Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Endus]

It is really frustrating that both the Liberals and NDP have been unable to gain much traction in Ontario.

To be fair, before Ford, it was McGuinty from 2003-2013, and then Wynne from 2013-2018. And now Ford from 2018 till now. He's only in his second term, and it tends to bounce around quite a bit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ers_of_Ontario

It's been a shitshow compared to Wynne's term, but I guess she was too female and gay for Ontarians or something.

[Rasulis]

70 year-olds? You and your "friend" are creepy as fuck. For fucks sake report them for elder abuse, dont use it for fodder on your lifestyle blog.

Some of the workers have been with the farm since my friend was a little girl. It is all they know. It is also their social support system. Letting them go would not be an act of kindness.

[gondrin]

So, the revenge tour continues. The National Archives chief is now out of a job.

Why? Because Trump is a vengeful asshole and he didn't like the fact they wanted their stuff back and he went "Nope" and they came and took it anyway.

The best(worst) part of it all is, the current chief wasn't even there when he got raided.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...d6fc44c7&ei=96

[Breccia]

The best(worst) part of it all is, the current chief wasn't even there when he got raided.

I do quite like the juxtaposition of this, and the DEI situation, and of course Trump cultists trying to work with both at once.

"Someone should only get the job if they're qualified for the job! Other factors, like race and gender, should not be part of it at all!"
"Okay, here are some people who are qualified for the job."
"Are they Trump cultists?"
"No, they're just dedicated and experienced civil servants."
"Then ditch them."

[Ivanstone]

It's been a shitshow compared to Wynne's term, but I guess she was too female and gay for Ontarians or something.

Pretty sure the Hydro One debacle didn't help.

Doesn't matter how much good you might do but only conservatives are allowed to fuck up. Their followers will forgive mistakes.

[Flarelaine]

Sounds almost exactly like Trumps father.

Not just father. Trump himself is a draft dodger - and a fan of Fortunate Son.

[Fugus]

While this might be veering a little off the topic of Trump, an attempt by a Republican judge to throw out 60,000 ballots to secure his seat on North Carolina's Supreme Court has been rejected.

https://www.democracydocket.com/case...challenges-ii/

As a resident of NC, I am glad to hear this. This place has repeatedly proven itself a disappointment to myself and the nation, but at least it didn’t fuck up on this one for a change.

[gondrin]

And here it is. JD Vance saying basically what Trump will do if SCOTUS rules against him. Ignore the ruling and force someone to do something.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...503d8e983&ei=7

"I think that what Trump should, like, if I was giving him one piece of advice, fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state," Vance said in 2021 on a podcast. "Replace them with our people. And when the courts — because you will get taken to court — and when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say, 'The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.'"

At that point, if Congress doesn't do it duly elected responsibility, there is no more United States. This is literally what the endgame looks like for the US. Lets see if there are enough Republicans that will actually do their duly elected responsibility or decide they, the Congress, doesn't want to exist anymore.

[En Sabah Nur]

I know CNN aren't exactly left wing anymore, but... come on, guys.

[postman1782]

@Edge- @Endus @Breccia

THIS IS WHY WE NEEDED FUCKING FBI BACKGROUND CHECKS.

https://www.the-independent.com/news...-b2694479.html
https://www.motherjones.com/politics...ukraine-putin/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...sia-lopatonok/
https://www.newsweek.com/kash-patel-...ayment-2028232
https://apnews.com/article/kash-pate...9dd3b9de613939

The new head of the FBI, made an anti-FBI TV series with a Kremlin tied production company.

In November, Tucker Carlson’s online network released a six-part series called All the President’s Men: The Conspiracy Against Trump that purported to chronicle the familiar MAGA conspiracy theory that a Deep State plotted against Donald Trump while he was a presidential candidate in 2016 and when he was president. The fourth episode focused on Patel and his years-long crusade to depict the Trump-Russia scandal—Moscow’s attack on the 2016 election and Donald Trump’s efforts to cover up its existence—as nothing but a total hoax orchestrated by nefarious Democrats and rogue government operatives.

