Having seen Gawdzilla since mods demanded he apologize for something. Where o where are you, old man?
Trump 2.0
- Thread starter James R
- Start date
For what it's worth, you & Pinball could always check semrush.com or a competitor like online.seranking.com.
Both offer free data overviews. and you can go back further than six months if you choose.
While mostly useless for absolute numbers, they're sometimes decent for spotting trends...
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
Thanks Ill check that
So, TOF's Executive Order freezing federal grants, and the subsequent rescinding of that EO...
Several judges have now put a restraining order on Trump's efforts to freeze funding, so that's a start, and one said that the plaintiffs bringing the case appeared to have reasonable grounds on the unconsitutionality of the order, in that Trump overstepped the boundaries in freezing grants that have already been appropriated by Congress.
Anyhoo, the latest federal judge has also taken a swipe at the WH Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt for misleading the press about the situation.
If you recall, the events went something like:
1. Trump issues an EO that halts federal grants and funding.
2. An OMB (Office of Management and Budget) memo was released detailing the freeze.
3. There is backlash by the public/media and there is also an injunction placed on the order by the court, meaning that the freeze could not proceed for the time being.
4. The OMB then rescinded their original memo with a statement that "unambiguously reflects that the rescission was in direct response" to the court's issuance of an administrative stay.
However, during the press conference, Leavitt said that rescission (4) was only of the original memo (2), and that the rescission was to have no tangible effect on "the federal funding freeze" of the EO (1).
The judge wrote: "For Defendants to innocently claim that OMB's post-stay actions were merely a noble attempt to 'end[] confusion'... strains credulity." and "The voluntary cessation doctrine is especially important in cases where the defendant is suspected of 'manipulating the judicial process through the false premise of singlehandedly ending a dispute'".
So Leavitt, who told everyone she would not lie to anyone, has been caught telling porkies - or at best deliberately misleading.
I don't imagine any of the mainstream media will make too much of it, though.
Several judges have now put a restraining order on Trump's efforts to freeze funding, so that's a start, and one said that the plaintiffs bringing the case appeared to have reasonable grounds on the unconsitutionality of the order, in that Trump overstepped the boundaries in freezing grants that have already been appropriated by Congress.
Anyhoo, the latest federal judge has also taken a swipe at the WH Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt for misleading the press about the situation.
If you recall, the events went something like:
1. Trump issues an EO that halts federal grants and funding.
2. An OMB (Office of Management and Budget) memo was released detailing the freeze.
3. There is backlash by the public/media and there is also an injunction placed on the order by the court, meaning that the freeze could not proceed for the time being.
4. The OMB then rescinded their original memo with a statement that "unambiguously reflects that the rescission was in direct response" to the court's issuance of an administrative stay.
However, during the press conference, Leavitt said that rescission (4) was only of the original memo (2), and that the rescission was to have no tangible effect on "the federal funding freeze" of the EO (1).
The judge wrote: "For Defendants to innocently claim that OMB's post-stay actions were merely a noble attempt to 'end[] confusion'... strains credulity." and "The voluntary cessation doctrine is especially important in cases where the defendant is suspected of 'manipulating the judicial process through the false premise of singlehandedly ending a dispute'".
So Leavitt, who told everyone she would not lie to anyone, has been caught telling porkies - or at best deliberately misleading.
I don't imagine any of the mainstream media will make too much of it, though.
TheVat
Registered Senior Member
If you live near a US state capital and feel like some fresh air today....
www.buildtheresistance.org
Our state capital is the 2nd smallest in the fifty states, and a three hour drive from both of the major population centers, so I would have suggested one of them instead, if turnout was seen as important. Few under the rotunda in Pierre are going to give a shit, and some are probably trying to book early for their vacations in the ethnically laundered and folded Gazan Riviera.
50501 — Build The Resistance
50 Protests. 50 States. 1 Day. – Gather at your State Capitol at 12:00PM local time on February 5, 2025 to peacefully demonstrate your opposition to fascism.
www.buildtheresistance.org
Our state capital is the 2nd smallest in the fifty states, and a three hour drive from both of the major population centers, so I would have suggested one of them instead, if turnout was seen as important. Few under the rotunda in Pierre are going to give a shit, and some are probably trying to book early for their vacations in the ethnically laundered and folded Gazan Riviera.
TheVat
Registered Senior Member
A Trump press secretary lying? I feel a Captain Renault moment coming on...
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Well, at least parts of the justice system still seem to work. They may have some heavy lifting to do in the months ahead.
I wonder how long it will before the FBI starts fishing expeditions to intimidate unhelpful judges. That would be in, ooh, about chapter 4 of the would-be autocrats classic manual on how to execute a soft coup.
Though when you consider how many federal judges Trump appointed during his last term... Probably not for long (re: working).Well, at least parts of the justice system still seem to work. They may have some heavy lifting to do in the months ahead.
I wonder how long it will before the FBI starts fishing expeditions to intimidate unhelpful judges. That would be in, ooh, about chapter 4 of the would-be autocrats classic manual on how to execute a soft coup.
