'Official' 2025 trump Administration Thread

[teen persuasion]

Nov 22, 2024 21:16:08 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Nov 22, 2024 20:05:29 GMT -5 hurley1980 said:

Can't we just ban her already?  I mean, its long overdue...so many of her posts violate the rules. She's nothing more than a troll at this point. 

I have her blocked, but its not enough. 

Why isn't you having her blocked enough for you?

I have just chosen to block her, because the 17 sleeping with 30yo comment was the post that finally outed her as an unrepentant troll, posting shit just to get a negative reaction. Absolutely beyond the pale, especially for someone choosing to pass judgement on others' lifestyle choices.

I'd previously tried to be cordial, giving her the benefit of the doubt as simply a poster with a different POV, and asking pointed questions trying to figure out HOW someone else thinks, looking for a logical thought process. There's no consistency, no central theme, simply opposition to whatever others post. QED, troll.

I long resisted blocking, I would rather know what's going on, but she's not posting in good faith, and the discussion is devolving into tit for tat between her and everyone else, rather than open discussion of more interesting topics. She is the child having a tantrum in the store to get attention - the best way to snuff out tantrums is to ignore them. As I found I couldn't completely ignore her posts, found myself being sucked in again, it was time to block. I knew I'd still see quotes, that's ok. But the biggest problem is that the blocked original posts ruin the continuity of the rest of the thread, because they are just not there. Now I find myself checking the number of each post I read, to see if there's a jump indicating an invisible post, to explain the discontinuity.

It would actually be less disruptive if the blocked posts were still acknowledged, like on Twitter - that numbered post still has a square, but the message is replaced with a note - "this post is from an account you blocked".

[billisonboard]

Nov 23, 2024 9:08:09 GMT -5 teen persuasion said:

Nov 22, 2024 21:16:08 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Why isn't you having her blocked enough for you?

I have just chosen to block her, because the 17 sleeping with 30yo comment was the post that finally outed her as an unrepentant troll, posting shit just to get a negative reaction. Absolutely beyond the pale, especially for someone choosing to pass judgement on others' lifestyle choices.

I'd previously tried to be cordial, giving her the benefit of the doubt as simply a poster with a different POV, and asking pointed questions trying to figure out HOW someone else thinks, looking for a logical thought process. There's no consistency, no central theme, simply opposition to whatever others post. QED, troll.

I long resisted blocking, I would rather know what's going on, but she's not posting in good faith, and the discussion is devolving into tit for tat between her and everyone else, rather than open discussion of more interesting topics. She is the child having a tantrum in the store to get attention - the best way to snuff out tantrums is to ignore them. As I found I couldn't completely ignore her posts, found myself being sucked in again, it was time to block. I knew I'd still see quotes, that's ok. But the biggest problem is that the blocked original posts ruin the continuity of the rest of the thread, because they are just not there. Now I find myself checking the number of each post I read, to see if there's a jump indicating an invisible post, to explain the discontinuity.

It would actually be less disruptive if the blocked posts were still acknowledged, like on Twitter - that numbered post still has a square, but the message is replaced with a note - "this post is from an account you blocked".

I like that solution to the discontinuity issue. Wish it could work the same for quoted posts so those who don't want to see those can have their desire fulfilled.

I love that there is the block option for those who desire to use it. My issue is with the idea that it should be forced on all of us by banning a person. I agree that ignoring the tantrum is appropriate, but that it is possible to do so and not ignore the person throwing it. The tit for tat annoys me. I work to stay the adult in addressing her posts.

[minnesotapaintlady]

Nov 23, 2024 9:08:09 GMT -5 teen persuasion said:

Nov 22, 2024 21:16:08 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Why isn't you having her blocked enough for you?

I have just chosen to block her, because the 17 sleeping with 30yo comment was the post that finally outed her as an unrepentant troll, posting shit just to get a negative reaction. Absolutely beyond the pale, especially for someone choosing to pass judgement on others' lifestyle choices.

That's what did it for me too.

[happyhoix]

I have a question about Trump’s big migrant round up.

Trump never built his wall. Obviously, because how could there will be hordes of dirty migrants swarming over the border every day of Biden’s presidency, if there was a wall to stop them?

