The All Things Political Topic - Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence

[Malcador]

On the bright side, hurricane season is starting.  

[Gromnir]

46 minutes ago, Malcador said:

On the bright side, hurricane season is starting.  

am gonna admit we were surprised it took trump a month to approve fema funds for arkansas.  am cynical enough to believe that trump was planning on treating fema the same way he is handling tariffs-- if a disaster hits a red state and the governor of the state in question grovels obsequiously enough, offers to praise trump public and perhaps provide his family business new enrichment opportunities, then...

but if a disaster comes to california or washington, then am suspecting fema funds is gonna be hard to find and the needed bribes and genuflection is gonna be increased signifficant. 

as a possible explanation for the curious treatment o' arkansas, perhaps huckabee and arkansas were simply victims o' timing. being the first major disaster locus for the new administration, trump needed to prove to the other 49 states (and smattering o' territories,) that he was willing and able to let even his most devoted voters suffer. if the past month is an indication o' what huckabee gets post disaster, then imagine what jb pritzer has to look forward to when historic storms hit.

regardless, whenever trump does curious or odd, am always trying to figure out how such behavior aligns with one o' his four guiding principles: greed; vanity, willful ignorance, vengeance.  is rare we cannot explain a trump move once we consider how one or more o' the aforementioned beasts is being fed by Presidential action or inaction.

HA! Good Fun!

Edited Saturday at 05:54 PM by Gromnir

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

On the bright side, hurricane season is starting.  

With Trump hollowing out the weather service, I get the feeling the first hurricane to hit is going to take a much more severe toll than it should. The leopards await.

[rjshae]

42 minutes ago, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

With Trump hollowing out the weather service, I get the feeling the first hurricane to hit is going to take a much more severe toll than it should. The leopards await.

The problem will be solved with a magic Sharpie marker, just you watch.

[uuuhhii]

usa threaten 50 percent tariff against eu while trying to pass their new 5 trillion tax cut that also cripple court

would be pretty embarrassing if something called bbb destroy what left of usa 

Edited Sunday at 01:45 AM by uuuhhii

[Gromnir]

and

...

there is more than a few additional examples o' crazy and senile, but we have gone so far around the bend it doesn't even seem worth it for pundits to remark that trump is wearing a maga hat at a west point commencement speech for chrissakes.

HA! Good Fun!

[Agiel]

Can't help but think about how this is in sharp relief to one of my favourite Presidential addresses to one of the service academies:

You, here today on this field, your colleagues at Omaha, Nebraska, or at Eglin in Florida, or who may be stationed in Western Europe, or men who are at sea in ships hundreds of miles from land, or soldiers in camps in Texas, or on the Island of Okinawa, they maintain the freedom by being on the ready. They maintain the freedom, the security, and the peace not only of the United States, but of the dozens of countries who are allied to us who are close to the Communist power and who depend upon us and, in a sense, only upon us for their freedom and security. These distant ships, these distant planes, these distant men keep the peace in a great half-circle stretching all the way from Berlin to South Korea. This is the role which history and our own determination has placed upon a country which lived most of its history in isolation and neutrality, and yet in the last 18 years has carried the burden for free people everywhere. I think that this is a burden which we accept willingly, recognizing that if this country does not accept it, no people will, recognizing that in the most difficult time in the whole life of freedom, the United States is called upon to play its greatest role. This is a role which we are proud to accept, and I am particularly proud to see the United States accept it in the presence of these young men who have committed themselves to the service of our country and to the cause of its freedom.

 

Postscript. For those who look upon the Kennedy administration as one of isolation and dovishness I find it hard to reconcile with these remarks earlier in the speech:

 

For some of you will travel where no man has ever traveled before. Some of you will fly the fastest planes that have ever been built, reach the highest altitudes that man has ever gone to,

and lift the heaviest payloads of any aviator in history. Some of you will hold in your hands the most awesome destructive power which any nation or any man has conceived. Some of you will work with the leaders of new nations which were not even nations a few years ago. Some of you will support guerrilla and counter-guerrilla operations that combine the newest techniques of warfare with the oldest techniques of the jungle, and some of you will help develop new planes that spread their wings in flight, detect other planes at an unheard of distance, deliver new weapons with unprecedented accuracy, and survey the ground from incredible heights as a testament to our strong faith in the future of air power and the manned airplane.

[BruceVC]

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/may/23/indiana-explore-redrawing-state-line-illinois-despite-opposition-gov/

@Gfted1

Latest suggestion to reconfigure the Indiana and Illinois border 

Anything to this, is this something that you know about or is just   Internet drama and sensationalism?

