating *enough* to place good bedding underneath"
In the swamp that is D.C.? C'mon!
But just for the heck of it, let's see...
Washington, D.C.: 38.9072° N, 77.0369° W
Antipode: 38.9072° S, 102.9631° E
Location: Remote area of the Southern Indian Ocean
Nope. Not possible. Will just end up flooding the place when you break through.
Go wide, and put some geotex underneath. You don't need to go super deep.
Yup.
I saw that
Not to mention that he's list touch with the distinction between vertical and horizontal.
Trump: What s the difference?
I’m wondering if they are going to put in piranhas to stop hoi polloi from taking a dip in the now clean water?
Fricken' sharks with fricken' laser beams would work better. :)
What's worse - hoi polloi or piranha poo?
Hoi polloi for my money .
???
As long as nobody in DC can reflect on anything, it's been fixed.
Comments closed, you win! :)
I don't even understand why he's bragging about it. I thought they just coated it; did they actually lengthen the thing, too?
They may have re-sealed the joint, too. As far as I know, it's the same length. [Insert crude joke here.] :)
Extended it apparently . 🙄
Oh good lord. Well, his bragging makes a little more sense now.
you're right! He says so many nutty things you tend to gloss over. What has to work? And also, if it didn't work, what was broken?
The WATER! Every damn year, it freezes, then it gets cracked. . .
Yeah there's surely something cracked in DC .
Surely you're familiar with how dangerous dihydrogen monoxide is. There needs to be a move to ban the stuff. :)
Better tell ICE. . .
I see what you did there! :)
And the Iran war is shorter than WWI, WWII, and the Vietnam war!
Is it an African elephant or an Asian elephant Mr. President? Only a stable genius can make the determination.
I'd be more impressed with him knowing the finer points of African versus European swallows. :)
The good old days, when Monty Python was comedy and not a documentary.
And if it's an African elephant, is it an African forest elephant or an African savannah elephant? Those are two different species!
Yup
Is it an elephant or a hippo? He aces the cognizant test again!
And horseys and giraffes etc.
Bill: "Trump seems to be at the stage of his authoritarian project when the mask comes off, when he increasingly disdains to conceal his aims."
The mask came off on January 6, 2021 for all to see. 77 million of us saw Trump without the mask in November 2024 and affirmatively wanted more. A good chunk of that 77 million absolutely love the idea of Blanche as a "permanent" AG. How many times is it necessary to point out that we are where we are because a plurality of the electorate is morally vacuous and civically desiccated?
Civically desiccated!
This. Hence my despair today.
Amen.
I'm going to disagree on a few points. There are not 77 million MAGAs. Many 'low information' voters didn't truly see January 6. Nor did they necessarily affirmatively want more. Some just voted against the pandemic, or against the perceived status quo, or against the black woman with a funny laugh... or for the guy with the swagger because all that other stuff is just noise.
Of course, there is a MAGA base, and it's insanely bigger than we ever imagined such crapola could get, but it appears to be somewhere around 35% of the electorate. They did see Trump with the mask off and with a Rebel yell cried more more more. But they don't love Todd Blanche. They don't see Todd Blanche. All they see is Trump. Trump is what they want. They did not vote for this policy or that. They voted for Trump to do whatever Trump would choose to do.
IOW, a frighteningly substantial minority of the electorate is actually beyond morally vacuous and civically desiccated into the Upside Down. How that base gets augmented into an electoral plurality is a bit more complicated than the easy derisive formulae so common in the comments here would have it.
"He then pivoted to an extended personal attack on Collins."
While outside the scope of Egger's article, this scene in the Oval Office merits more detail. Trump started with, "CNN's a very corrupt organization, with a corrupt reporter standing right there, never smiles. Young, beautiful woman, never smiles. I never see a smile on her face. I see her standing with such hatred in her eyes."
He then went on to say, "You used to be a conservative, she was a conservative from Alabama. Can you believe it?"
With a smile on her face, and talking over him no less, Collins, quipped back, "I'm still from Alabama, Sir." ZING!
As a male, I am ashamed of my gender. Everyone is crying about 'masculinity'. Well, being an honorable man means not allowing other men to bully women. I would not tolerate that shit for 1 second. I can't stand the fact that other males in the room say nothing.
A thousand likes for you Sir. Damn straight.
In a world where sheer physical force rules, then, yes, men probably should stand up for women. But the oval office is no such place, despite how the orange creep might think. Women could defend each other too in this space. Imagine the Dumb One's response if more women piled on too.
I know it smack of 'the patriarchy' but it was just how I was brought up. I have a daughter and know she can stick up for herself, but it still helps to have some allies, male or female.
Same here .
I wonder what would happen if one of the women he insulted replied "You're a rude bastard, aren't you?" - would the roof of the White House fall in?
I would pay good money to see such a thing - from ANYBODY in the press corps.
The press corps has been purged of such people after the first Trump Presidency. But every once in a while, a rogue element slips in.
Journalists with self-respect are LONG gone.
Given Trump's disdain for women in general, it would have more teeth coming from a male reporter, your point notwithstanding.