So now, if Trump spends 300 billion bucks to round up the illegals, shove them in camps and send them back to wherever they’re from, what’s to keep them from coming right back over the border?

As long as there are people willing to hire them, they will be back.

Seems like something Trump should have thought of, if he’s serious about kicking all the migrants out for good.

[NastyWoman]

Nov 23, 2024 17:33:33 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

I have a question about Trump’s big migrant round up.

Trump never built his wall. Obviously, because how could there will be hordes of dirty migrants swarming over the border every day of Biden’s presidency, if there was a wall to stop them?

So now, if Trump spends 300 billion bucks to round up the illegals, shove them in camps and send them back to wherever they’re from, what’s to keep them from coming right back over the border?

As long as there are people willing to hire them, they will be back.

Seems like something Trump should have thought of, if he’s serious about kicking all the migrants out for good.

And what is to stop countries like Mexico from just refusing to accept them? There is a not insignificant number of people who are waiting to be deported because the country of destination refuses them entry. Are we going to use the military to illegally transport these people across a border?

[thyme4change]

Nov 22, 2024 15:11:02 GMT -5 grumpyhermit said:

Nov 22, 2024 13:49:20 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

I’m having Deja vu from the 1950s when seeing a mixed race couple was considered offensive, unchristian and unnatural in a large portion of the country.

There’s a church in the city where I work that refused to let one of their members sing in the choir back in the sixties because she had gotten divorced. She was allowed to attend but not participate in the service.

Interesting how public sentiment changes with time.

Right? There are a whole host of things I would prefer not to see/experience while out in public, but unless they are violating public decency laws, its on me to cope.

Though regression, repression, and control has long been the Conservative goal.

CBS has a show called Ghosts, which I like. I was watching the episode with Patience, a puritan ghost, who was going on and on about god and since and punishment - and I thought if she stays for the whole season I may have to just stop watching the show. Even though the show is not supporting her POV it was still annoying and I was glad that the faithful people in my life don’t use that language around me.

That said - it is legal, and socially acceptable and anyone has the right to be like that out in the open. I don’t like it - but I would be so upset if someone tried to ban people like that being like that “on public display”. Welcome to society.

[swamp]

Nov 23, 2024 0:20:46 GMT -5 azucena said:

Because we all continue to feed the troll by quoting her. Myself included.

Her saying nothing wrong with 17 sleeping with 30+ may have cured me. Wrong on so many levels and illegal to boot. No wonder she doesn't care about Republican sex scandals.

I can't imagine Teen or dd16 having a relationship with someone that age.

And yes just to be clear more wrong on the older man's part, he's supposed to know better.

And if she was lying once again to bait us then truly troll and worthless here.

They know better and that’s exactly why they do it.  They’re in control in the relationship.  

[swamp]

Nov 23, 2024 17:33:33 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

I have a question about Trump’s big migrant round up.

Trump never built his wall. Obviously, because how could there will be hordes of dirty migrants swarming over the border every day of Biden’s presidency, if there was a wall to stop them?

So now, if Trump spends 300 billion bucks to round up the illegals, shove them in camps and send them back to wherever they’re from, what’s to keep them from coming right back over the border?

As long as there are people willing to hire them, they will be back.

Seems like something Trump should have thought of, if he’s serious about kicking all the migrants out for good.

He’s not serious.  It’s all show and his supporters are too dumb to figure it out. 

[Tennesseer]

The Borowitz Report

Nixon Reacts to Trump’s Cabinet Picks

Since his death in 1994, Richard Nixon has refrained from public comments. Today, however, he has broken his silence in a letter from Hell.

Mr. Nixon offered TBR the exclusive right to publish his letter on one condition: that his expletives not be deleted.

Trump:

No one has more respect for the office of president than Dick Nixon. And no one understands more fully the demands of the transition period, as you carefully vet candidates for key positions. And so, since I would never want to distract you from that important endeavor, let me ask you just one question:

What the fucking fuck are you thinking?

