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

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Jun 26 - 11:29 AM

The House and Senate normalizing it is the most deadly part of the presidency.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: r.padgett
Date: 18 Jun 26 - 02:44 AM

Well I for one told you not to put up with little t

A nightmare President unfettered needs a straight jacket

Ray

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Lighter
Date: 18 Jun 26 - 07:42 AM

According to a large poll released yesterday:

"Nearly six in ten Americans agree 'President Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy” (59%), up from 52% in March 2025, compared with 38% who agree 'President Trump is a strong leader who should be given the power he needs to restore America’s greatness.'"

https://prri.org/press-release/survey-as-the-nation-marks-250th-birthday-seven-in-ten-americans-believe-democratic-freedoms-are-

They don't just say they don't like him. They say they're afraid of him. And more than half felt that way just two months into his second term.

Of course, the more than 1/3 of adults in the U.S. who want to give him even more power are, um, er, "disturbing."

Not quite 50% of votes cast in 2024 were for Trump/Vance. It was what we baseball fans call a "squeaker."

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Lighter
Date: 18 Jun 26 - 07:58 AM

After signing the Iran memorandum, the President has approvingly retweeted this from a follower:

"He is the most powerful person that has EVER walked this planet....If...Trump is the American Eagle, then William the Conqueror was merely a sparrow."

(Even President Polk made William look like a mere sparrow, but let that go.)

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 18 Jun 26 - 11:38 AM

It's all reminding me of a badly neglected septic tank: once the really big chunks start rising to the top, the only way to clear it out involves Semtex.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jun 26 - 03:27 PM

I am not immune to anger or doubt. But I do know this, when we lose faith in each other, when we stop believing that voting matters, that our citizenship matters, that collective voices matter, that how we treat each other no longer matters, then we give away our power to decide our own futures.


We open the door to the most ruthless, or the most careless, or the most fearful among us.

Barak Obama

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Helen
Date: 18 Jun 26 - 03:44 PM

I have posted this link before but I check in on it every now and then:

RealClear Polling

It is a site which compiles polling statistics from a number of other polls. tRump's unfavourability average rating is currently -15.5 and has been slowly and steadily getting worse. In the last year of compiled stats there have only been two positive ratings of +3 in July and +3 in October 2025 out of all of the polls covered. Also the last Fox News poll was -20 in April this year. If Fox fans think he stinks, then he must really stink.

And in bad news for Oz, we have a nasty, small-minded tRump imitator i.e. Senator Pauline Hanson with her fake red hair and her billionaire supporter. Gina Rinehart says Queensland should give some of its islands to Elon Musk - and put Israeli bases in Oz to produce military weapons.

Scary! Luckily our democratic system is strong - hopefully strong enough to kick her to the kerb. Or put Semtex in her toilet. That would work. ;-)

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Lighter
Date: 18 Jun 26 - 07:24 PM

AXIOS REPORTER: What have you learned about...the limits of your power, as a result of this conflict?

PREZ [very quietly]: There *are* no limits.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Jun 26 - 10:58 PM

The best revenge against Trump is to have a happy joyous occasion with the A-List and the way above the A-list all present and he wasn't invited to the Obama Center grand opening.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Jun 26 - 02:21 AM

From Michael Jochum on FB this morning. How right he is, and appropriate, IMO, for a music Forum like Mudcat…

“Bruce Springsteen is what a real patriot looks like in a country that’s forgotten the meaning of the word. Not the flag-waving cosplay version. Not the chest-thumping, fear-selling, violence-justifying parody. The real thing. The quiet kind. The moral kind. The kind rooted in conscience, decency, and the stubborn belief that democracy is worth defending even when it’s under assault.

I’ve been hearing a bit of the old, “just play the drums and let the politics go,” as though artists are meant to be decorative wallpaper while the country marches in lockstep with authoritarianism. That argument has always been intellectually lazy, but in moments like this, it becomes morally bankrupt. Bruce is a shining example of a man whose music has never been separate from his conscience, because real art has never existed in some sterilized vacuum, untouched by the times that shape it. I had the opportunity to play with Bruce and spend a little time with him in Atlantic City, and I can tell you this firsthand: the man is the real deal. A true American authentic. No artifice. No manufactured persona. Just substance, conviction, and a deeply rooted understanding of what this country is supposed to be.

When Bruce writes a song like Streets of Minneapolis, or his epic Land of Hope and Dreams he performed today at the ceremony for the opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Center, he isn’t chasing relevance; he’s answering a call, the same call he’s answered his entire life, to stand with ordinary people, the vulnerable, the voiceless, the broken, the forgotten, the ones caught under the boots of power. He wrote it in days, recorded it in hours, released it immediately, not for charts, not for sales, not for applause, but because silence in moments like this is complicity, and he has never been built that way. He names the dead. He names the violence. He names the lies. He names the machinery of fear. He refuses to sanitize state terror with polite language. He refuses to hide behind ambiguity. He refuses to make comfort music for uncomfortable times. This is what courage looks like in art. This is what democracy sounds like when it still has a pulse.

And Bruce himself said it better than most: “We are living through dark, disturbing and dangerous times, but do not despair, the cavalry is coming. We will be rocking your town in celebration and in defense of America, American democracy, American freedom, our American Constitution and our sacred American dream, all of which are under attack by our wannabe king and his rogue government in Washington, D.C.” That is not division. That is citizenship. That is what it sounds like when someone actually loves their country enough to defend it.