 

[Gromnir]

13 hours ago, Agiel said:

 

Postscript. For those who look upon the Kennedy administration as one of isolation and dovishness I find it hard to reconcile with these remarks earlier in the speech:

 

 

 

before marvel and dc were indulging in the retcon, Presidential administrations were getting the same treatment. 

from the jfk presidential library:

The 1960 election campaign was dominated by rising Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite to orbit Earth. American leaders warned that the nation was falling behind communist countries in science and technology. Three years later, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over Soviet territory and its pilot captured. The incident led to the cancellation of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's planned trip to Moscow and the collapse of a summit meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

In Cuba, the revolutionary regime of Fidel Castro became a close ally of the Soviet Union, heightening fears of communist subversion in the Western Hemisphere. Public opinion polls revealed that more than half the American people thought war with the Soviet Union was inevitable.

...

as such, the first heading from the 1960 democrat party platform should come as no surprise

National Defense

The new Democratic Administration will recast our military capacity in order to provide forces and weapons of a diversity, balance, and mobility sufficient in quantity and quality to deter both limited and general aggressions.

When the Democratic Administration left office in 1953, the United States was the pre-eminent power in the world. Most free nations had confidence in our will and our ability to carry out our commitments to the common defense.

Even those who wished us ill respected our power and influence.

The Republican Administration has lost that position of pre-eminence. Over the past 7 1/2 years, our military power has steadily declined relative to that of the Russians and the Chinese and their satellites.

This is not a partisan election-year charge. It has been persistently made by high officials of the Republican Administration itself. Before Congressional committees they have testified that the Communists will have a dangerous lead in intercontinental missiles through 1963—and that the Republican Administration has no plans to catch up.

They have admitted that the Soviet Union leads in the space race—and that they have no plans to catch up.

They have also admitted that our conventional military forces, on which we depend for defense in any non-nuclear war, have been dangerously slashed for reasons of "economy"—and that they have no plans to reverse this trend.

As a result, our military position today is measured in terms of gaps—missile gap, space gap, limited-war gap.

To recover from the errors of the past 7 1/2 years will not be easy.

This is the strength that must be erected:

1. Deterrent military power such that the Soviet and Chinese leaders will have no doubt that an attack on the United States would surely be followed by their own destruction.

2. Balanced conventional military forces which will permit a response graded to the intensity of any threats of aggressive force.

3. Continuous modernization of these forces through intensified research and development, including essential programs now slowed down, terminated, suspended, or neglected for lack of budgetary support.

A first order of business of a Democratic Administration will be a complete re-examination of the organization of our armed forces.

A military organization structure, conceived before the revolution in weapons technology, cannot be suitable for the strategic deterrent, continental defense, limited war, and military alliance requirements of the 1960s.

We believe that our armed forces should be organized more nearly on the basis of function, not only to produce greater military strength, but also to eliminate duplication and save substantial sums.

We pledge our will, energies, and resources to oppose Communist aggression.

Since World War II, it has been clear that our own security must be pursued in concert with that of many other nations.

The Democratic Administrations which, in World War II, led in forging a mighty and victorious alliance, took the initiative after the war in creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the greatest peacetime alliance in history.

This alliance has made it possible to keep Western Europe and the Atlantic Community secure against Communist pressures.

Our present system of alliances was begun in a time of an earlier weapons technology when our ability to retaliate against Communist attack required bases all around the periphery of the Soviet Union. Today, because of our continuing weakness in mobile weapons systems and intercontinental missiles, our defenses still depend in part on bases beyond our borders for planes and shorter-range missiles.

If an alliance is to be maintained in vigor, its unity must be reflected in shared purposes. Some of our allies have contributed neither devotion to the cause of freedom nor any real military strength.

The new Democratic Administration will review our system of pacts and alliances. We shall continue to adhere to our treaty obligations, including the commitment of the UN Charter to resist aggression. But we shall also seek to shift the emphasis of our cooperation from military aid to economic development, wherever this is possible.

...

"civil defense" and "arms control" were the next most prominent issues addressed. trump may not be aware o' what is the nuclear triad, but kennedy and mcnamara sure as hell did. 

oh, and bay of pigs, anybody?

am always a bit perplexed by the 2025 image o' kennedy as a dove.

'course washington and jefferson got their own reimagining long before kennedy, so is nothing particular noteworthy 'bout a post administration edit.

HA! Good Fun!

[Malcador]

16 hours ago, Gromnir said:

and

...

there is more than a few additional examples o' crazy and senile, but we have gone so far around the bend it doesn't even seem worth it for pundits to remark that trump is wearing a maga hat at a west point commencement speech for chrissakes.

HA! Good Fun!

Did seem to be confused that he wasn't at a rally for sure, given the pauses for applause. 

 

[BruceVC]

11 hours ago, Malcador said:

Did seem to be confused that he wasn't at a rally for sure, given the pauses for applause. 