In this film—which credits Patel as an executive producer—he offers a blistering attack on the FBI. He calls it a “corrupt” enterprise and claims it has been on the Democratic Party’s “payroll.” He says, “I’m the guy that’s going to tell you they need major reforms. I’m going to tell you to shut down the FBI headquarters building and open it up as a museum of the Deep State the next day. Seriously, you need 50 guys in Washington running the FBI.” He pushes the false claim that the FBI launched its Russia investigation in 2016 on the basis of the infamous and unconfirmed Steele memos. And he insists that the FBI and the rest of the US intelligence community that investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election “knew it didn’t exist.” He also asserts that “globalists” have been working with Al Qaeda to make a profit.

The series was produced for Carlson, who is featured in the final episode, by Global Tree Pictures, a Los Angeles-based firm run by Ukrainian-American-Russian filmmaker Igor Lopatonok. He and Russian-born film director Vera Tomilova, the chief financial officer of Global Tree Pictures, who holds a US green card, are listed in the film’s credits as its producers. Global Tree raised the financing for the series, according to a contract filed in Rudy Giuliani’s bankruptcy proceedings. (Giuliani also starred in the documentary.)

Lopatonok has ties to Russian propaganda and disinformation efforts.

That is from the Mother Jones article, we knew Tucker Carlson had ties to Russia, now his production company Global Tree Pictures, and the producer are well known Russian propagandists.

That is not the only thing. He has ties to a Chinese fashion company, he advised a Czech arms maker, and the Embassy to Qatar.

The AP article is where I got that.

[Breccia]

He also asserts that “globalists” have been working with Al Qaeda to make a profit.

But working with the Taliban, in public, on purpose, was completely okay for some reason.

We're still talking about projection, people, a key feature of sociopaths unable to understand human emotion, so they assume everyone would think/act the way they do. "If I work with terrorists, like the Jan 6th insurrectionists, then surely so does everyone else!"

[Timester]

Oh man, I bet Musk is really happy now. I know he has his hand right up Trumps massively huge ass. This proves it.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...07ba3680&ei=34

So yes, white South African refugees are allowed to come here. Because the land that they stole is being taken away from them.

Oh the irony. The pure irony.

Oh, and this is the best part.

Afrikaners, the literal apartheid neo-nazis. What's next, the German-Argentinians?

[Rennadrel]

To be fair, before Ford, it was McGuinty from 2003-2013, and then Wynne from 2013-2018. And now Ford from 2018 till now. He's only in his second term, and it tends to bounce around quite a bit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ers_of_Ontario

It's been a shitshow compared to Wynne's term, but I guess she was too female and gay for Ontarians or something.

Wynne was every bit as wasteful as McGuinty was when it came to poorly allocating funding and ultimately that was her downfall. The political climate was already starting to shift against the Liberals and it was a part of the reason why McGuinty resigned, he'd mired himself in too many controversies that it was detrimental to the party. Ultimately some of his failings were passed on to Wynne due to the fact that she was a member of his cabinet when he was premier. And Bonnie Crombie lacks a shred of charisma needed to rally the electorate against Doug Ford.

And we need politicians who are actually going to stand against Trump and his bullying, not cave to it like Ford and Poolever will.

[Edge-]

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/08/nx-s1...ge-access-musk

Russel Vought, the Project 2025 guy that Donald didn't know at all and had nothing to do with and didn't like and hadn't heard of and who are you and what are you doing here again?

Sorry, Russel Vought is now the head of the CFPB. While I think it will still require an act of Congress to remove, the department can still likely be defunded through the treasury and functionally shuttered for a few years.

Republicans love protecting consumers so much they're shutting down an agency that's proven to deliver wins for consumers.

[Shadowferal]

In the fafo category, The Mood of the American Consumer is Souring

Tariff threats, market turbulence causing jitters early

A Trump voter named Paul Bisson ripped President Donald Trump’s turbulent early second term, telling the Wall Street Journal “I don’t like chaos” and Trump’s rollout is not what Trump voters “signed up for.”