Bruce has always sung for the steelworkers, the veterans, the immigrants, the outsiders, the factory ghosts, the working poor, the dreamers, the broken, the believers, the ones trying to live decent lives in an indecent system. And now, when the country feels as though it’s cracking under the weight of authoritarianism, he’s still standing in the same place: on the side of human dignity. That’s not politics. That’s character. That’s patriotism in its purest form. When he sings about Minneapolis, about the dead, about bloody footprints where mercy should have stood, he’s doing what true Americans do: refusing to look away, refusing to forget, refusing to let power rewrite the story.

In a time of fear, he chooses truth. In a time of propaganda, he chooses witness. In a time of fascist noise, he chooses conscience. Bruce Springsteen doesn’t belong to a party. He belongs to the American soul that still believes in democracy, still rejects authoritarianism, still understands that freedom without empathy is just brutality with branding. He is proof that patriotism doesn’t come from dominance; it comes from solidarity. It doesn’t come from force; it comes from moral courage. It doesn’t come from power; it comes from standing with people when it costs you something.

That’s why his voice matters. That’s why this song matters. That’s why he matters, not as a celebrity, not as an icon, but as a citizen who understands that loving your country sometimes means standing against what it’s becoming. That’s not rebellion. That’s responsibility. That’s The Boss.

-Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition.”

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Helen
Date: 19 Jun 26 - 03:04 AM

Thanks BWM,

This Michael Jochum is a good'un! I just copied it and sent it to my Hubby who is a big fan of The Boss, but also sharing the widespread despair about what is going on in the world.

Stand up for your rights, don't give up the fight!

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 19 Jun 26 - 03:43 AM

Helen, further to you post above - What North Queensland thinks of Rinehart's idea of giving islands to Musk for satellite launches ... there would be a safety benefit to launching a rocket from an island, the logistics involved would be much tougher than lifting off from the mainland.

"It's extremely difficult to transport the vehicles out there.

"It's so much easier when you can put in a truck, roll that out to the launch site and lift it off a crane." ...

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Jun 26 - 09:02 AM

Bruce Springstee - ‘Land of Hope and Dreams’ at the opening ceremony of the Barack Obama Presidential Centre in Chicago, yesterday…

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Jun 26 - 01:04 PM

It's Juneteenth and a federal holiday. Following the Obama Park and museum opening, Trump is envious. It will be years before we are on higher ground, as Stevie Wonder sang.

Trump must have slept through history class regarding the surrender at Versailles. He didn't insist upon the special traincar.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Jun 26 - 01:10 PM

When I was in school, I went to the MLK I have a dream speech. I was a eighth of a mile beyond the reflecting pool, so I did not hear the speech, but I was with a black family that shared their fried chicken picnic.
It was a racist country back then, and today the South is trying to rise again.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Jun 26 - 02:07 PM

Inside the Partisan Battle Over America’s 250th Birthday Celebrations (Gift Article)

President Trump sidestepped a congressional commission and formed his own group to plan the festivities. The result is a deeply partisan celebration, disgruntled celebrities and plenty of confusion.

Congressional Democrats view Freedom 250 as little more than a hostile takeover of what should be a nonpartisan celebration of the country.

“Freedom 250 is a vanity project that this president has put forth because he has an insatiable ego,” said Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman, a New Jersey Democrat who has been on the America 250 commission since 2019.

Some states have declined to participate in Freedom 250’s Great American State Fair, with at least one pointing to the growing partisan sheen. Artists like Young MC, Martina McBride and Bret Michaels have pulled out of performances and accused the organizers of misleading them, after learning the events were closely associated with Mr. Trump.

We will simply have to ignore the Trump/D.C. stuff and do our own celebrating in spite of the leader at this point. The U.S. is more than Trump, so we need to act like it (but get the bum out of office ASAP.)

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Jun 26 - 08:05 AM

I wonder if Iran can manipulate Trump to break with Netanyahu.
No word on any US intrusion into Cuba.

Instead of using truck bed spray liner for the reflecting pool they should have used pool epoxy paint. I painted two black whales in our swimming pool to encourage solar heating and it has lasted 30 years.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 21 Jun 26 - 11:18 AM

Another couple of voices in the wilderness: an article in The Conversation by Jon Penney and Bruce Schneier, via Cryptogram. My apologies if this has been mentioned upthread.

Chilling effects

[...] Chilling effects are thus not only repressive—causing self-censorship—but productive. They produce conforming and compliant speech and behavior, which can have longer-term social impacts. They not only undermine protected rights and suppress accountability but can promote social change—even without a popular mandate to do so. [...]

The essay is wide-ranging, and needs reading in full: how we^† got here, how this has happened before, and ending with a message of hope wrapped as a call to arms.

† I include myself. The fallout is world-wide.

Subject: RE: Drumpf - Epstein Friend/ US Prez 47/ War Criminal*
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 21 Jun 26 - 11:40 AM

Oops: I should have included the beginning of said essay ....

Younger Americans have soured on the second Donald Trump presidency, but they are not protesting it.

Despite an unpopular Iran war and an even more unpopular Trump administration, college campus protests nationwide have gone silent. And at many schools, student activism is virtually nonexistent.

[...] It’s increasingly clear to us that these impacts are not incidental or ancillary to Trump administration policy. Rather, the chilling effects are the point. This is the closest thing to a consistent governing strategy in Trump’s second term. [...]

I'd best leave it there. Again, please see the original.