Look, I get why you’d want to pack your Cabinet with toadying loyalists: you're batshit paranoid. As someone who suffers from a raging case of that same personality disorder, I consider your all-consuming terror of betrayal one of your more endearing traits.

So it makes perfect sense to me why, instead of a “team of rivals” or whatever that liberal hack Doris Kearns Goodwin called it, you’d want a clown car. God knows, Dick Nixon had a clown car. But your clown car makes my clown car look like the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

First of all, why does every member of your Cabinet have to be some moronic blow-dried chunk of spray-tan from TV? Sure, I could have shoehorned a bunch of television has-beens into my Cabinet. Maybe the cast of “Gilligan’s Island.” Secretary of the Navy? The Skipper. Treasury Secretary? Thurston Howell, III. Secretary of State? Gilligan. Even after a coconut fell on his head for the fortieth time he was smarter than that cretin Rubio.

As far as I can tell, your vetting process works like this: If someone’s been accused of snorting coke or hiring hookers, they’re in.

I mean, Matt Gaetz for Attorney General? What the fuck was that bullshit about? When those QAnon loons said they wanted to bring pedophiles to justice, I seriously doubt that’s what they meant.

That Gaetz fucker would have been the worst AG in history, and mine went to prison, for fuck’s sake. (For the record, John Mitchell is still a good friend. We play bridge every Wednesday.)

Of course, not everyone in my Cabinet was a gem. Take my Secretary of Agriculture, a fucking hick named Earl Butz. (Yes, that was his real name.) Poor Earl—he had to resign after making a racist joke. Nowadays he’d probably be opening for you at Madison Square Garden.

Speaking of which, I’m surprised you haven’t found a position for that comedian yet. Surely there’s a post in the diplomatic corps for someone with his skill set.

And I guess it’s too late for me to bring this up but... JD Vance? People reamed me for picking Spiro Agnew, but JD makes Spiro look like John Quincy Fucking Adams. I mean, I chose Spiro for impeachment insurance, but you hardly need that—not when the entire Congress and Supreme Court are filled to the brim with your oiled-up love slaves.

Well, we’ll have plenty of time to talk this stuff over when you’re down here—eternity, in fact. But I know you’re a busy man right now. Joe and Mika are probably quivering outside your door, waiting to kiss your flabby ass again.

Nixon Reacts to Trump’s Cabinet Picks

[Opti]

Nov 23, 2024 22:15:30 GMT -5 swamp said:

Nov 23, 2024 17:33:33 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

I have a question about Trump’s big migrant round up.

Trump never built his wall. Obviously, because how could there will be hordes of dirty migrants swarming over the border every day of Biden’s presidency, if there was a wall to stop them?

So now, if Trump spends 300 billion bucks to round up the illegals, shove them in camps and send them back to wherever they’re from, what’s to keep them from coming right back over the border?

As long as there are people willing to hire them, they will be back.

Seems like something Trump should have thought of, if he’s serious about kicking all the migrants out for good.

He’s not serious.  It’s all show and his supporters are too dumb to figure it out. 

They actually believe we have closed borders under Trump. Its the same physical setup with the same people handling entry yet they believe there is a magical closed position when Trump is President. Its illogical. Much like the belief that the US ever has open borders. 
We do not. 

[thyme4change]

Nov 23, 2024 19:29:18 GMT -5 NastyWoman said:

Nov 23, 2024 17:33:33 GMT -5 happyhoix said:

I have a question about Trump’s big migrant round up.

Trump never built his wall. Obviously, because how could there will be hordes of dirty migrants swarming over the border every day of Biden’s presidency, if there was a wall to stop them?

So now, if Trump spends 300 billion bucks to round up the illegals, shove them in camps and send them back to wherever they’re from, what’s to keep them from coming right back over the border?

As long as there are people willing to hire them, they will be back.

Seems like something Trump should have thought of, if he’s serious about kicking all the migrants out for good.

And what is to stop countries like Mexico from just refusing to accept them? There is a not insignificant number of people who are waiting to be deported because the country of destination refuses them entry. Are we going to use the military to illegally transport these people across a border?

