Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 10 May 26 - 10:11 AM

> The problem is that everything has been rendered unto Caesar.

Including the knives? or is Milania staying up all night, painting the figs on the tree with something suspicious?

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Donuel
Date: 10 May 26 - 12:31 PM

I picture Donald gobbling McDonald's 'food' at one end of the table in his ballroom, with Melania 100 yards away at the other end.

I don't know any billionaires, but if I asked one, 'When is enough enough?', I would expect them to say 'enough is never enough'.

In class warfare, the rich consider the phrase 'tax the rich' worse than a racial slur and a virtual death threat. After all, the rich let us eat chocolate cake. They even allow us to elect Republicans.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Lighter
Date: 10 May 26 - 12:31 PM

SRS, feel free.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Donuel
Date: 10 May 26 - 12:35 PM

Lighter, better yet, be free.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: r.padgett
Date: 10 May 26 - 01:28 PM

Little e is upsetting China now ~ not a good idea

Ray

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Donuel
Date: 10 May 26 - 09:27 PM

btw Boebert is just repeating what Jerry Falwell often said about ETs.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Lighter
Date: 11 May 26 - 07:27 AM

Vice President J. D. Vance has said something similar.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Donuel
Date: 11 May 26 - 07:33 AM

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-is-lifting-restrictions-on-hunting-in-national-parks-and-other-areas

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Donuel
Date: 11 May 26 - 06:45 PM

May humility conquer pride.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 12 May 26 - 06:35 AM

A great piece here from Senator Mark Kelly.

Americans could do far worse than to elect Sen. Kelly as the next POTUS, assuming he stands - here is his final paragraph from the linked piece…

”We have to get this country back on track. We have to pass policies that help hard working Americans so that their hard work pays off for them, not for someone else. We have to address our country’s growing debt and we have to find solutions that will improve people's lives. Whether it is the outrageous cost of health care or the fact that young people can’t afford homes and young families can’t afford childcare — there are solutions to these problems. Corruption, cronyism, and a system designed to help the very few at the expense of the many is a significant challenge but it isn’t an insurmountable one.”

These are the things Americans actually need, not foreign wars and gilded ballrooms.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 May 26 - 11:40 AM

Heather Cox Richardson's column yesterday spoke about the proposed Drumph "golden phone" that was supposed to be released last year. She uses the process as a microcosm of how things are done in his malfunctioning domain.

"The story of the Trump Mobile phone seems a microcosm of the Trump administration."

They charged a down payment, then over time have retracted all claims and made it clear they plan to keep the money even if nothing is never produced. Like he wants to keep the illegal tariffs he collected last year and is trying to collect this year.

Donald Trump has always ridden to power by projecting an image of dominance. He could maintain that image thanks to the people who covered for him: his father, Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, and in his first presidential term—as Sidney Blumenthal reminded readers in The Guardian today—Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who filtered the options Trump received; chief of staff General John Kelly, who made a pact with Mattis that one of them would always stay in the country to stand in the way of Trump’s impulses; and National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, who stopped Trump from signing disastrous executive orders, sometimes going so far as to steal them off his desk.

In Trump’s second term, though, those people who curbed his worst impulses have been replaced with yes-men, and there is no one to protect him from the fallout.

She covers a lot of territory as she describes how he starts grandiose projects he can never finish.

In The Atlantic yesterday, neoconservative foreign policy scholar Robert Kagan ranked the Iran debacle as worse than Vietnam. There will be no going back to a world in which the Strait of Hormuz is open, he writes. Iran is now a key player in the region, China and Russia are strengthened, and the U.S. is “substantially diminished.” Anyone can see that “just a few weeks of war with a second-rank power” drastically reduced American weapons stocks, opening the way for aggression from China or Russia, while “the conflict has revealed an America that is unreliable and incapable of finishing what it started.”

It concludes:

Philip Kennicott of the Washington Post noted last week that, apparently determined to convince Americans all is going well, Trump is putting words in our mouths. Around Washington, D.C., signs are appearing that show Trump in a hard hat near construction scaffolding and read: “Thank you, PRESIDENT TRUMP.”

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Helen
Date: 12 May 26 - 01:14 PM

Thanks for the articles, SRS and BWM.

In Oz the latest Federal budget was announced last night. I haven't looked it over yet but at present we have a Parliament which appears to be working well, attempting to look after the people in the best way that they can and looking towards a good future. Even the disagreements by opposing politicians are more about presenting different views rather than negative personal attacks. We did have a couple of opposition leaders in the last few years who made me cringe with their nasty little schoolboy tactics but lately it has been a bit less cringe-worthy. Here's hoping that the US can get back on track with your politicians sometime soon.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 12 May 26 - 01:25 PM

> Here's hoping that the US can get back on track
> with your politicians sometime soon.

And the UK too; Vlad is doubtless feeling more smug than somewhat. It all reminds me of the old comment: "No member of Faculty is totally useless. They can at worst be an Awful Warning."