In a new piece from WSJ’s Rachel Wolfe and Joe Pinsker, consumer data and talks with Trump voters indicate strong warning signs of dissatisfaction:

• Consumer sentiment fell about 5% in the University of Michigan’s preliminary February survey of consumers to its lowest reading since July 2024. Expectations of inflation in the year ahead jumped from 3.3% in January to 4.3%, the second month in a row of large increases and highest reading since November 2023.
  “It’s very rare to see a full percentage point jump in inflation expectations,” said Joanne Hsu, who oversees the survey. Republicans have come off a postelection surge in confidence, she said, and Democrats and Independents also seem to believe that economic conditions have deteriorated since last month.
  Moening Consult’s recent index of consumer confidence, too, fell between Jan. 25 and Feb. 3, driven primarily by concern over the country’s economic future.
  “I don’t like the turbulence. I don’t like the chaos in the market,” said Paul Bisson, a 58-year-old, who writes proposals for a flight safety company and co-owns a dog daycare in San Antonio. Bisson voted for Trump, but feels “his policies have led to that chaos.”
  Bisson is hoping to retire in the not-too-distant future, and is worried that won’t be possible if Trump follows through with his tariff threats rather than just using them as a negotiating tactic.
  "That will make the economy worse, and that’s not what we signed up for,” Bisson said. “We’ve already cut back. There’s no more cutting back to do.”

And here's something to amuse;
You voted for the destruction of America and that's what Trump is giving us.

[Xyonai]

I'm not putting much stock into the Buyers Remorse of Trump voters until they make some moves to actually do anything. They bitched and whined through Trump's first term and still overwhelmingly voted to try and get him back in.

[Breccia]

Kennedy Center expresses their concerns.

We have received no official communications from the White House regarding changes to our board of trustees.

We are aware that some members of our board have received termination notices from the administration.

Per the Center’s governance established by Congress in 1958, the chair of the board of trustees is appointed by the Center’s board members. There is nothing in the Center’s statute that would prevent a new administration from replacing board members; however, this would be the first time such action has been taken with the Kennedy Center’s board.

Just to be clear, the person who until recently was the chair was put on the board by W, then elected to chair in 2010. Yes, elected. He was reappointed by everyone since, including Biden and Trump.

"Why is Trump doing this?"

According to his own posts he specifically and directly made in public, it's about drag shows.

He also indicated that he would be dictating programming at one of the nation's premier cultural institutions, specifically declaring that he would end events featuring performers in drag.

“At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN. I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture,” Trump wrote on his social media website.

Trump suggested in his post that he would be implementing some changes to the center's performance schedule, noting that last year “the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP."

Then he posted this image.

"Isn't that an AI picture?"

Yes.

"So...the peson who is about to be in charge of the Kennedy Center...uses AI art."

Yes.

"He's using government power to block art? Isn't there a Constitution for that?"

I mean, he's shutting down an agency under his control, so I'm guessing not.

As an additional feature, Trump went to a total of zero Kennedy Center Honors during his first term.

So, yes, Trump is being intentionally petty, homophobic, and taking on a part-time job about which he willingly knows nothing.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

I know CNN aren't exactly left wing anymore, but... come on, guys.

CNN was never left wing.

[gondrin]

So, in a first somewhat win, DOGE is required to delete any data they have collected or copied at the Treasury Department. Yes, I know it won't stop the fact they had it in the first place and it won't reverse if in the event they sent it somewhere else but, it is still something. I hope there is more of these.

Oh, and if they ignore the judges order, they can be forced to come to court by DC police which is local and not under the control of the DoJ. Please correct me if I am wrong here on this part.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/st...d=BingNewsSerp

U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer’s decision also ordered Musk and his team to “immediately destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems, if any.”

- - - Updated - - -

So, thank god for hot mics. Sometimes you get to hear what people are really thinking or talking about.

According to Trudeau, Trump was serious about trying to make Canada part of the US. Trump thought he could just absorb it, I guess like an amoeba or a sponge or something like that. So, come in a few weeks, Trump will start to demand something far worse. This is why you do not negotiate with terrorists.

Yes, it is reddit but it is video from CNN that was taken from a hot mic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/XGramatikIn...state_plan_is/

[Malkiah]

i saw this today and thought of many, many posters here.
gondrin my heart goes out of you especially on this one.