I have heard this a bunch - and I believe it - but what reasons can a country refuse entry to their citizens? At least a couple of the big ones. I’m having trouble wrapping my head around it. Is it if you seek asylum, the country is allowed to declare you treasonous? Or…

[billisonboard]

Nov 24, 2024 12:03:22 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Nov 23, 2024 19:29:18 GMT -5 NastyWoman said:

And what is to stop countries like Mexico from just refusing to accept them? There is a not insignificant number of people who are waiting to be deported because the country of destination refuses them entry. Are we going to use the military to illegally transport these people across a border?

I have heard this a bunch - and I believe it - but what reasons can a country refuse entry to their citizens? At least a couple of the big ones. I’m having trouble wrapping my head around it. Is it if you seek asylum, the country is allowed to declare you treasonous? Or…

There have been people who have transversed Mexico from points further South to get to our Southern border as well as people originally from Mexico. Countries can "slow walk" an official acceptance of each and every individual (who likely don't have clear documentation of their actual citizenship).

[NastyWoman]

Nov 24, 2024 12:03:22 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Nov 23, 2024 19:29:18 GMT -5 NastyWoman said:

And what is to stop countries like Mexico from just refusing to accept them? There is a not insignificant number of people who are waiting to be deported because the country of destination refuses them entry. Are we going to use the military to illegally transport these people across a border?

I have heard this a bunch - and I believe it - but what reasons can a country refuse entry to their citizens? At least a couple of the big ones. I’m having trouble wrapping my head around it. Is it if you seek asylum, the country is allowed to declare you treasonous? Or…[img src="https://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff155/JiminiChristmas/ymamsmiles/idunno.gif" alt="" src="//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/huh.png" class="smile"]

Just demand that they have all the paperwork required to proof their citizenship. Chances are pretty good they won't have those. So to paraphrase the fictional (Abraxas) Malfoy: you're a citizen? why don't you just proof it!

As to Mexico? It has absolutely zero reason to accept people the US wants to deport. Why should it take on the cost to support people seeking asylum in another country?
  

[thyme4change]

Nov 24, 2024 13:03:04 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Nov 24, 2024 12:03:22 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

I have heard this a bunch - and I believe it - but what reasons can a country refuse entry to their citizens? At least a couple of the big ones. I’m having trouble wrapping my head around it. Is it if you seek asylum, the country is allowed to declare you treasonous? Or…

There have been people who have transversed Mexico from points further South to get to our Southern border as well as people originally from Mexico. Countries can "slow walk" an official acceptance of each and every individual (who likely don't have clear documentation of their actual citizenship).

But - why does that make it so we can’t send them back to their country of citizenship? I understand that we can’t send an Argentinian to Mexico - but why can’t they go back to Argentina?

[billisonboard]

Nov 24, 2024 13:23:11 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Nov 24, 2024 13:03:04 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

There have been people who have transversed Mexico from points further South to get to our Southern border as well as people originally from Mexico. Countries can "slow walk" an official acceptance of each and every individual (who likely don't have clear documentation of their actual citizenship).

But - why does that make it so we can’t send them back to their country of citizenship? I understand that we can’t send an Argentinian to Mexico - but why can’t they go back to Argentina?

How do you establish that the person standing in front of you is a Guatemalan or Salvadoran citizen - to the satisfaction of those countries?

[chiver78]

Nov 24, 2024 13:40:30 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Nov 24, 2024 13:23:11 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

But - why does that make it so we can’t send them back to their country of citizenship? I understand that we can’t send an Argentinian to Mexico - but why can’t they go back to Argentina?

How do you establish that the person standing in front of you is a Guatemalan or Salvadoran citizen - to the satisfaction of those countries?

this, and I'm not sure the Trump team GAF. these people are brown, Mexico is brown, we're just gonna them there. 🤷‍♀️ except, Mexico can close the border, or refuse to allow a plane to land or release passengers. I'm curious how they think this is all going to work.

[Tennesseer]

Nov 24, 2024 15:23:08 GMT -5 chiver78 said:

Nov 24, 2024 13:40:30 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

How do you establish that the person standing in front of you is a Guatemalan or Salvadoran citizen - to the satisfaction of those countries?

this, and I'm not sure the Trump team GAF. these people are brown, Mexico is brown, we're just gonna them there. 🤷‍♀️ except, Mexico can close the border, or refuse to allow a plane to land or release passengers. I'm curious how they think this is all going to work.