Something that always eats at me: Weighing your own job security and financial security against what you perceive as right. Like releasing billions of gallons of water from the reservoir in northern California. Presumably, at least some of those tasked with effecting such were knowledgable and capable, i.e., they understood the implications and consequences of such a maneuver, so why did they do it? Probably would have lost their jobs if they hadn't, but they just threw away a massive quantity of water in a state long ravaged by drought to placate a fucking psychopathic idiot.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Well it's the old gas tap twiddlers' argument from Nazi Germany. If I don't do it, I will be shot, and someone else will do it in my place. At what point do you say, I'm not doing this on principle, even if you fire me. Hard in this case, as I gather it is the Army Corps of Engineers, so military discipline will apply.
I understand some local officials eventually weighed in and stopped it before all the water was gone. So perhaps that's what you do in their position: alert as many relevant people in civil authorities as you can to what you are being asked to do, so that they can do something about it.
But in principle yeah, you need to stand up before you get to the stage where people are being shot, not get acclimatised to the takeover. That's what the Germans didn't do - and then it was too late.
Thing is, Trump frequently "jokes" about this sort of thing--but are they jokes? I simply don't see any compelling reasons or evidence to believe that Trump, Musk, et al would not resort to such measures. And, yeah, when you're dealing with military or law enforcement types, unquestioning allegiance becomes a serious concern.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Well it goes in stages, doesn't it? And may arrive in different forms in different societies. We are not in the Weimar Republic now. But I can see the FBI morphing into a kind of Stasi-lite and going after key people who don't toe the line, with bent legal proceedings, in front of a Trumpy judge, to follow. A lot can be done just with threats of lawfare - at which Trump is expert. They can ruin someone with legal fees, even if they can't get a conviction. So intimidation of that type can achieve a lot. This kind of thing would be the Orban model, which I understand a number of Repubicans have been over to Hungary to study.
Some readers may think this kind of speculation over the top and hysterical, but things have already moved farther and faster in this direction than many had anticipated. And the lesson of history is to call it out good and early, rather than hoping it won't come to anything much.
What's the shortest time a President has been in office before impeachment proceedings have been started against them?
How about 16 days...
How about 16 days...
foghorn
Valued Senior Member
OMG
I wonder if Musk will be cutting the strings and running back to spaceland.
??? How exactly are you using this word? The Republican party is pretty explicitly a White Christian Nationalist party at present, as reflected by pretty much all of Trump's appointments, their "policies", their proposals, and their own statements. That they may have a few useful Blacks, Jews, et al is just par for the course--couldn't do it without 'em.
One of the not nearly told-enough stories of the last fifteen to twenty years has been the conservative disposability of South Asian ethnicity as poster children for diversity. Harmeet Dillon, Usha Vance, and Nikki Haley come to mind↗, and Bobby Jindal before them. Most recently, apparently Vivek Ramaswamy wasn't DOGE-y enough for the dodge.
If we also take a moment to recall Nisha Biswal and Arun Kumar↱, it's to remind the contrast isn't new. This disposability didn't just happen recently, because of Trump. This kind of racism precedes Trump, and is one of the durable values of the Republican Party appeal to voters. That is, it didn't happen because of Trump, but Trump happened in no small part because of American white supremacism.
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Notes:
bd. "America’s Wang: Rep. Curt Clawson (R) and the Good People of Florida’s Nineteenth Congressional District". This Is. 28 July 2024. bdThisIs.wordpress.com. 5 February 2025. https://bdthisis.wordpress.com/2014/07/28/americas-wang-clawson-fl19/
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All of them born-rich (or, at least, quite comfortable), "coincidentally", but only two of them are Brahmins (and even two are Sikhs). So I guess we can at least pretend that that is some sort of gesture towards "progress" or "diversity".
Every once in a while, I confess, I'm actually struck by the sight of well-polished emptiness↑, a middling analysis notable for its thorough lack of insight. Not a single sentence in W's two-graf analysis↑ actually says anything subtantial. It's something I've mentioned before↗:
Part of what sets people off is when others around them start behaving like an internet axiom. I've seen this before, and I never know quite what to think of it. But why do people strike middling yet consequential postures from pretenses of ignorance? It's not like weird rhetorical habits are limited to one range of the politic, or something, but there is a form that reads like someone has suddenly gone test-market, and it does, actually, often follow general trends.
As to the boldface, that would be Poe's Law, lack of insight/anything substantial, and a television ad spot for a news-curation website.
If I'm never quite certain how to take such contexts of "diversity", it's because there is no context for what that means. As such, it's hard to know how to measure progress, or, as such, what it means to "evolve into something resembling diversity". It's one thing to project a superficial self-image, but that's not really any sort of evolution.
I was referencing who voted for Trump; supposedly, he gained more Blacks this election than his first time around, and from a political stance, I think he swung over some moderates. Important to note that not only whites identify as Christians/Catholic, so that may have impacted who voted for him.
But this is in no way the Republican party "evolv(ing) into something resembl(ing) diversity". Arguably, in a cynical and perverse sort of way, even the Southern Strategy could be said to be more that; though that (the Southern Strategy) would more accurately be described as the Republican party "chang(ing) it's image"--by donning sheep's clothing, of course. What we've got presently is almost wholly antithetical to the Southern Strategy in that they are now so emboldened as to say pretty much exactly what they are thinking and what they believe.