 

I dont think Democrats should create too much drama about Trumps mental acumen considering how Dem strategists were fine with the absolute disaster of Bidens cognitive decline in the last 2-3 years before the last election 

The reality was the Dems were prepared for Biden to become president and many of the top people were aware of his dementia 

They lied and misled there voting base and this should  be  seen as one of the worst betrayals of your supporters in the history of US elections 

Trump is old and he makes mistakes but he is no where as bad as Biden was and Biden was the  presidential candidate until the infamous Trump debate where it became impossible for the Dems to ignore Bidens decline 

 

 

 

[Malcador]

6 hours ago, BruceVC said:

I dont think Democrats should create too much drama about Trumps mental acumen considering how Dem strategists were fine with the absolute disaster of Bidens cognitive decline in the last 2-3 years before the last election 

The reality was the Dems were prepared for Biden to become president and many of the top people were aware of his dementia 

They lied and misled there voting base and this should  be  seen as one of the worst betrayals of your supporters in the history of US elections 

Trump is old and he makes mistakes but he is no where as bad as Biden was and Biden was the  presidential candidate until the infamous Trump debate where it became impossible for the Dems to ignore Bidens decline 

 

 

 

Sure they can.  Republicans talk about the Biden as if they were the Genovese but see no issue with Trump corruption because it's all in the open or whatever, so why do you need consistency if you ever did.  I disagree he's nowhere near as Biden was, Biden may have stammered or had spoonerisms, but Trump is always lapsing back to the same speech, same words, is less able to focus than before it seems. 

Edited Monday at 01:37 PM by Malcador

[BruceVC]

28 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Sure they can.  Republicans talk about the Biden as if they were the Genovese but see no issue with Trump corruption because it's all in the open or whatever, so why do you need consistency if you ever did.  I disagree he's nowhere near as Biden was, Biden may have stammered or had spoonerisms, but Trump is always lapsing back to the same speech, same words, is less able to focus than before it seems. 

You honestly consider Trumps mental state is the same as Bidens during the presidential debate?

Biden couldnt even finish certain trains of thought and was confused about simple things and this was his reality for years that was never confirmed until much later 

And this has nothing to do with corruption, Im talking only about mental fitness?

 

[Malcador]

7 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

You honestly consider Trumps mental state is the same as Bidens during the presidential debate?

Biden couldnt even finish certain trains of thought and was confused about simple things and this was his reality for years that was never confirmed until much later 

And this has nothing to do with corruption, Im talking only about mental fitness?

 

And Trump finishes trains of thought to you and is coherent ?  Might not be equal, but defintely not a case as "nowhere as bad"

I brought up the corruption because your argument is that have to leave Trump and his senility alone due to hypocrisy when it's clear that doesn't matter much to the Republicans (nor do facts, but that's where we are).

In other news - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdd2mz719yvo

Art of the deal indeed.

 

[Malcador]

 

[Bartimaeus]

Biden has had a noted speech impediment his whole life, but he did start to slur and say the wrong words more, and just seemed altogether slower. Trump in 2016 had already been pretty demented, and it's only gotten worse since then, but not all dementia manifests the same. Some get really slow, some say the wrong words or can't construct coherent sentences with proper structure, some pause or slur, some get confused and angry because of their diminished abilities (mental and/or physical), some lose their filters, some momentarily zone out and aren't aware of their lapses (...or are, which in of itself can feel pretty frightening to them), some lose their memories of their lives and people they know... Anyone who's watched any interviews of him speak at length in the 80s or 90s should immediately notice how present Trump constantly gets enraged at nothing and word salads his way through just about everything he tries to say: he is not even remotely as sharp or well-spoken as he used to be. Just because he still speaks confidently and aggressively doesn't mean he's not completely out of his mind: there are plenty of nursing home patients who do the same, but we don't make them President of the United States...usually.

[rjshae]

2 hours ago, BruceVC said:

You honestly consider Trumps mental state is the same as Bidens during the presidential debate?

Biden couldnt even finish certain trains of thought and was confused about simple things and this was his reality for years that was never confirmed until much later 

And this has nothing to do with corruption, Im talking only about mental fitness?

Which is better: mental decline or mental derangement? I'm not sure either is useful in a leader.

[Zoraptor]

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Trump in 2016 had already been pretty demented, and it's only gotten worse since then, but not all dementia manifests the same.

There is also, well, just getting old and having a lot of stress rather than dementia. Stress especially can make literally anyone seem like they have dementia.

If term limits got repealed and the Democrats trotted out the sprightly William Jefferson Clinton as a candidate in 2028 (and let's be honest, they probably would, if they could and he were willing) there would be some changes evident from 1992 and they wouldn't necessarily be from dementia. And for all the jokes about golfing Trump runs far more public appearances than Biden did and has far more opportunities to manifest dementia like symptoms.