The same way trump's health care plan replaced the Affordable Care Act during his first term as president.

[Tennesseer]

To give credit where it's due, trump effectively removed matt gaetz from congress.

[NastyWoman]

Nov 24, 2024 13:23:11 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

Nov 24, 2024 13:03:04 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

There have been people who have transversed Mexico from points further South to get to our Southern border as well as people originally from Mexico. Countries can "slow walk" an official acceptance of each and every individual (who likely don't have clear documentation of their actual citizenship).

But - why does that make it so we can’t send them back to their country of citizenship? I understand that we can’t send an Argentinian to Mexico - but why can’t they go back to Argentina?

As I said - they would have to be able  proof they are Argentinean. They most likely won't  have the requisite paperwork. Or they may have destroyed the papers so as to not be forcibly returned. And now it has become a game of Old Maid, with the US holding the Old Maid and its accompanying responsibilities. 
Ultimately it all depends on whether the receiving country is willing to play this game and accept the cost coming with it.

[seriousthistime]

Like everything else with Trump, it will be easy.  He will deport some people who are scheduled to be deported anyway (criminals who've served their sentences and are being held pending deportations). He will make sure the deportations make the headlines.  Then he will boast about his MASSIVE deportations LIKE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE!  The new arrivals at the border will be dealt with through violence. That will also get the headlines. 

Then he will proclaim the problem solved. 

[happyhoix]

Nov 24, 2024 17:10:21 GMT -5 seriousthistime said:

Like everything else with Trump, it will be easy.  He will deport some people who are scheduled to be deported anyway (criminals who've served their sentences and are being held pending deportations). He will make sure the deportations make the headlines.  Then he will boast about his MASSIVE deportations LIKE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE!  The new arrivals at the border will be dealt with through violence. That will also get the headlines. 

Then he will proclaim the problem solved. 

Yep. 

Just like he did with his Wall that never got built. 

Just like he said he would make the economy good - and it will be good the day after he gets inaugurated, because he’ll say it is. 

And all the gullible MAGA will cheer. 

[Tennesseer]

[Tennesseer]

Another Facebook article from political historian Heather Cox Richardson.

November 24, 2024 (Sunday)
Since the night of the November 5, election, Trump and his allies have insisted that he won what Trump called “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.” But as the numbers have continued to come in, it’s clear that such a declaration is both an attempt to encourage donations— fundraising emails refer to Trump’s “LANDSLIDE VICTORY”—and an attempt to create the illusion of power to push his agenda.

The reality is that Trump’s margin over Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris will likely end up around 1.5 points. According to James M. Lindsay, writing for the Council of Foreign Relations, it is the fifth smallest since 1900, which covers 32 presidential races. Exit polls showed that Trump’s favorability rating was just 48% and that more voters chose someone other than Trump. And, as Lindsay points out, Trump fell 4 million votes short of President Joe Biden in 2020.

Political science professor Lynn Vavreck of the University of California, Los Angeles, told Peter Baker of the New York Times: “If the definition of landslide is you win both the popular vote and Electoral College vote, that’s a new definition” On the other hand, she added, “Nobody gains any kind of influence by going out and saying, ‘I barely won, and now I want to do these big things.’”

Trump’s allies are indeed setting out to do big things, and they are big things that are unpopular.

Trump ran away from Project 2025 during the campaign because it was so unpopular. He denied he knew anything about it, calling it “ridiculous and abysmal,” and on September 16 the leader of Trump’s transition team, Howard Lutnick, said there were “Absolutely zero. No connection. Zero” ties between the team and Project 2025. Now, though, Trump has done an about-face and has said he will nominate at least five people associated with Project 2025 to his administration.
Those nominees include Russell Vought, one of the project's key authors, who calls for dramatically increasing the powers of the president; Tom Homan, who as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) oversaw the separation of children from their parents; John Ratcliffe, whom the Senate refused in 2019 to confirm as Director of National Intelligence because he had no experience in intelligence; Brendan Carr, whom Trump wants to put at the head of the Federal Communications Commission and who is already trying to silence critics by warning he will punish broadcasters who Trump feels have been unfair to him; and Stephen Miller, the fervently anti-immigrant ideologue.