For me, being a man entails being responsible for my own behavior and sticking up for those who can't stick up for themselves. Trump's not a man. He's a disordered child.
I would have left the "Sir" off. In fact, they all need to start doing that.
Would love to see just one of his targets tell him to STFU. Just one. Once.
Unfortunately, he would immediately use it to discredit them - “See what savages my haters are?” It’s a real dilemma.
Well, Collins is from the Deep South, where the use of Sir and Ma'am is deeply ingrained in the culture.
Maybe she should have said, "Bless your heart, sir". 🤣
LOL...I once wrote "Bless his heart." in a comment about Speaker Johnson's belief that there were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark, and many people here thought I was being nice to him!
Too many of us Yankees are unaware that this is code talk for "F him." :)
Up north we would say Bless your fuckin heart.
Oh, but how I'd be happy to learn!
Here in pennsylsippi I know where you're coming from .
They aren't from the south.
Excellent ! 👍
Like bless your heart. But that isn't a complement.
In my family we call her the Joker, because she actually smiles quite a bit and the resemblance is striking.
Yep, both sides of her mouth turn upward, a permanent smile. But the joker reference, Eww!
His whole reply to her was completely absurd. He basically said they needed the slush fund because of media like CNN. It was total nonsense.
Hey at least Collins didn't get a nickname!
According to the Trump Administration, Operation Epic Fury is done, but Operation Epic FUBAR is still going full steam ahead.
I love this 100 times!
I heard that Republicans may still confirm Todd Blanche to be the next AG. This would be one of the biggest kicks in the face to the rule of law in American history. This is the guy that Pam Bondi threw under the bus as the biggest pedophile protector in history.
In order to rescue the rule of law in America, the Department of Justice needs to be removed from the Executive Branch and become completely independent. The AG should be appointed from a list of qualified candidates selected by law school deans, then confirmed by Congress. The new agency should report only to Congress. The new AG should get a 6 to 10-year term and can't be fired by the president. All Inspectors General should report to the DOJ and not be subjected to the whims of a president. The FBI should be included in the independent DOJ. There should be NO political appointments to this department.
The main feature is that the new DOJ would be walled off from any kind of political influence. There would be no more charges of “weaponizing,” real or imagined.
Both the DoJ and the appointment of Justices need to be de-politicized and independent. The selection process should NOT involve the executive. Frankly, I think they should do away with permanent SCotUS justices and institute some sort of random assignment from the larger body of federal judges for each term of the court.
We also badly need an independent IG system that is also non-political.
I'm sure that the GOP would confirm Blanche. They have little fight in them and they've used up this year's effort already.
It's my opinion that Blanche has already had Trump's tax returns "disappeared." He will have used the excuse that the agreement to immunize the returns against prosecution makes them moot, so why keep them? Unless there was a hero in the IRS, ala Daniel Ellsberg, who made sure permanent copies were saved somewhere, I am afraid the deed has already been done and whether Blanche is confirmed or not, he has served his purpose. I have no doubt they would have shown close financial ties to Epstein, which Sen. Ron Wyden's investigation was getting ever so close to exposing. (Another reason Wyden was attacked by Scott Bessent in his most recent Congressional testimony).
When I read that Blanche was still committed to shielding Trump, his sons and his businesses from IRS audits, I knew that he would be nominated to be the Attorney General. If Trump can't pay off his minions, he might be sad, but ultimately fine with that. But try to take a penny out of his grasping paw, he will rain down hell and Blanche is happy to be the guy to open the gates. Well done, Blanche, well done!
Amen to this. The DOJ including the FBI, SCOTUS need to apolitical. We can see this flaw in the founders’ thinking here so clearly now.
The DOJ was created after the civil war, largely to police the South and to protect Black Americans. I guess the failure of imagination was by Ulysses S. Grant & his people.
I like this approach, but it may be a bit too extreme. The executive should be consulted and any normal executive would feel the need to not interfere
Yes, but Garland went out of his way to not appear to be political, and Trump still compained of have been a victim of weaponizing. He will do that again if the next AG decides that the many crimes of this administration need to be prosecuted.
We need to create an agency that is clearly above politics. We should have done that for the Supreme Court, but once Congress eliminated the filibuster for Justices people got confirmed on straight party votes, often by one vote.
>> "Trump wants these public fights. Authoritarianism needs to come into the daylight in order to socialize the acceptance not just of particular measures, but of the overall project, and to justify what might need to be done to seize power or stay in power..."
Also, Trump long ago learned something that too many people still don't realize. If someone does something, and they hide it or cover it up, people assume it was wrong. If someone does something openly, flagrantly, willfully, intentionally, etc., a good portion of the public seems to shrug and say, "It must be okay if they did it openly like that and didn't even try to hide it."
Trump knew this back in 2016; "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK? It's, like, incredible."
He didn't say he'd do in a back alley or in secret. If it happens in the middle of a busy street, it must be OK. OK, at least, according to a critical mass of folks in the country.
Mike Johnson has defended Trump’s corruption on exactly those grounds.
Important insight, sadly.
I feel like What Used to be the Rose Garden would be an apt title for a chronicle of our time.
Wish I could upvote this more than once.