Mostly though, Trump doesn't strike me as someone with dementia, just as an 80 year old who has not had that much interaction with the actual real world and how it works doing a stressful job- a job which is hard on 50 year olds. Barack Obama entered the White House looking like Mandela going to Robben Island and left it looking like Mandela leaving it, 18 rather than 8 years later. And Mandela was at an apartheid era prison, for political prisoners.

OTOH, Biden very much did give me dementia vibes towards the end.

At least some of the Trump stuff is semi deliberate affectation as well. As much as his detractors hate his speech style and all the rambling and digressions a lot of people absolutely love it.

[BruceVC]

10 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

There is also, well, just getting old and having a lot of stress rather than dementia. Stress especially can make literally anyone seem like they have dementia.

If term limits got repealed and the Democrats trotted out the sprightly William Jefferson Clinton as a candidate in 2028 (and let's be honest, they probably would, if they could and he were willing) there would be some changes evident from 1992 and they wouldn't necessarily be from dementia. And for all the jokes about golfing Trump runs far more public appearances than Biden did and has far more opportunities to manifest dementia like symptoms.

Mostly though, Trump doesn't strike me as someone with dementia, just as an 80 year old who has not had that much interaction with the actual real world and how it works doing a stressful job- a job which is hard on 50 year olds. Barack Obama entered the White House looking like Mandela going to Robben Island and left it looking like Mandela leaving it, 18 rather than 8 years later. And Mandela was at an apartheid era prison, for political prisoners.

OTOH, Biden very much did give me dementia vibes towards the end.

At least some of the Trump stuff is semi deliberate affectation as well. As much as his detractors hate his speech style and all the rambling and digressions a lot of people absolutely love it.

Yes you make several points I agree with and the difference between Bidens real dementia and Trumps habit of sometimes peddling  fake news and then doubling down on it

But what still surprises me about this type of criticism towards Trump is he has always been like this and it was very obvious even as far back as before the 2016 election, remember the whole Obama " Birthirism " fake news story that Trump raised

Trump doesn't see it as lies, I think he repeats  most of  these things because its part of a political strategy and he  considers most of  the media as  " fake news media " anyway and they the  ones lying. For example I think he really believes there is white genocide in SA because he get his information from certain  selective sources and other sources he either doesnt trust or he isnt interested in 

Biden has more integrity and more political decorum  than Trump and I believe he means well but the Dems scored far too own goals in the last election and they handed Trump his resounding victory. You didnt need  Trumps cavalier way of raising fake news to ensure his victory 

And the main points how the Dems lost were

• obsessed with vilifying Trump as the main political strategy, how many times did we hear " Trump is going to destroy Democracy ",
• no interest in the actual issues US citizens were mostly concerned about like the border and security and illegal migration
• real perceptions of the weaponizing of the DOJ to achieve political objectives and specifically stopping Trump from being a candidate
• Harris was not the right candidate, she was seen as Biden V2 and still represented everything that US voters were unhappy with

 

But none of that changes the main point, Biden should never have been the Dem candidate because of his dementia

After the midterms the Dems should have had a DNC and decided on a candidate in the normal way. But the Dem strategists became obsessed with believing " only Biden can beat Trump " and they decided to studiously ignore the biggest problem with Biden as the best presidential candidate.

And that decision came home to bite them when the reality of Bidens dementia was unavoidable 

 

 

 

[Malcador]

17 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

As much as his detractors hate his speech style and all the rambling and digressions a lot of people absolutely love it.

I really have no idea why, though. Must be the degradation due to the Internet 

[Malcador]

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-pardons-virginia-sheriff-convicted-federal-bribery-charges/story?id=122206606

"Sheriff Scott Jenkins, his wife Patricia, and their family have been dragged through HELL by a Corrupt and Weaponized Biden DOJ," Trump wrote in a statement on Truth Social. "In fact, during his trial, when Sheriff Jenkins tried to offer exculpatory evidence to support himself, the Biden Judge, Robert Ballou, refused to allow it, shut him down, and then went on a tirade."

 

[rjshae]

45 minutes ago, Malcador said:

I really have no idea why, though. Must be the degradation due to the Internet 

More likely it's the result of confirmation bias.

[HoonDing]

Our genocidal geriatric is better than their genocidal geriatric.

[BruceVC]

3 hours ago, Malcador said:

I really have no idea why, though. Must be the degradation due to the Internet 

Come on  he is funny sometimes,  he says funny things

Remember this classic baby crying at the rally  

 

 

[majestic]

42 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Come on  he is funny sometimes

No, Trump's always funny, just not in the ha ha sense.