Project 2025 calls for the creation of an extraordinarily strong president who will gut the civil service and replace its nonpartisan officials with those who are loyal to the president. It calls for filling the military and the Department of Justice with those loyal to the president. And then, the project plans that with his new power, the president will impose Christian nationalism on the United States of America, ending immigration, and curtailing rights for LGBTQ+ individuals as well as women and racial and ethnic minorities.

Project 2025 was unpopular when people learned about it.

Due to space, the rest of article is in the SPOILER:

SPOILER: Click to show

And then there is the threat of dramatic cuts to the U.S. government, suggested by the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, headed by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. They are calling for cuts of $2 trillion to the items in the national budget that provide a safety net for ordinary Americans at the same time that Trump is promising additional tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. Musk, meanwhile, is posturing as if he is the actual president, threatening on Saturday, for example: “Those who break the law will be arrested and that includes mayors.”

On Meet the Press today, current representative and senator-elect Adam Schiff (D-CA) reacted to the “dictator talk,” with which Trump is threatening his political opponents, pointing out that "[t]he American people…voted on the basis of the economy—they wanted change to the economy—they weren’t voting for dictatorship. So I think he is going to misread his mandate if that’s what he thinks voters chose him for.”

That Trump and his team are trying desperately to portray a marginal victory as a landslide in order to put an extremist unpopular agenda into place suggests another dynamic at work.

For all Trump’s claims of power, he is a 78-year-old man who is declining mentally and who neither commands a majority of voters nor has shown signs of being able to transfer his voters to a leader in waiting.

Trump’s team deployed Vice President–elect J.D. Vance to the Senate to drum up votes for the confirmation of Florida representative Matt Gaetz to become the United States attorney general. But Vance has only been in the Senate since 2022 and is not noticeably popular. He—and therefore Trump—was unable to find the votes the wildly unqualified Gaetz needed for confirmation, forcing him to withdraw his name from consideration.

The next day, Gaetz began to advertise on Cameo, an app that allows patrons to commission a personalized video for fans, asking a minimum of $550.00 for a recording. Gaetz went from United States representative to Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney general to making videos for Cameo in a little over a week.

It is a truism in studying politics that it’s far more important to follow power than it is to follow people. Right now, there is a lot of power sloshing around in Washington, D.C.

Trump is trying to convince the country that he has scooped up all that power. But in fact, he has won reelection by less than 50% of the vote, and his vice president is not popular. The policies Trump is embracing are so unpopular that he himself ran away from them when he was campaigning. And now he has proposed filling his administration with a number of highly unqualified figures who, knowing the only reason they have been elevated is that they are loyal to Trump, will go along with his worst instincts. With that baggage, it is not clear he will be able to cement enough power to bring his plans to life.

If power remains loose, it could get scooped up by cabinet officials, as it was during a similarly chaotic period in the 1920s. In that era, voters elected to the presidency former newspaperman and Republican backbencher Warren G. Harding of Ohio, who promised to return the country to “normalcy” after eight years of the presidency of Democrat Woodrow Wilson and the nation’s engagement in World War I. That election really was a landslide, with Harding and his running mate, Calvin Coolidge, winning more than 60% of the popular vote in 1920.

But Harding was badly out of his depth in the presidency and spent his time with cronies playing bridge and drinking upstairs at the White House—despite Prohibition—while corrupt members of his administration grabbed all they could.
With such a void in the executive branch, power could have flowed to Congress. But after twenty years of opposing first Theodore Roosevelt, and then William Howard Taft, and then Woodrow Wilson, Congress had become adept at opposing presidents but had split into factions that made it unable to transition to using power, rather than opposing its use.

And so power in that era flowed to members of Harding’s Cabinet, primarily to Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, who put into place a fervently pro-business government that continued after Harding’s untimely death into the presidency of Calvin Coolidge, who made little effort to recover the power Harding had abandoned. After Hoover became president and their system fell to ruin in the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took their lost power and used it to create a new type of government.