“We will only know that that fund, that slush fund, is dead when we make that the law that the president cannot do this.”
Like Trump will follow the law. Like Republicans will make Trump follow the law. Like the Supreme Court will make Trump follow the law.
Four Republicans "rebuked" Donald Trump. Four. Only Four. There are no good Republicans left. The big question is, how many "good" Americans do we have?
"The House of Representatives delivered a remarkable rebuke to the White House yesterday, passing a war powers resolution that would require the president to withdraw forces from Iran or seek congressional approval for ongoing military action. Four Republicans broke ranks to support the measure, which now heads to the Senate."
This will be interesting, especially because I think trump is looking for a way out now - ie: Congress forcing him out of his Iran War. But he also HATES being told what he can or cannot do, so this might end up being a schizophrenic dilemma for him - wanting a graceful way out that isn't on him, but wanting to dare HIS Republican Reps and Senators to cross him!
You know what else is bigger than a skyscraper? A REALLY SMALL LAKE!
(The fact that President Man is crowing that a pool is “taller” than a skyscraper … I don’t even know what to say.)
Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. What else is there to say.
His brain is oatmeal.
Well, some kind of breakfast food, anyway. But not bacon. Bacon is good.
That offends Cocoa Puffs.
Once again, I'm wondering if the Trump Intellectuals don't ever feel a twinge of embarrassment about the idiocy they have committed themselves to defending. But as long as he's attacking their ideological enemies, they'll keep portraying his stupidity as genius.
RE: Trump Intellectuals
I won't bother with the obvious oxymoron crack, but if they were a bit less committed to helping to create and promote the idiot and the idiocy themselves, they might have at least a little bit less of it they'd need to defend.
Next thing: tip the Reflecting Pool on end so it's REALLY taller than all those buildings!
Re: "This led senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)..."
Murphy did a good job, but I wanted him to ask Markwayne, "So you claim you won't "break the Constitution. Who decides if the court got it wrong? You? Markwayne Mullin, alone, can determine if a court is acting in an unconstitutional manner and, if you make that determination, you can ignore it? Is that how it's going to work now?"
And how about, "Are you a lawyer, sir? No? So, again, you, Markwayne Mullin, non-lawyer, are the final arbiter of what is legal and what is not? What the law means and what it does not mean? That the court, where judges and lawyers from both sides argued the merits of a case and where, in some cases, a jury, rendered a verdict? None of that matters if Markwayne Mullin says the outcome wasn't right? Is that what you're saying?"
Democrats need to drive this point home. There are rules we've all agreed to follow as American citizens. That's the Rule of Law. If you don't like a decision, you can appeal it. If a court rules against you, you need to abide by that ruling. You don't get to just decide, on your own, that the court got it wrong and you don't need to abide by its decision.
Okay, but it's bothering me, so I just gotta point out that he's also oversized the pool on his chart. It's scaled to 2,300 ft, not the 2,030 ft the chart claims. Impeach him and remove him from office.
RE: "Remember, breathtaking ‘Popularity’ first, and then, guaranteed DEATH AND DESTRUCTION!"
Hmmm...
Mussolini. Ceaușescu. Marcos. Noreiga.
The Velvet Revolution of '89 in Czechoslovakia. “Color Revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan...
The "H" word.
Yep. You just might want to remember that yourself there, Donnie boy...
What about Melania is she the next Clara Petrucci? I hope that we can include the Flamingo revolution in the list
“Unless Trump plans to remain permanent president.
Which, it seems, is something Trump increasingly seems to have in mind.”
I disagree… I think he is getting more frustrated by and bored with the presidency by the day. This year is no fun compared to last year.
That said, more and more, he will *definitely* want his stooge-of-choice to be the next president. And I’m still terrified of what he would be willing to do to make that happen.
He may be bored with the actual work, but he adores the pomp and circumstance. And he made America great in both 2016 and 2024- it’s only great when he is President. His ego won’t be able to let go of all that. The closer ‘28 gets, look to hm to claw harder.
He has always been bored with the actual work of the presidency, I think, but he really loves all the money he's been able to grift. That would be what would cause him to want to stay in the presidency, in my opinion.
Bingo. This is always his motivation.
Don't forget, the country was dead in 2024 and now we're the hottest in the world! /s
He's never willingly leaving the Oval Office. Except maybe to get a round of golf in.
It's getting kinda weird that EVERYONE isn't recognizing this.
And any Congressional mid-term result he doesn't like will be due to "fraud."
He'll be applying every bit of pressure he can muster to get his minions to act on his "fraud" claims.
Another reason he’s been getting rid of insufficiently loyal Republicans as they might admit they lost. Those most loyal to him won’t.
Yup, he's purging the party and the Bulwark isn't mentioning it. It's weird.
He won't need to waste any of that pressure on Mike Johnson.
Come 2029 it will be time to change the locks while he’s out at golf — if he can still get around the course.
You mean HOTTEST!
Since I believe he will be using his ballroom as a bunker to rule from when he refuses to leave office in 2028, it makes sense that they will be building a putting green and indoor driving range for him, as well.... I mean, it's supposed to be like 6 stories deep or something, isn't it?