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 May 26 - 01:43 PM

This today from Timothy Snyder (you may remember the name because I linked to his recent post about Superpower Suicide):

        
Copycat Tyranny
Why Trump imports foreign authoritarians

If you are American, there is no particular reason you would have heard of Zbigniew Ziobro. He was one of the authors of the attempt to transform Poland into an authoritarian regime. When this was halted by the Polish elections of 2023, he fled to Hungary.

At that time Hungary was ruled by Viktor Orbán, who was building what seemed like an unstoppable authoritarian order. Ziobro, wanted in Poland for serious crimes, was welcomed by Orbán. But then Orbán too lost a dramatic election, and had to hand over power on Saturday.

When democracy wins, the losers go to America, it seems.

What was left for Ziobro? The United States. You might not have heard of Ziobro, but Donald Trump has.

One of the sad things about Trump’s attempt to bury American democracy is its lack of originality. The models are foreign, including people you have heard of, like Putin, people you likely have heard of, like Orbán, but also minor figures such as Ziobro.

Ziobro is a wanted man with no passport. The Trump White House just went to a good deal of trouble to bring him to the US.

This teaches us, once again, how much the Trump project us an international one. Americans are punished every day, but foreign authoritarian friends are remembered.

What does that say about us as a country, right now?

I reflect on this and other questions in this little video, filmed here in Poland. [link not included, it's on the paid account]

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 12 May 26 - 01:54 PM

.... but verily, the only lesson anybody ever learns from history is that nobody ever learns anything from history.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Helen
Date: 12 May 26 - 05:31 PM

News from Oz - Yay!!:

$1.5b Trump Tower deal on Gold Coast scrapped, developer says

"Plans for a $1.5 billion Trump Tower on the Gold Coast have been scrapped less than three months after the deal was made.

"The 91-storey, branded tower proposed for Surfers Paradise would have been Australia's tallest building.

"Altus Property Group chief executive and founder David Young, who proposed the project, said the Trump Organization had pulled out but he still hoped a tower would be built on the site.

"'Let's just say that with the Iran war and everything else, the Trump brand was increasingly toxic in Australia,' he said.

"'Some time ago we knew it was time to part company.'

"'It was not about not meeting obligations. There are other luxury brand options for us. The project is live.'

"The plans have been pulled from the Trump Organization's website."

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Donuel
Date: 12 May 26 - 06:29 PM

The Trump vanity construction projects are equivalent to Ramses II.

Our democracy, our constitution, our rule of law, are being challenged right now as never before by a reckless, racist, incompetent, treasonous president and his ship of fools administration. So tonight, we ask all of you to join with us in choosing hope over fear, democracy over authoritarianism, the rule of law over lawlessness, ethics over unbridled corruption, resistance over complacency, truth over lies, unity over division, and peace over — war.
Bruce Springsteen.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 May 26 - 02:09 AM

He forgot ‘senile’.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 13 May 26 - 05:00 AM

Re Australian ex-Trump tower: Saw that on BBC red button, Helen, and thought of you.

I read ".... the developer had not met obligations" as a tie between "insufficient-Danegeld error" and "demands for bling considered tasteless". As for "toxic brand": methinks that's code for "we'd prefer to deal with someone who actually pays his bills".

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Donuel
Date: 13 May 26 - 05:40 AM

The day after tomorrow, J. Powell leaves his position as chairman of the Fed.

Warsh is a Trump corroborator. He is expected to try to eliminate interest rates so the economy will heat up, followed by great inflation later. We ain't seen nuthin yet.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Helen
Date: 13 May 26 - 05:44 AM

I've visited the Gold Coast a couple of times, although it was at least 20 years ago. It is invaded totally with very tall high rise residential unit towers so one more tower would just fit in with the rest. Saying that Drumpf is too toxic for the area is very revealing.

The Gold Coast in Queensland is a beautiful beach-side area with amazing views. Most Aussies would probably puke at the thought of that thing - by which I mean Drumpf rather than the tower block - invading our pristine, beautiful coastline or, in fact, our country as a whole.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 13 May 26 - 06:29 AM

Side thought: Was said tower designed with a nuclear fallout shelter in the basement? That would though be more correctly described as a "crypt" (in the Draculoid sense .... muahahaha).

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Helen
Date: 13 May 26 - 07:26 AM

Funny, MaJoC! :-D

Or maybe the tower would collapse because it will be too tall and too close to the beach and built on sandy soil with inadequate foundations, and shoddy building materials and construction methods. I imagine the structure would be typical of Drumpf's plans and results, i.e. jerry built

"Definitions

"from The Century Dictionary.
"Constructed hastily and with flimsy materials.

"from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
"adjective Built hastily and of bad materials.
"adjective Developed in an unsystematic or inexpert manner; built haphazardly; -- used of objects, organizations, plans, etc.

"from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
"adjective Built cheaply and shoddily.

"from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
"adjective of inferior workmanship and materials"


That term describes Drumpf's methods of planning and doing things fairly well, now I come to think of it.