In this moment, Trump’s people are working hard to convince Americans that they have gathered up all the power in Washington, D.C., but that power is actually still sloshing around. Trump is trying to force through the Senate a number of unqualified and dangerous nominees for high-level positions, threatening Republican senators that if they don’t bow to him, Elon Musk will fund primary challengers, or suggesting he will push them into recess so he can appoint his nominees without their constitutionally-mandated advice and consent.

But Trump and his people do not, in fact, have a mandate. Trump is old and weak, and power is up for grabs. It is possible that MAGA Republicans will, in the end, force Republican senators into their camp, permitting Trump and his cronies to do whatever they wish.

It is also possible that Republican senators will themselves take back for Congress the power that has lately concentrated in presidents, check the most dangerous and unpopular of Trump’s plans, and begin the process of restoring the balance of the three branches of government.

Heather Cox Richardson On Facebook

[pulmonarymd]

Kelly Loeffler for Agriculture Secretary. We will see if the farm states fall into line and are happy with that pick. Seems like another unqualified person to lead an agency.

[seriousthistime]

No surprise here.
 
Farmers knew they'd be hurting if their workers were deported. Despite Trump promising mass deportations, they want their workers to be exempt. 

www.reuters.com/world/us/us-farm-groups-want-trump-spare-their-workers-deportation-2024-11-25/

[minnesotapaintlady]

A big furniture manufacturer near me (largest in the US) knowingly hires undocumented workers.  I'm sure there are hundreds of them there. It will be interesting to see what happens with them. They can't get enough help as it is, they even started free bussing service to the neighboring towns 25 miles out to attract people that might not have drivers licenses.

Honestly, what I think is going to happen is nothing.  Trump was just riling up his fan base and just like the wall in 2016 the mass deportations won't happen.

[happyhoix]

Nov 25, 2024 10:09:17 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

Kelly Loeffler for Agriculture Secretary. We will see if the farm states fall into line and are happy with that pick. Seems like another unqualified person to lead an agency.

Loeffler grew up on a soybean farm in Indiana and when she ran for senator of GA she made a big deal about her farming background, awkwardly wearing a ball cap and flannel shirt from time to time. 

She may have started on a farm but got a marketing degree in college and has been in business ever since. She was living in GA but isn’t Southern any more than she is a farmer. 

That said, at least I’m not aware of any sex scandals she’s been involved in, so that might make her one of Trump’s better picks. 

[pulmonarymd]

I have 2 sons who worked for years for a local farm. Doesn't make them qualified to be Secretary of Agriculture. But why should we be surprised by the pick. She is blond and fits Trump's definition of attractive, plus she had her head up his ass. About as qualified as anyone else.

[happyhoix]

Nov 25, 2024 10:31:43 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

A big furniture manufacturer near me (largest in the US) knowingly hires undocumented workers.  I'm sure there are hundreds of them there. It will be interesting to see what happens with them. They can't get enough help as it is, they even started free bussing service to the neighboring towns 25 miles out to attract people that might not have drivers licenses.

Honestly, what I think is going to happen is nothing.  Trump was just riling up his fan base and just like the wall in 2016 the mass deportations won't happen.

Yeah I think Trump will make a big show of removing the immigrants in jail and the immigrants who are unemployed (a lot of whom will sneak back over the border) and claim he won. 

Now Trump is talking about removing kids who were born to illegal immigrant parents inside the States - which makes them American citizens. He wants to reverse that policy and kick them out (so he claims). 

I don’t see that happening, either - and isn’t that dangerously close to his own kids? I know Melania took advantage of some kind of ‘genius’ green card status and then managed to become a citizen prior to having Barron, but if you listen to Barron talking when he was a young kid, he had a foreign accent just like his mom. If Trump is rounding up first generation children seems like Barron should be included, he doesn’t seem very ‘Merican to me. 

[minnesotapaintlady]

I think he'd have a hell of a time getting the 14th amendment removed from the constitution and even if he could it would not apply to those that were already citizens. You couldn't just strip them of their citizenship after the fact.